2014: Donald Trump has announced he will build five new luxury apartment buildings in the heart of Manhattan with separate entrances and elevators for the poor tenants.
“I’m doing a great thing for this city. I didn’t have to put low-income units in my building. They should be happy they have it. There is no reason however for the normal wealthy people who pay their hard-earned money for a nice apartment to have to be bothered with the riff-raff.â€
“They are on the third floor because our market research has shown that the poor are very unhygienic and don’t bathe regularly. They also have a tendency to boil cabbage for dinner. We didn’t want any of those odors wafting down into the lobby area.†(Note: This quotation is satire, not a real news item.)
And Megan McArdle says, Donald Trump can’t afford to run a Third-Party campaign and hasn’t got the ability to raise adequate funds elsewhere.
I’m not saying whether it would be a good idea for the GOP to deny him the nomination if he gets a plurality but not a majority of the delegates. But if it does, he won’t run third-party: He can’t afford it.
I direct you to his personal financial disclosure form, which said he had about $300 million in cash and marketable securities. That’s a lot of money! Stunningly, however, it is not enough money to run a major presidential campaign, which now clocks in at around $1 billion.
If Trump runs as a third-party candidate, the money to do so is going to have to come mostly out of his own pocket. The Republican Party’s traditional donors certainly aren’t going to help him. And so far, he’s shown no ability to raise the kind of staggering totals that, say, Bernie Sanders has managed to get from small donors. Trump’s campaign has raised just $25 million, of which only about $8 million comes from sources other than Donald J. Trump. He’s raised less in small contributions than Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio have.
Author John C. Wright urges us to come together because:
The worst possible Republican candidate is better than the best possible Democrat candidate.
But it is not that simple.
One truth people need to understand is that electing non-conservative Republicans has bad results. Other people, it wasn’t me, elected Richard Nixon. Nixon created the EPA. Nixon recognized Red China and gave it most favored nation trading status. If you do not like US jobs going to China, thank Richard Nixon. Nixon also screwed the pooch politically and had to resign, in the process losing the Vietnam War and electing that nasty little peanut farmer in the process.
George H.W. Bush is a good and decent man, but he is a classic Country Club Republican. He is not a principled conservative. Bush I signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (which imposed mandates costing billions). The Siege at Waco* and the Shootings at Ruby Ridge took place during his administration. And he broke his word and raised taxes and, ooops! thereby elected Slick Willie.
George W. Bush is also a good man. I admire his character, and I respect him. But he screwed up as president. He fiddled around too long in Iraq, and he let the Radical Left demoralize Americans and undermine support for the War. He let the CIA run a disinformation operation against his own administration. He left office unpopular and in bad odor, and he did nothing to help create a Republican succession. He essentially handed the 2008 election to the democrats on a silver platter.
It always happens. Elect a me-too, not-really-conservative Republican and, as sure as the sun comes up in the East, you’ll get another big, fat, expensive and intrusive federal agency or mandate, and that guy will flounder around, losing the political struggle to the democrats. He will leave office under a cloud and, before he goes, the not-politically-engaged majority of voters will pull the lever for a democrat.
If this country is crazy enough to elect Donald Trump (assuming he doesn’t declare himself emperor and start ruling by edict), Trump may very possibly provoke an international trade war and a wave of reciprocal tariff barriers which will sink the whole world economy, and make the recession we have had since 2008 look like the Good Old Days.
You can also bet that Trump will expand the Federal Government and create some other enormous and expensive Big New Thing. A guy like him will have to make his mark on History. And you can rely on it that Trump will be so annoying, such an embarrassment, such a disgrace, in office that his election will present the democrat party with a “One Free Presidency” card, which they’ll use in 2020 to elect some really spectacularly radical and repulsive communist.
Politics is like football. There are times the wisest thing to do (however much you don’t want to), is to drop back ten yards and punt, and allow the other team to screw up. A Donald Trump candidacy would be one of those times. We would be better off having Hillary in there, ruining the future of the democrats, than Donald J. Trump laying the foundation for a dynasty of radical left-wing democrat presidents.
Brett Arends, at Marketwatch, debunks Donald Trump’s claim to being sooo much more competent that all those professional politicians.
The Republican front-runner has made much of his supposed “success†in business and says he now wants to do the same for America.
But the only part of his business track record for which we have the full picture shows that Trump wasn’t a successful executive but an absolute catastrophe.
For 10 years between 1995 and 2005, Donald Trump ran Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts — and he did it so badly and incompetently that it collapsed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. His stockholders were almost entirely wiped out, losing a staggering 89% of their money. The company actually lost money every single year. In total it racked up more than $600 million in net losses over that period.
