Donald J. Trump has now clinched the GOP nomination, with 1,237 delegates committed to voting for him on the first ballot at the GOP Convention. It was a scant few months ago when this idea was literally laughable to most supposedly knowledgeable persons.
Congratulations to Mr. Trump. Now, to rally as much of the GOP as possible for the upcoming election. Then, onward to the great American voting public, to defeat Hillary Clinton. And then, if Fortune continues to smile upon his efforts, we shall see whether Mr. Trump can pull off the YUGEST deal of his career, and can Make America Great Again.
I have always supported the GOP nominee, and this year is no exception. Trump defeated the other sixteen candidates in fair combat, though it was ugly at times.
Stopping Hillary Clinton is so important that the proverbial man-shaped cardboard cutout with “GOP” scrawled on it in Sharpie marker would get my vote. I cannot fathom the continuing quibbling by purported Republicans and Conservatives, given the stakes, and the destruction a Clinton presidency would inflict. Defeating her TRUMPS all other considerations. Trump is the chosen means to that necessary end. So be it. Let us go forward together. #NeverHillary
Beyond being not-Hillary, Trump is a wildcard. Much of what he has published, and says he wants to do, is good. As I wrote elsewhere, there is plenty of material to find common ground with the legacy GOP and its leaders. The list of proposed Supreme Court justices he recently published is very good. So, there are things to like about Mr. Trump, as well as some things not to like so much. But this election, like all American Presidential elections is a simple, binary decision. There is no imaginary third option, as some people seem to wish. It is Trump or Clinton, period, end of report.
And Trump is clearly preferable to Clinton.
Congratulations and good luck to Mr. Trump, and God bless America.
FTW.
It will be interesting – and I can see it happening – if the GOP splits between Trump and some last-gasp pet establishment Republican, and the Dems split between Her Cackling Inevitableness and Bernie Sanders. A four-way race … as in 1860, with the winner being elected with a small percentage of the votes and adherents of the losers crying foul.
Interesting times, indeed.
#MAGA – I’ll drink to that. And here’s hoping he’s willing to take on some of the big, structural problems. But I’ll settle for not having #CorruptHillary for president. The Chinese and Russians are going to be deeply disappointed. Might even want their money back.
FTW, ha! I haven’t heard that, or DILLIGAF since the Boot Hill Saloon/Main St. Daytona days. The lives of Chicago Boyz, you just never know.
Trump’s campaign guy was waving around a copy of “Clinton Cash” this afternoon in Billings at the rally. Maybe he’ll team up with Paul Nehlen and do Bike Week in March.
Now we await the exciting finish of the Democrat race. I am not sure Hillary will be the nominee.
The FBI seems to be hot on her trail if The Washington Post can be used as an indicator.
HILLARY CLINTON’S use of a private email server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 has been justifiably criticized as an error of judgment. What the new report from the State Department inspector general makes clear is that it also was not a casual oversight. Ms. Clinton had plenty of warnings to use official government communications methods, so as to make sure that her records were properly preserved and to minimize cybersecurity risks. She ignored them.
The 83-page report declares that “beginning in late 2005 and continuing through 2011,” the department revised its Foreign Affairs Manual and “issued various memoranda specifically discussing the obligation to use Department systems in most circumstances and identifying the risks of not doing so.” Ms. Clinton didn’t.
The WaPo still says it “wasn’t illegal” but that is padding to the real story. She is in deep trouble,
What is MAGA?
Hopefully Ryan will come around. A grand Jacksonian-Jeffersonian coalition could be the greatest force we’ve seen in politics in a long, long time. After seeing how Trump supporters are attacked at his rallies and how that Milo guy was hassled at DePaul, the battle lines are pushing libertarians into Trump’s corner.
Make
America
Great
Again
MAGA
I’m not sure what is the matter with Ryan. He let a giggling BIden punk him in the 2012 debate.
Who does he think he is ?
I sent $100 to his primary opponent.
I think his agreeing to debate Bernie Sanders in the CA primary is brilliance. Just wants a network to pay a fee (for the huge advertising revenue they would get) to a charity.
Makes an absent Hillary look even weaker and more petty by refusing to debate.
I liked his speech in North Dakota today.
I don’t get these Republicans like Bill Kristol who are trying to find a 3rd party candidate.
Ross Perot anyone?
Read an interesting article in a recent WSJ on Michael Reagan.
Reagan said that this congressional spending with such deficits would have driven his father nuts.I’d have to agree.
