Posted on 11/20/2015 11:30:00 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
As has been made abundantly clear by his incessant mewling and pathetically thin skin, Donald J. Trump is not in fact an unwaveringly resolute tough guy of the type you would hope to find standing next to you in the trenches, but an insecure attention seeker who cannot help but pander to his audiences' prejudices. In the past few days, Trump has been asked variously whether, if elected, he would use his power to close mosques; whether he believes that Muslims should be registered in a special government database; and whether or not it would be a good idea to suspend the Fourth Amendment for anybody who prays to Allah. In all cases he has either demurred completely or eschewed the more traditional "yes" and "no" categories in favor of some choice hedging. "That may have to be done," Trump says. "There's no doubt." "We'll look at that." "We'll consider all the options." "We're going to have to look at a lot of things very closely."
So painful has this tendency become that I have begun to hope his interviewers will get a little surreal, just to see what he says:
"Will you replace your hair with spaghetti and your fingers with soup spoons?"
"Sure. We're going to look at everything."
"As president would you consider taking suspected burglars and parachuting them naked into lava?"
"That's something we'll consider. You can't have all this crime. Terrible."
"Do you think it's fair to say that you are the egg man, that you are the egg man, that you are the Walrus?"
"We're going to examine a range of possibilities."
"GooGooGooJoob?"
"I'll be looking into that."
Perhaps the only thing that is worse than Trump's silence is what he does say.
The most common defense of Trump's perpetual acquiescence has been that he did not explicitly say "yes" to the more controversial among the questions, and that he cannot therefore be accused of endorsement. In truth, this isn't quite right; speaking to NBC last night, he did seem to suggest affirmatively that Muslims would be required to sign into his hypothetical database or face consequences. Either way, I'm struggling to see how this defense can be acceptable to his admirers. Trump, recall, is supposed to be courageous. He's supposed to be steadfast. He's supposed to be a no-holds-barred badass who will make great deals and stare down enemies and Make America Great Again. How, one wonders, does a chronic inability to say "no" fit into that mien?
If there is one quality we need in a president, it is the ability decisively to say "no" - especially, I would venture, if that president hopes to advance conservative goals. When a sane person is asked whether he would institute a tracking database for Muslims or force one religious group to carry special ID cards, he says, "Of course I wouldn't." If Trump is unable to manage even this, how would he rein in spending or limit illegal immigration? More to the point, as Trump might ask sneeringly of others, how would he deal with Vladimir Putin?
Perhaps the only thing that is worse than Trump's silence is what he does say. Even if we are generous and assume that the man does not actually believe any of the specific proposals to which he has given his tacit consent, the attitude he is exhibiting is positively Wilsonian in character. In Trump's world, America will be restored to glory when his handpicked team of experts is permitted to experiment upon the public outside of the usual constitutional limits. Nowhere in his rhetoric will you find any reference to America's pre-existing cultural and legal traditions, or to the necessary bounds that free men insist be imposed upon the state. There is no talk of "freedom"; no reflexive grounding of ideas in the Declaration and the Federalist Papers; no conceptual explanation or underlying philosophy. There is nothing, except will to power. By his own admission, Trump's are the politics of doing enthusiastically what works in the moment; of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt; of the administrative state and of bureaucratic expertise; of the Prussians and the French and the Singaporeans. Whatever he might claim before his adoring crowds, Trump is not in fact an antidote to Barack Obama. He is his parallel.
Calvin Coolidge said "no" over and over and over again because he understood that the federal government existed for a handful of specific reasons, and that any action it took outside of its carefully delineated tramlines was inherently suspect. Donald Trump's only visible constitutional opinion is that someone strong ought to make sure the trams run on time. There's a word for men like that, and it sure as heck isn't "conservative."
Convince me I wrong.
So you are for feeding kittens into a wood chipper?
The Art of The Deal needs to deal or there is no art.
This has been gone over several times.
Even a leftist author at Salon said that the article about this was a hit piece.
Look a little farther down the list of posted articles. If Salon - a leftist rag - thinks it’s bogus you should too.
So you are for feeding kittens into a wood chipper?
>>”That’s something we’ll consider. “
I will just observe, that Trump is doing remarkably better in this race now, than your candidate did.
Who was that, once again?
You would have better luck convincing me the Pope is Catholic.
I’m beginning to think that NR is hostile to Trump.
There is a big section of the Republican party which is hostile to Donald Trump.
The part of the party is all for the Bushes, selling off American businesses, and importing ever more foreign labor.
They are completely on the wrong side. 100%.
Trump wants to look at these issues carefully with his advisers before giving a detailed answer, or even a firm yes or no. I think that’s a good quality in a presidential candidate.
If he’s president, of course he’ll have to have a full answer ready on everything, and the closer he can get to that during the campaign, the better for us. He has to formulate enough thorough and solid plans for us to trust him on what still remains when he is president.
He’s already getting rebuttals from de Blasio for something he didn’t even say in the middle of signing books. Anybody think it DOESN’T bear serious looking-into, which is what he said?
Your mind is closed and NOTHING that anyone says, is going to change your "feelings" about Trump.
So, let me concede the point that Trump wants all arrivals in the country entered into a data base. Is that not done now? Do you or the writer to the article above wish the nation not to know who is entering the country?
Sharia law calls for the violent overthrow of the existing political system. Was it fair to ask those immigrating if they were a communist, a system that also called for the overthrow of our constitutional republic?
Did not the FBI catalogue information on every communist in the country in the 40s-60s if not longer? Did not the national security apparatus collect information on every mosque in the days after 9-11?
Muslim is not a race but a belief system. This recent kerfuffle over what Trump supposedly said or not said or should have said is much ado about nothing....but....The question remains, how will one fight an international organization that hides behind a “religion” without knowing the players in your own country? If you can answer me that question then maybe I will support your candidate, Rubio, or Kaisich, or Yeb! or whatever....
Scott Walker is still out of the race.
Tag line.
Then there’s the section of Republicans who know Trump is not a conservative and is a poor candidate.
Her candidate was Walker and ever since Walker’s been gone she’s been rubbishing the front runners in an orgy of sour grapes/scorched earth postings.
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