Trump was chairman of the board throughout the entire time, and CEO as well for about half of it.
This is the sort of record usually associated with an Enron or a WorldCom or a Pets.com.
Meanwhile, over the same period, all his competitors were enjoying an enormous boom. Take a look at our chart. …
Donald Trump ran the worst performing casino company on the stock market. This isn’t a matter of “opinion.†This isn’t speculation or politics. It’s a matter of plain fact.
However, one person associated with Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts did make money:
Donald J. Trump.
A review of the company’s public filings show that over that period, while his ordinary investors were getting hosed, Trump himself was siphoning millions out of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts through salary, “bonuses†— yes, really — and cozy “service agreements†or side deals with his private corporations.
In total, Donald Trump pocketed $32 million over nine years, while his public stockholders lost more than $100 million.
Follow the money. It really isn’t that complex.
Now his supporters want to put him in charge of the federal government. They actually hope he will do for America what he’s already done for his business.
That freedom of speech and thought stuff is all very well, but nowhere near as important no how as the ultimate Victory of the Glorious People’s Revolution.
Kos himself is consequently laying down the Party Line. Hillary is going to be the democrat (aka communist) party nominee. You will all support Hillary, and you will all refrain from criticizing Hillary, or else!
[O]n March 15:
I will no longer tolerate malicious attacks on our presumptive presidential nominee or our presidential efforts. What does that mean?
No attacks on Hillary Clinton using right-wing tropes of sources. She’s had 30 years of bullshit flung at her from the Right, there’s no need to have Daily Kos give them an assist.
Constructive criticism from the Left is allowed. There’s a difference between constructive and destructive criticism. Do I need to spell it out? It’s the difference between “We need to put pressure on her to do the right thing on TPP†versus “she’s a sell-out corporatist whore oligarch.†In general, if you’re resorting to cheap sloganeering like “oligarch†or “warmonger†or “neoconâ€, you might want to reframe your argument in a more substantive, issue-focused and constructive matter. Again, I’m not interested in furthering the Right’s hate-fueled media machine. If that’s what you want, might I suggest Free Republic?
Saying you won’t vote, or will vote for Trump, or will vote for Jill Stein (or another Third Party) is not allowed. If that’s how you feel, but have other places in which you can be constructive on the site, then keep your presidential feelings to yourself. Those of us who care about our country and it’s future are focused on victory. If you aren’t, then it’s a big internet, I suggest you find more hospitable grounds for your huffing, puffing, and stomping of feet.
If you are going to be pessimistic, you better support it. There’s a difference between “Clinton can’t beat Trump†and “Clinton can’t beat Trump in Alabamaâ€. There is also a difference between the blanket “Clinton can’t beat Trump†and “Looking at the polling, I’m worried that Clinton is falling behind Trump because X, Y, and Zâ€. Obviously, that also applies to races and issues down the ballot, not just the presidential. If you are going to be a Debbie-Downer, you better have a damn good reason to justify your pessimism. Rank, unsupported pessimism is anathema to our data-driven, reality based culture.
No re-litigating the primary. I don’t give a shit what Clinton or Sanders said in the primary anymore. It’s over. Move on. Again, if it’s not over on March 15 because Sanders has narrowed his delegate deficit, then this doesn’t apply. But once this primary is over, it’s over. Anyone who is interested in keeping our primary divisions open and festering can go do that somewhere else (and be as relevant as the 2008-vintage PUMAs were).
Battle “the establishment†where it makes sense. So you are angry at the establishment? Go stick it to the man in downballot races where there good anti-establishment candidates on the ballot, like the Maryland Senate race and
Donna Edwards. To be clear, Daily Kos will depart from recent practice by endorsing all Senate candidates that want our help, because the Supreme Court is just that important. But you, as individuals, have choices, and you can direct your energy and money to those candidates who are more closely aligned with your values. And we will battle the establishment together on things like the primary calendar and superdelegates. But we pick our battles, and in many places, the establishment will be our allies. Or to paraphrase some dumbfuck, we go to election season with the party we have, not the one we wish we had.
We are really in this together. I know there have been rough fights, and some community members have been terrible to each other. But consider this a sorts of amnesty period. Let bygones be bygones. Don’t bring in comments from past battles into new ones. Wipe the slate clean, and let’s move forward together as allies, not enemies or, at worst, frenemies.
When Kos and his friends really win, deviationists will be taken to State Security Headquarters and executed with a pistol shot to the back of the neck.
