Trump Roundup, Volume 1
Stephen Hayes's sensibilities which determine why he cannot vote for Trump are largely the same as mine. If I lived in Maryland or Texas where my vote didn't matter one way or another, I'd probably vote third party like Hayes says he plans to if the Donald is nominated. Excerpt:
....I care most about the two issues that directly threaten the continued viability of the American experiment: national security and the debt. My views on individual politicians are shaped mainly by their positions on protecting the country and reforming entitlements. Accordingly, the most promising policy development over the past decade was Paul's Ryan victory over the GOP establishment and its determined opposition to entitlement reform and the most worrisome was Barack Obama's abandonment of the war against the global jihadist movement.
A Trump presidency would be disastrous on both scores. Trump opposes entitlement reform, and it's unclear whether he even understands the central role entitlements play in our mounting debt. Trump claims Republicans lost the presidential election in 2012 because of Ryan's reforms. "He represented cutting entitlements," Trump said last month, pointing to the selection of Ryan by Mitt Romney as "the end of the campaign." Trump has said repeatedly that he won't touch entitlements. "The only one that's not going to cut is me."
On national security, Trump says he'll be strong and frequently pronounces himself "militaristic." But he doesn't seem to have even a newspaper reader's familiarity with the pressing issues of the day. He was nonplussed by a reference to the "nuclear triad"; he confused Iran's Quds Force and the Kurds; he didn't know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah. The ignorance would be less worrisome if his instincts weren't terrifying. He's praised authoritarians for their strength, whether Vladimir Putin for killing journalists and political opponents or the Chinese government for the massacre it perpetrated in Tiananmen Square.
Then Hayes basically reminds us of the steaming pile of crap and dead guts that represent the tip of the manure pile which is Donald Trump's thought process. The John McCain remarks, the Megyn Kelly remarks, the Carly Fiorina remarks, the Kovaleski remarks... He especially gives some insights to Trump's remarks about John McCain by relating that Trump's response to Hayes's question about "whether he'd read any accounts of McCain's time in captivity or was otherwise familiar with his experiences as a prisoner of war." Trump said "It's irrelevant." Really, he did.
If anyone wonders why Trump can't get to 50% anywhere and only wins open primaries, there's your answer. And speaking of 50%... For anyone out there who thinks that Trump's issue with women voters—which I blogged about earlier—is not a big deal, guess what? It's gotten worse. The Very Unfavorable camp has increased by 10 points since October. Excerpt:
Real estate billionaire Donald Trump’s coarse rhetoric has won him some fans, but there’s at least one large group in America that is increasingly unimpressed: women.
Half of U.S. women say they have a “very unfavorable” view of the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, up from the 40 percent who felt that way in October. The survey was taken from March 1-15, and included 5,400 respondents.
I'm hoping Kasich stays in the race. He can take more of California away than Cruz can. I want to see an open convention at this point. Barring some type of strange intervention of Fate or something, he can't win.
Indeed.
ReplyDeleteConservatives could come up with more than just those two "care most about" issues, and reach the same conclusion.
For example, my "care most about" issue is reducing the size, scope, and power of the federal government. (Many good things, like economic growth, freedom and liberty, lower cost education and health care, etc., would come from that.) And there is nothing Trump has said, or other evidence from his life, that indicates that the federal government would get any smaller under Pres. Trump -- rather, armed with a perceived mandate to "Make America Great Again", it would get larger and even more arbitrary.
You can pick a host of other issues and get the same answer, especially when you consider his main self-touted talent is "making deals". A deal doesn't get made without giving the other side something -- presumably something that the dealmaker cares about less than the other side does. You think Trump will sacrifice any political capital for the pro-life cause, especially if he can get something for it? Ha. Ditto Israel. Same with 2nd Amendment.
A candidate like him with no espoused principles will sacrifice anything to accomplish his goal.
I could support Kasich so long as he does not give Tom Ridge too much of a role in his campaign. It is because of Tom Ridge Kermit Gosnell was let loose on Philly.
ReplyDeleteHere's a piece entitled #NeverKasich. Here's a taste:
Delete...Kasich’s finish on Western Tuesday would have been enough to embarrass any lesser mortal out of the race.
In Arizona, he finished in fourth place in a three-man race, which sounds like a setup for a bad joke. Marco Rubio had won enough of the early vote that the anemic Kasich couldn’t catch him....
... Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics crunched the numbers and found that with Kasich in the race, Trump gets to 1,237 and without Kasich in the race, Trump falls short. Since Kasich’s only path is a contested convention, this makes his campaign, on top of everything else, a massive self-contradiction....
And there is nothing Trump has said, or other evidence from his life, that indicates that the federal government would get any smaller under Pres. Trump.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I think he has some Paleocon support. They don't care about the size of the Federal government either--not much in my experience. At the very best, President Trump will be the next President Nixon--Pat Buchanan's idol--unprincipled in policy and as pragmatic as he needs to be in order to increase political capital.
But I think it's more likely that he will be an FDR, picking the pocket of the Forgotten Man, driving projects for the "greater good" and promoting cronyism at every turn.
But he will never be elected.