Posted on 04/10/2017 4:05:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
Once there was a larger than life Republican celebrity with a passion for winning who beat the Democrat establishment, but then let himself be steered away from the conservatism that got him into office and became a leathery, near-forgotten joke. President Trump, never, ever go Full Arnold.
He is so close to success – it’s in his grasp – and yet the President is in danger of allowing both well-meaning friends and false ones to drag him off target by embracing the failed liberal nonsense that created the mess that led to his election.
Trump’s winning now, which is why the reports hinting that he is considering jettisoning his conservative principles in favor of liberal mush are so bizarre. The stock market refuses to tank and thereby obey noted Enron associate Paul Krugman. The job numbers are through the roof; even driving around town in the Venezuela-by-the-Beach that is L.A., you see scores of “Help Wanted” signs. And the Justice Gorsuch nomination was not merely a touchdown. It was Trump scoring seven points, plus two extra points, and then a couple of the hottest cheerleaders running into the end zone while he was spiking the ball to invite him back to their condo for a dip in their Jacuzzi.
Plus the whole “But but but … Russians!” thing went up in a fiery blast – actually, two kinds of fiery blasts, figurative and literal. The figurative detonation of the collusion lie occurred about the time it became clear the only people who might have committed any crimes were the Obama hacks using the NSA to spy on Trump and Co. The literal explosions were over the Syrian airbase, and represented the best of some very bad options. His strike also had a strategic effect that is far more important than the still significant consideration of punishing those semi-humans for their sick Sarin murder spree. The strategic impact was to show those gay-hanging freaks in Tehran and that pudgy slug in Pyongyang how it goes when a president with a presi-sack plays horsey.
Plus, it was politically useful to be firing missiles at Putin’s pal. If Vlad and The Donald have an inappropriate relationship, then it’s mega kinky.
The risk comes from the people around him. There are three kinds of people surrounding Trump – public servants, enemies, and friends. The quintessential, non-political public servant around him is Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. The President is being very well-served by this fellow cavalry officer who has returned the National Security Advisor post to one that provides the President with advice on national security instead of, you know, spying on his political enemies. If you spent any time in the military, you will recognize how McMaster is acting as an executive officer using the Military Decision Making Process to oversee the National Security Council in synthesizing the President’s intent into fleshed-out courses of action from which he chooses. I can almost see the sleep-deprived majors, their bleary eyes held open only by willpower and Mountain Dew, hunched over laptops in some West Wing broom closet pounding out PowerPoint slides for the CINC’s decision briefing. Pardon my nostalgia, but it’s so refreshing to see an Army general in the news for demonstrating the kind of technical excellence I routinely observed, rather than for getting caught banging his driver.
Trump’s enemies are no threat either – he has no problem identifying them, targeting them, and calling in a tweetstrike. His opponents lie broken and moaning, Democrats defeated and strewn all about just like those other Republican-punched Democrats in the Atlanta train yard scene in Gone with the Wind. No, Trump doesn’t need protection from his enemies – they need protection from the political Sherman in the White House.
Trump’s danger comes from his friends, and from enemies disguised as friends. Some of his friends are useful for keeping him focused on the promises he made and the people he made them to – conservative promises. Steve Bannon, for example, is an invaluable conduit into the conservative movement that provided the impetus to his victory. Jeff Sessions is going to vacuum the Obama reek from the outhouse that is the Department of Intermittent Justice. Trump needs conservative voices like these whispering in his ear to keep him from wandering off the reservation at the suggestion of misguided friends and covert enemies.
Trump is not an ideological conservative, though ideological conservatism is the stallion upon which he rode into the White House. He is a New York City Republican, which means he’s a bit liberalish by inclination. So are many around him, and some are not Republican at all. They will push him, cajole him, plead with him, not to listen to those nutty, kooky, crazy conservatives because conservatives are so nutty, kooky and crazy. Trump needs to politely ignore these voices of defeat.
Some will push him because they really think Trump should turn his back on a huge chunk of his voters in the hope of … what? A huge chunk of the Democrat Party coming around and embracing him? Really? What is the name of the Democrat senator Trump can win over by shafting conservatives and breaking his promises? Name one. Just one. I’m waiting. I’m still waiting. Okay, I’m getting impatient now, just like Hillary does at 4:50 p.m. when people are watching and she can’t pour herself a Crown Royal a smidge early to take away the pain of her humiliating defeat.
You’re not going to ever name one, because he will never win over a single partisan Democrat by going squish. He’ll only alienate the conservatives he needs.
His lib-leaning friends want him to veer left because they, wrongly, even insanely, think that it will help him in the long run. But his covert enemies, the people who pretend to be his pals, want to see him fail for one of any number of reasons. Some hope that the Failure Caucus will return to power if they turn him against the Freedom Caucus. Others are looking eight years down the road, when Trump is gone and they can get back to plundering the public as usual. Some just hate him because he beat them. Us and America? We’re acceptable collateral damage in their quest for their own personal advancement.
No, no, no, no, no! No left turns.
No, we cannot get hip-deep in another Middle Eastern quicksand pit. Yes, we can zap the bugs when they get uppity, but no more Trump-voters’ kids from Tennessee are going to get waxed in some endgame-free sand trap while the spawn of the people who sent them there march around protesting pronoun misgendering hate crimes at Rich Kid U.
No, we will not wrap the stinking carcass of Obamacare’s failure around ourselves and walk about wearing it while the village children laugh and pelt us with stones and rotten apples.