Rod Dreher understands, and sympathizes, with the anger that is causing a lot of people to rebel against the Establishment and support Donald Trump. He’s just sad at recognizing that Trump is a phony and that rebellion is going nowhere.
I’ve been pretty explicit in this space for some time about how I think the Donald J. Trump phenomenon is based in something real. I mean, the grievances to which he speaks are not phantoms. What I find impossible to accept is that Trump is anything other than a voice of resentment. If he offered some kind of way to redress those grievances, to do something concrete about them, things would be different. If he had the moral probity and personal character to lead others to solutions, things would be different. I keep wanting to think he does, and have been trying to give him the benefit of my own severe doubts about him. But after last night’s deplorable show on state in Detroit, it could not possibly be clearer that Trump will deliver for nobody. If he wins the presidency, he is going to betray the people who believe in him. That’s who he is. …
My own “burn baby burn†moment regarding the GOP was learning last fall from Congressional insiders that the party’s leadership had no plans for religious liberty legislation post-Obergefell. They don’t want to have to be told by the media that they’re all bigots. And, plainly, their deep-pocketed donors are embarrassed by the church people who give the Republicans their votes. So, screw us, is the thought.
I understand that Republicans cannot achieve, post-Obergefell, what people like me would like to see them achieve in terms of protecting traditional marriage. That ship has sailed. The culture has shifted. It’s unreasonable to expect the moon.
But for pity’s sake, when the Republican Party cannot bring itself to defend religious liberty, and the right of church people who don’t sell their Christianity out to be left alone, what bloody use are they? …
We are …watching the ongoing dispossession of people in this country of their history, at the hands of progressives — and the forces of political conservatism are saying nothing about it. From the front page of the Stanford University newspaper yesterday, a report about a move underway to purge the campus of all references to St. Junipero Serra, a Catholic missionary who was a pivotal figure in California history. Excerpt:
Leo Bird ’17 introduced the resolution in the ASSU senate. Bird, who prefers to be referred to by the gender neutral “they,†said that they were motivated by what they saw as the discrepancy between Serra’s actions toward Native Californians and his legacy on Stanford’s campus.
“It really started out of conversations that I started to have my freshman year at the Native American cultural center,†Bird explained. “I started to get involved with Bay Area activism and started to recognize that there was this historical figure [Serra] that was represented that was sort of praised, honored, in a way that I felt really did a disservice to a lot of the California Native community as well as to my own identity, being here at Stanford.â€
“They.†Good lord. This is the kind of person who triumphs, over and over, because our universities and the elites they serve have gone corrupt and insane. Who stands up to this? They win and they win and they win. If people conclude that they are being dispossessed in their own country, and the Republican Party is effectively colluding with the dispossession, then who can be surprised by a backlash that takes the form of support for Trump? When the left wages culture war, as it constantly does, it should not be surprised that at least some conservatives see the only one on their side who brings any kind of fight to the battle is an extreme vulgarian named Donald Trump.
I’m not defending Trump. I’m trying to explain his appeal. Believe me, my heart wants the Republicans to be spatchcocked and grilled, but my head says that the country would take an unacceptable risk with Trump in the White House.
“If you close your eyes while listening to presidential hopeful Donald Trump, you can see and smell that neighbor you have with too many dogs and a drinking problem.”
So, where did Donald Trump learn his distinctive and bizarre political style of crude, unlimited aggression? Who taught Donald to how to throw his opponents off their stride by confusing them by breaking all the rules?
Olivia Nuzzi says that The Donald learned how to win by being a complete ******* from the master, flamboyant attorney and anti-communist attack dog (who exposed commies with Joe McCarthy and sent Ethel Rosenberg to the chair) the Left’s all-time ultimate bête noire Roy Cohn.
Donald Trump’s brash and bullying style was learned at the heel of Roy Cohn, one of America’s most infamous lawyers.
They met at Le Club, a private disco on the Upper East Side frequented by Jackie Kennedy, Al Pacino, and Diana Ross, according to Trump: The Saga of America’s Most Powerful Real Estate Baron. Donald Trump, the young developer, quickly amassing a fortune in New York real estate and Roy Cohn, America’s most loathed yet socially successful defense attorney who had vaulted to infamy in the 1950s while serving as legal counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The friendship they forged would provide the foundation for Trump’s eventual presidential campaign. And in hindsight, it serves as a tool for understanding Donald Trump the Candidate, whose bumper sticker-averse declarations—undocumented Mexican immigrants are “criminals†and “rapistsâ€; Senator John McCain is “not a war heroâ€â€”have both led him to the top of the Republican primary polls and mistakenly convinced many that he is a puzzle unworthy of solving. It may appear that way, but Trump isn’t just spouting off insults like a malfunctioning sprinkler system—he’s mimicking what he learned some 40 years ago.