To say on the GOP side that you are a “Reagan Republican” is the thing to do but I wonder how many of them really are Reagan Republicans?
I am warming to Trump because he has really shaken things up – and we need that. If he can just govern trying to do the things he says he will do.
That would be refreshing for a politician these days.
>>I don’t get these Republicans like Bill Kristol who are trying to find a 3rd party candidate.
He’s throwing a temper tantrum.
>>To say on the GOP side that you are a “Reagan Republican” is the thing to do but I wonder how many of them really are Reagan Republicans?
Very few. They lack his basic character decency, they lack his principles and they lack his courage. But other than that, great bunch.
The opposition to Trump seems to be largely based around people who regard Trump as ‘not one of them’. He doesn’t care for their well reasoned policies that are triangulated to within in inch of their lives, he sees a problem and he names a solution, even when it upsets a lot of people. The ‘in’ crowd just can’t imagine upsetting a lot of people. Think of the social shame.
BTW, congratulations on getting an essay published in the Federalist. I liked it a lot. I have one quibble and one comment on the platform proposal you made.
1. Eliminate all income taxes on singles making $25,000 or less, and on all married couples making $50,000 or less.
On principle, I think everyone should pay into the system from which they benefit. Just like I think it’s healthy for kids to have to help with chores even while the parents do all the heavy lifting. I think if you are paying in, you care more about how the money is spent, and that’s a good thing.
2. Provide for an initial round of funding for new infrastructure construction and repair.
This I love. And the Donald brings up the sorry state of our infrastructure at every opportunity. He would, because it’s his business and he would notice that sort of thing. My dad was a software guy in the civil engineering world, so I also grew up immersed in the building of roads and bridges and dams. I notice infrastructure and the Donald is right that our infrastructure is showing very serious signs of decay, from roads to street lights to dams to power plants. We’re living on the investments our parents and grandparents made and we are not making the necessary investments in repair, replacement and new construction. It is not my field, but I’ve heard many in the profession say the electrical infrastructure is in very bad shape and needs to be almost completely replaced. Since most of that is in private hands, we should provide tax incentives for rebuilding it. We should also mandate a minimum level – a national standard – which it must meet. NIST is the proper agency for that.
electrical infrastructure is in very bad shape and needs to be almost completely replaced.
It’s not that bad. A lot more needs to be built, but a lot of the hype over the grid is being done by GE and other suppliers hoping for a huge federal subsidy to keep modernizing the grid with “smart” components and crony capitalists who want the government to pay for the work they would normally finance themselves. Personally, I do not want DC involved at all. Get rid of the regulatory barriers that have made life more difficult for electricity providers to keep up the grid they originally developed. The planners at the Dept of Energy keep wanting to have a huge international grid, but the more nodes you add to a grid, the more unstable it becomes. The better solution is a highly interconnected, but regionally run grids like we still for the most part have.
Forgive me if I’ve cracked this joke before, but I have a weak spot for it.
Hellary will Make America Grate Again.
Well, I like it.
“suppliers hoping for a huge federal subsidy to keep modernizing the grid with “smart” components ”
I suspect the “smart components” will be much more susceptible to EMP and to all sorts of surges and anomalies.
Keep It Simple Stupid is a pretty good principle.
I was a medical student at the Mass General the day that the power went out on the east coast.
The Northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on Tuesday, November 9, 1965, affecting parts of Ontario in Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Vermont in the United States. Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km2) were left without electricity for up to 13 hours.
The power companies had connected a new grid that they said would make emergency generators obsolete so the Mass General had dutifully disconnected theirs. My wife was at a friend’s house helping them change a light bulb in the kitchen. As she screwed in the new bulb, the lights went out. She thought it was her fault and she did not realize what had happened until she was driving back to our apartment. The traffic lights were all out in Boston.
It was November 9 and getting cold.
At the hospital we had an acute appendicitis case that had to go to surgery. The sterilizers were out so instruments were boiled and emergency lights were all they had.
It was 13 hours before it was fixed. The only lights in Boston were at the electrical utility which had its own generator and was not connected to the grid.
“I have one quibble and one comment on the platform proposal you made.”
Michael, please note ALL of those proposals are from Trump’s published positions. None of them are my proposals. I generally like them, but that is irrelevant. The point is that these are proposals Trump has already made that the legacy GOP should be able to support and promote.