No, we will not non-consensually Jeb America’s working people, who voted for Trump because they had lost all hope, by committing an unnatural act of love upon them in the form of amnesty.
No, no, no, no, no! No left turns, ever.
Another celebrity-turned politician flipped a 180 on the people who elected him as an alternative to the Democrat establishment, and today everyone is laughing at him – including Donald Trump. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a bunch of promises to the people of California, got to Sacramento, and then decided he would start listening to his stick-figure Kennedy wife and his new Democrat “friends.” He totally betrayed the people who supported him, and he became a punchline, a gooey mass of ropey muscle and utter submission, provoking no respect, no love, only contempt.
And everyone knows what happened when Arnold took over Trump’s show. Sad!
Trump can win it all. He has been winning. But he needs to always remember why he got here. He made promises to a center-right electorate to aggressively pursue center-right policies. When Trump does that – whether by naming incredible justices, by repealing job-killing rules imposed by weird weather cultists, or by inflicting decisive damage on America’s enemies without dragging us into another ground war that his own voters would largely have to fight – Trump wins. But if he were to listen to his well-meaning friends and his not-so-well-meaning “friends” counseling him to go flaccid and proggy, then he loses. He becomes a bad sequel to The Failurenator. And, for a change, Arnold will laugh at him. Trump needs to stay strong, and tweet, “Hasta la vista, liberals.”
Please tell us in minute detail how Ivanka Trump “throws a spell” over the president. Does she do hypnotism? Does she dress as Svengali while the president gets into his Trilby costume? Does Ivanka wear an Ace of Spades costume that triggers Trump to drop bombs? Or are you one of those people who thinks there is a little incest going on - you know, the way the low-life disgusting leftists write on their little DU blogs. Please tell or give some links!
There is no such thing as an apolitical general officer. It is rare for an apolitical officer to put on one star, much less two or more.
I happened to be in the same area as an annual meeting of the CFR several years ago and I was shocked at the number of flag officers in attendance - in uniform, no less.
She gets what she wants from him. Beats me how.
One of her big issues is paid maternity leave for all women. Pure welfare give away bullshit. It's a ridiculous thing to expect from a conservative. It never came up as an issue in the campaign. But during his address to congress in January, boom, there is was.
She isn't going anywhere
Schwartzy has nobody to blame but himself. He started to believe his own “press” and eventually turned himself into a pathetic “has been” .
You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.
What is more worrying is that there was no policy defeat, but President Trump acted like there was.
Candidate Donald Trump came out with a very clear seven-point plan for health care reform during the 2016 campaign. For some reason he put his political weight behind a fifth-rate AHCA bill in 2017 that had almost nothing in common with his 2016 campaign proposal. And when intelligent members of Congress who recognized a House bill with the support of 17% of the American people as one of the worst losers they'd ever seen didn't support it, President Trump decided (for some baffling reason) to call them out over it in one of his signature Twitter tantrums.
Meanwhile, the seven-point health care reform plan from 2016 has been removed from Trump's website.
Yep...It seems that some in here try to pass their own insecurities and frailties onto Trump...
He isn’t like them...He is his own man...PERIOD
It's a ridiculous thing to force on any business owner.
Do you remember during the campaign being told how Jared and Ivanka would be senior admin advisors? I don’t.
Oh, so you admit you don’t have a clue “how she throws a spell”. In fact, you just made that up, didn’t you?
Ivanka Trump making speeches or going to conferences and giving the usual boiler-plate stuff on womyn’s issues may very well be a way to give her something to do. Meaningless. If the president decides to impose some sort of European socialist benefits on womyn in the workplace, then I’ll squawk. Until then, I support the president and wish hysterics would shut up for 5 minutes.
That’s called a Magic Circle, Laz. I once wrote a play that featured it. Perhaps that’s what Ivanka is doing. Trump stands within the circle that she draws in the Oval Office perhaps. More likely Valerie did it to Barry, though.
Just tryin to be he’pful X)
As always, you put everything in perspective. I think. Or maybe not. Now you have me confused...
He proposed it directly to Congress in a major policy speech that was broadcast nationwide in prime time! Are you waiting for John Koskinen to personally take the money out of your pocket? I think half the people on this board are just trying not to pay too much attention?
“There’s a core of anti-Trump folks here who believe in every conspiracy theory fit to print. They are everywhere - they must sleep with one eye open - and they’re on this thread right now. Jim got rid of one yesterday and maybe we’ll see more heads on the chopping block.”
Amen & AMEN!!! Mr Robinson’s post yesterday was a welcome reminder that FR is a pro-President Trump forum.
Amen brother!
The president proposes a lot of things that don’t come to fruition - a mere bag of shells thrown at a gullible congress. Meanwhile, in real time, he is getting government regulations out of our industries, encouraging businesses to stay in the US, the “mandate” is not being enforced, the economy is revved up, the pipe line has been approved and other good things are happening although it’s early and I’ll have to google the rest. Please try and tell me these are all the work of a liberal president and his Svengali daughter and his flak-jacketed (that so bugs people here!) son-in-law.
He’s not perfect by any means but he’s a hell of a lot better than anyone else we could have had.
Calm down.
Yes. I wish people took that posting from Jim seriously. I looked through it and didn’t see the usual names there - they went to ground. The one person who stuck his head over the parapet got banned. LOL. Jim can be a mighty intimidating fellow!
I don't care how. But one day Jared and Ivanka are just part of the campaign family photo op squad and the then then next they are BOTH senior advisors. That is not just something "meaninless to do".
Oh, go soak your head. I get tired of you never-trumpers.
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