Tom Nichols blames the Left for the rise of Trump.
By assailing sensible conservatives as sexists, racists, and imbeciles, they paved the way for a jackass who embodies their worst fears.
The American left created Donald Trump.
When I say “the left,†I do not mean the Democratic Party—or, solely the Democratic Party. Rather, the pestilence that is the Trump campaign is the result of a conglomeration of political, academic, media, and cultural elites who for decades have tried to act as the arbiters of acceptable public debate and shut down any political expression from Americans with whom they disagree. They, more than anyone else, created Donald Trump’s candidacy and the increasingly hideous movement he now leads. …
It’s pointless to try to explain Trump in terms of political platforms because Trump himself is too stupid and too incoherent to have any kind of consistent political views about anything beyond hating minorities and immigrants. Nuclear weapons? “With nuclear, the power, the devastation is very important to me.†Drugs? “That whole heroin thing, I tell you what, we gotta get that whole thing under control.†A random word generation program could do better.
To understand Trump’s seemingly effortless seizure of the public spotlight, forget about programs, and instead zero in on the one complaint that seems to unite all of the disparate angry factions gravitating to him: political correctness. This, more than anything, is how the left created Trump. …
Today, … we have a new, more virulent political correctness that terrorizes both liberals and conservatives, old-line Democrats and Republicans, alike. This form of political correctness is distinctly illiberal; indeed, it is not liberalism at all but Maoism circa the Cultural Revolution.
The extremist adherents of this new political correctness have essentially taken a flamethrower to the public space and annihilated its center. Topics in American life that once were the legitimate subjects of debate between liberals and conservative are now off-limits and lead to immediate attack by the cultural establishment if raised at all. Any incorrect position, any expression of the constitutional right to a different opinion, or even just a slip of the tongue can lead to public ostracism and the loss of a job. (Just ask Brendan Eich.) There is a huge vacuum left by this leftist attack on speech, and Trump is filling it.
Chris Christie seemed trapped in a nightmare at Trump’s press conference Tuesday night—and in a lot of ways, he was and it’s all his fault.
Chris Christie gazed up at the back of Donald Trump’s golden head in a Mar-a-Lago ballroom the evening of Super Tuesday. His mouth was slightly open. His brow was furrowed. His eyes were wide and uncertain, as if adjusting to the soft light of the crystal chandeliers that adorn his new world for the first time since Friday, when he shocked the political class and the members of his own inner circle by endorsing Trump’s candidacy. …
Trump told the cameras, confidently. “I’m a conservative, but I’m a commonsense conservative.â€
Behind him, Christie seemed to shudder as his political career passed before his eyes. …
Christie’s mouth curled into a frown, and then it opened.
I don’t know what I was supposed to be doing,” Christie said. “I was standing there listening to him. All these armchair psychiatrists should give it a break. … He was answering questions from the national press corps, and I was listening. This is part of the hysteria of the people who oppose my Trump endorsement. They want to read anything into it that can be negative.”
“So no, I wasn’t being held hostage,” he added. “No, I wasn’t sitting up there thinking, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?'”
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“It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for some cabinet or judicial appointment, Christie?”
— paraphrasing Thomas More to Richard Rich in Man For All Seasons.
Trump supporters talk as if it’s in the bag, but they are basing that belief on news announcements that “Trump Has Won” this primary or that. In reality, Trump has only come in ahead with a plurality in several primaries. His opponents again and again got the majority of the votes. Trump is still very likely to arrive at the convention with more delegates than any other candidate, but not with a majority, not with enough to gain the nomination. All the other Republicans need to do to defeat Trump is to unite behind one other candidate.
Of course, when that happens, Donald Trump is going to scream and cry that he was robbed and it was all so terribly unfair. And then he’ll go and run third party, delivering the election to Hillary. I would say that the fact that we can predict that, that is, most probably, the way that Donald Trump will react establishes that we all recognize that Trump habitually lies; that Trump invariably takes the most self-indulgent, self-flattering view of reality; that Trump is not any kind of loyal conservative or Republican; and that, when his own personal agenda conflicts with the best interests of the country, we think that Trump could be predicted to do the selfish, unpatriotic thing.
So, tell me, except as some kind of middle-finger-in-the-air gesture of Nihilism, how can any of you possibly justify supporting someone like Donald Trump?