I remember that blackout quite well. Thankfully, we were in an 19th century farmhouse, sixty miles south of Boston with no central heating (kerosene) and the original oil lamps. No three-channel black n’ white television, though. Those are bad times to be in big, urban areas. I guess that’s why they want us all there.
“The Chinese and Russians are going to be deeply disappointed.”
I really doubt this. Nothing would make them happier than a Trump presidency. Hillery is very dangerous, to all of us, and they understand this well.
Fernandez, as usual, seems to be correct about a lot.
This suggests the winner of the 2016 contest will likely be a transitional figure rather than a harbinger of a lasting tendency. The winner is more probably going to be overwhelmed by events in this period of flux. But that doesn’t matter. Their task is to stop “the train even if they don’t know what happens next.”
When the train is headed for the cliff, the task is to stop it, not to plan for what happens later.
“Hillery is very dangerous, to all of us”: seconded. She’s a shrill warmonger; a bloody menace, in fact.
I disagree. Hillary was bought and paid for by them. I believe she’s not only a corrupt totalitarian liar, but a traitor as well.
“I disagree. Hillary was bought and paid for by them. I believe she’s not only a corrupt totalitarian liar, but a traitor as well.”
We have a lot of evidence as to who has bought and paid for her, and none I’m aware of, point to the Chinese.
The deep state of your own country wants and will have Hillary for your President. Goldman Sachs et al has deep hooks into the Clinton’s, and has had for a long time. That they would want what the Chinese want is, well, wrong. American preeminence is what is really important to these people.
There may be opponents of Trump who are just being cliquish. I don’t know why anyone would assume that it’s only “establishment Republicans” are doing that; he plays golf with Boehner, he gave heavily to help McConnell defeat a Tea Party challenger.
There are many other opponents of Trump who look at his appalling personal character, and find him disgusting. They note his continuous lying, his sleazy business practices, the crude, scurrilous, nasty public persona he has intentionally cultivated, the absurd egoism, the many libel suits, the wild pretensions, and conclude that he is wholly unfitted to be President.
Then there is his apparent gross ignorance of basic civics, his seeming indifference to the Constitution, his embrace of bad law such as the Kelo decision. And he seems to like conspiracy theories.
There is his long history of intimate and friendly association with Democrats, notably the Clintons: he donated big money to Clinton campaigns and the Clinton Foundation, had Mrs. Clinton as a wedding guest, lavishly praised her as a Senator, Presidential candidate, and Secretary of State. He endorsed Obama. And no, he didn’t have to; he could have just kept his mouth shut.
Meanwhile, he has made vicious, groundless attacks on Republicans, notably President George W. Bush.
Is it possible that Republicans might oppose someone for having all these attributes? Or that they think those attributes make him unelectable?
Trump has spoken out strongly on some important issues (mainly immigration) – but he’s already started walking back his commitments in those areas. (“Touchback” amnesty instead of deporting illegals.) His own history of abusing the H-1A and H-1B programs to import foreign workers suggest that he’s just faking – that he has no actual intention of curbing immigration of any sort.
His frequent reversals of position on issues (sometimes in the same speech) suggest that he has no real convictions, that he cannot be trusted to carry out any policy, except what may benefit him or his cronies.
Which is why I oppose Trump. I think he’ll lose, and if he does win,, I don’t think he’ll govern as a principled conservative, but as yet another insider crony in most ways.
I think there is a genuine Hitler analogy here: Hitler gained power as the radical populist leader of a huge discontented element. He got into government in part through the threat of insurrection by three million Brownshirts, many of whom were attracted by the socialist pretenses of the NSDAP. But once in power, instead of the radical policies he had offered Brownshirts, Hitler cut deals with the army and the industrialists. He liquidated the Brownshirt leaders and let the organization wither.
I think Trump may follow a similar arc. Obviously there are no Brownshirts, but Trump’s mass enthusiasts may be equivalent dupes.
Having written all this – if it comes down to Trump or a Democrat, I will vote for Trump.
Meanwhile, he has made vicious, groundless attacks on Republicans, notably President George W. Bush.
To be a Republican ≠ having to defend Bush. Iraq was not a conservative mission. NCLB was not a conservative policy. Medicare Part D, unfunded, was not conservative. TARP was not conservative. Amnesty efforts were not conservative. Spending billions on African AIDS initiatives were not conservative. Having the largest increase in the regulatory state, beating Democratic Presidents, was not conservative. Minority home ownership efforts are not a conservative policy idea.
