If anyone wants to understand the real Donald Trump, read his book, “The America We Deserve”.
I have. I’ve also read “Think Big and Kick Ass.”
He shows admiration for both sides of the aisle, but he looks at it from a more business perspective than straight politics - which is part of his appeal.
I do think, however, that he’s like a lot of people, not all that ideological, but has been “awoken” politically by Obama.
He hasn’t flipped as much as we think. He’s a typical non-political business type who only cares about a few issues and has relatively little ideology otherwise, but he seems to have had an awakening the last couple years, thanks to Obama. There are a lot of issues he’s probably been rather fuzzy on for a long time, because he just never really thought about them that much until now.
Forget he’s a businessman and media personality for a minute, and forget he’s filthy rich.
Doesn’t he now sound like a lot of people we all know? People who vote, swing voters in many cases, who were always somewhat conservative, but never gave it enough thought to truly know what they were, until recently, when they saw the damage Obama was doing? Isn’t that how the Tea Party movement got started?
Trump is the ultimate tea partier.
Not to mention, while not entirely conservative, the America he describes in the book you mention would be (aside from maybe the healthcare part, which he has changed his view on), would be far better than anything going on now.
He also stated, even back then, that he is not going to run to help someone else win.