The albatross of Bush has done more harm than good to the Republican Party.
Trump has spoken out strongly on some important issues (mainly immigration) – but he’s already started walking back his commitments in those areas. (“Touchback” amnesty instead of deporting illegals.) His own history of abusing the H-1A and H-1B programs to import foreign workers suggest that he’s just faking
Because we’re debating what’s in the mind of another, there can be no winner until Trump acts on his beliefs, but to rebut your point I offer the following, if I were in Trump’s shoes right now I’d be creating confusion with the touchback scheme and come time for the deportations I still be advocating touchback. Why? Because I learned from the Democrats. Get what you want now by promising something you don’t want to be implemented in the future. With Reagan the Democrats got immediate Amnesty and promised to control the border, which they never did. I’d simply reverse their policy, deport all the infiltrators and promise that they can come back legally, and then cite changed circumstances, like lack of jobs, and tell them to focus on reintegrating back into their societies because we can’t bring them back now that they’re all out. This guts the leftists because their “victims” are now scattered to the wind, not in LA or San Diego rioting.
As for Trump using guest labor, as a businessman it’s not up to him to shoot himself in the foot with respect to his competitors. He can’t change national policy by refusing to hire such workers, he simply harms his company financially. Where he makes a difference is as President by getting the system reformed or making the importation of a serf class illegal and this now falls on everyone operating in sectors where imported serfs are a common business practice.
Which is why I oppose Trump. I think he’ll lose, and if he does win,, I don’t think he’ll govern as a principled conservative, but as yet another insider crony in most ways.
He’d be no different than any one of the other guys on offer.
This is a long-game which doesn’t end with Trump. He has too much to lose personally by following through on all of his promises. The goal here is to signal to up and coming politicians that there is a market for these ideas and eventually we will get one who does follow through. The shorter game is to box Trump in once he’s in office in order to get him to show fealty to those who elected him because they are his only allies. The cuckservative faction is out for his head, the liberals see him as the devil. An impeachment vote won’t have Republicans defending him. His only allies are his voters. They won’t stand with him if he flagrantly betrays them.
I think there is a genuine Hitler analogy here: Hitler gained power as the radical populist leader of a huge discontented element.
Two points.
1.) Historical outcomes are contingent on unique factors which presented at the time which means that history need not repeat itself. A populist responding to a discontented element doesn’t imply that concentration camps and world war are the outcomes awaiting us.
2.) If people don’t want a Reich, then they shouldn’t create a Weimar. No Weimar, no Hitler. There are tens of millions of Americans, maybe more than a hundred million, who wake up and don’t recognize the America they see every morning as having any connection to the America they grew up in and they would like that old America back, in whichever way resonates with them. If Trump ends up being the equivalent of a plastic surgeon pulling stringy silicon out of the breast tissue of his patient, America, then America shouldn’t blame Trump for the trauma he’s inflicting on its body, the blame rightly lies with the people, corporations, culture and America itself, for putting leaky silicon breast implants into the body of the country. Does that metaphor make sense?
I think America needs radical surgery and I’m willing to endure the pain if we can make a better tomorrow. We’ll see what everyone else thinks when issues/choices come to the table.
If you’re a fiscal conservative and a President actually did implement, and got Congress to go along with, drastic cuts to SS and Medicare, maybe even complete dismantlement and the public was in an uproar, would you blame him for the pain he caused by tackling ponzi scheme on the verge of collapse? He didn’t get us to the point where the system is about to collapse, he’s trying to repair the system/society.
We have a populist rebellion because people have been screwed by incompetent elites out for themselves. Course correction is going to be hugely disruptive and painful. Trump should course correct, but I doubt he has the backbone to do it. I don’t think you have much grounds to worry about a new Hitler.
Trump as Hitler, Trump the rebel, Trump the rule-breaker. It’s as though the 2008-2016 thing never happened. Perfectly normal that yet another Alinsky acolyte and an un-closeted communist, whose supporters actually attack Trump, are running for the same office, but that Trump’s campaign is of great concern. Absurdistan, that’s where I’m livin’…
I agree with Rich Rostrom, though I’m a bit more optimistic about Trump’s chances of being elected. I will enthusiastically vote for Trump because any port in a storm, any monkeywrench when the machine it out of control. Who knows what he’ll do if elected. Let’s hope we get the opportunity to worry about it.
There is perhaps some irony in the fact that there are many people who think W was a lousy president and now expect great things from Trump. However, times change and irony isn’t an argument. When you face a binary decision you do the best you can with the information available and move on.
Jonathan,
New York Times article reported that currently only 14% of white men without college degrees support Hillary Clinton.
The white male vote is seven times the total back vote — men and women together — and non-college degreed men are 60% of the white male demographic.
In 2012 non-college degreed white men voted at 50% total turn out. Working class white men who have not voted since the 2004 elections are turning out for Trump in the GOP primaries. This indicates a return to the Reagan 1980 pattern of 75% turnout for non-college degreed white men.
Hillary is looking at being south of Mondale (34%) or McGovern (31%) in November 2015 with the White vote.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/opinion/campaign-stops/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-trump.html
Further examination of the May Post/ABC poll provides no solace to Clinton. In sheer numbers, Clinton has suffered her biggest losses among men, especially white men. The percentage of college-educated white men who said they would vote for her dropped an astonishing 14 points from March to May (from 47 to 33 percent); among white men without college degrees, already a problem area for her campaign, Clinton’s support also fell, from 26 to 14 percent.
White political realignment is happening…and it is bigger than the Southern shift in the 1980s
While I don’t particularly like this column because of the lead in —
‘The haters’ will pick our next president
Salena Zito
Saturday, May 21, 2016, 9:00 p.m.
http://triblive.com/opinion/salena/10502214-74/percent-trump-vote
Zito does have a really big point buried by the “hating lead” she uses to protect her job —
Pollster Wes Anderson of OnMessage, a Washington-based Republican strategy group, says Politco’s article finds that the vast majority of Trump primary supporters had voted in at least one of the last four presidential elections: “Really? If a voter skipped the 2008 (or) 2012 general election but now voted in a GOP primary, isn’t that evidence that Trump is expanding the GOP vote?”
Anderson pointed to North Carolina’s early-spring primary to prove his point: There in 2012, “inactive” voters (those who skipped one or more of the previous two presidential elections) made up just 2 percent of the vote. In 2016, they represented 12 percent.
“That’s right, 12 percent of the primary had skipped one or both of the last two presidential general elections,” he explained. “We’re talking about voters we would normally give up on because history would say they have given up on voting.”
This year they decided to vote in a primary. How does that not say something significant about what Trump may be doing to the voter pool? The number of truly “new” voters may be small but the number of independents participating in GOP primaries for the first time is big.
The same is true of Republicans who never participated in a primary, until now.
Politico’s article is classic half-truth that stretches or distorts data to prove a preconceived point. If you miscalculate the voter universe now and don’t understand what will drive it to vote, then you likely never understood this entire election cycle and will continue making the same miscalculations.
Meaning that November may shock the hell out of a lot of political professionals.
Inactive voters showing up in out of power party primaries shows we are in a “change election”.
In 2008 it was African-Americans and under 30 year old white voters playing the “change voter” role. Both voted disproportionately against the party holding the presidency.
In 2016 it is Trump-activated working class white males who are the ‘agents of change.’
Structurally, this 2016 Presidential election has three major stool legs defining the outcome:
1. Protracted poor economy Democrats own. The regulatory state Democrats love has killed small business growth, and that is what is killing them here.
2. The Republicans have won both houses of Congress (like Democrats in 2006) and almost every down ballot spot demographics allow. This makes any -viable- Republican Presidential candidate able to beat any Democratic candidate.
And by -viable- I mean to the GOP primary voting base of 2016.
A Primary voting base that wants a hard core street fighter of a presidential candidate who will hammer Democrats harder than Democrats hammer Republicans…so TRUMP.
3. As I mentioned above, this is a change the status quo election.
a. The change vote was 70% of the GOP primary base when you count Trump, Carson and Cruz.
b. The Democratic “change” primary voting base — including most young whites — is 40% Bernie Sanders.
Taken together, Bernie Sanders would have beaten Jeb.
Any other Republican candidate wpuld have beaten Sanders.
And Bernie and Trump together have marked Hillary as the Status Quo candidate in a Change election year.
And Bernie and Trump together have marked Hillary as the Status Quo candidate…
She is that. She is also the pay-to-play candidate. She doesn’t care what you want, as long as she gets paid sufficiently well. She’d happily sell the entire United States up the river for the right payoff.
White political realignment is happening…
So odd. I wonder what the Left and the Democrats have done that could possibly have driven white voters away? Especially white male voters away from Hillary?