I don’t agree with his plan either. It’s not doable. But I do like the goal he sets. That leads me to believe that even if he falls short by a huge margin, he’ll fix the illegal immigration problem to a much greater degree than anyone else. At least he has the will to fix it.
Well the threat of protectionism is not the same as a policy of protectionism. I think you have to give him the benefit of the doubt here and say that he will not negotiate a worse deal.
He said he’d get the oil in Iraq. I’m unaware of him wanting to go to war with Iran. In fact, he said that he would honor the deal with Iran, didn’t he?
So, if I understand you, his:
stance on illegal immigration
wanting to renegotiate trade deals, and maybe even instituting some degree of protectionism
plan how to deal with ISIS and possibly Iran
are deal breakers. More important than the tax code and all the other stuff in the list. Is that right?
There are many reasons to oppose Trump. Though you have attempted to water down my list to make it seem more palatable, those are some of the most egregious, and yes, for many people (including Independents and Republicans) they are deal breakers. I relish the hangover conservatives are going wake up with the day after the November election, when they ask themselves, “What were we thinking?!?!”
You guys are taking what he’s said too literally. One of the advantages I have as a longtime observer and admirer of Donald Trump is that I know not to take everything he says literally. He speaks in over the top statements which most people recognize as hype and take with a grain of salt. It’s a form of salesmanship and it’s very effective in creating an impression in people’s minds that are still of benefit to Trump even if he and they both know that he isn’t literally correct.
Take the question of his wealth, for example. Almost everyone knows he isn’t really worth ten billion dollars but they carry away a much greater impression of his wealth than they would if he went around saying that according to Bloomberg, Forbes or whoever, his net worth has been estimated to be approximate $2.79 billion. Same with his numerous claims about his buildings, tv show, golf courses being the biggest and best and highest quality, etc. Everybody knows this is hyperbole but it’s very effective nonetheless in creating the impression that Trump properties are luxurious and of the highest quality.
I don’t for a minute believe that Donald Trump is going to unilaterally take away citizenship from all the nation’s anchor babies, but his claims to do so are having the effect of getting people to look at the problem and hopefully to begin to coalesce on a way to deal with it.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again that what Trump is actually trying to accomplish is often several layers removed from what he appears to be doing, and anyone (especially his opponents) who takes what he says literally and judges his intelligece or capabilities accordingly, is being incredibly naive.
The fact that he’s a completely unethical boorish blowhard, a bigot, a misogynist, and a self-serving egotistical demagogue would do it for me.
Another fine example would be when he supposedly sent investigators to Hawaii to uncover “the truth” about Obama’s non-birth there. Trump was telling everyone that he “knew” Obama wasn’t born in the US, and now he was telling them that “it’s incredible what they’re finding – it’s unbelievable!”. When in fact, if he really had any investigators there at all, they clearly weren’t finding anything because there was nothing to find, and of course we never heard any more about it.
Back in my day, we called that “lying”, and more specifically, Trump is a habitual serial liar. It relates to a complete absence of integrity and strikes me as a very odd thing for someone to admire. Trump is the sort of individual whose mug shots really beg for the caption “would you buy a used car from this man?”. Actually more the type that if he came for a visit I’d keep my valuables locked up and count the silverware.
That anyone who supports the candidacies of Barack (If you like your plan/doctor, you can keep your plan/doctor) Obama, Joe (The Plagiurist) Biden, and Bill & Hillary (Lies with every word out of their mouths) Clinton would suddenly be touting the importance of honesty and factual accuracy is so far outside the realm of irony as to be ludicrous.
And of course Trump has neither said nor done anything that might correctly be called bigoted or misogynistic. Just sayin’…you know, since you’re so big on honesty and all.
Who is really more offensive though, Trump or guys like Bush and Jindal, who defund Planned Parenthood in their states, and act like that is some kind of grand accomplishment? Or Carson who wants a 10% flat tax because: God? Or all of the rest of the field seeking tax policies that blatantly favor the rich at the expense of the general population?
I’d rather have a president Sanders, or Clinton, maybe Biden I don’t know yet, but if it has to be a Republican, right now Trump seems the lesser evil to me.
The invasion of Normandy involved 7 divisions headed by 3 countries. It involved land, sea and air forces: the German conservatives only had to play defense. There were many, many moving parts. But Eisenhower took full responsibility for the mission anyway. In the end American, Canadian, Soviet and British troops crushed the opposition.
Trump was put in charge of a family run business: he never had to answer to the stock market and never had to issue a quarterly report. The lines of responsibility and control were far simpler than they are in government be it military or the Presidency: heck they were far simpler than most Fortune 500 Presidents face when they have to report to a board of directors.
Leaders lead. Whiners point fingers. Blowhards paper their ignorance with insults.
The point you’ve seemed to miss incidentally[sup]1[/sup], is that Trump has led a rather lavish lifestyle with his yachts, mansions, celebrity parties and the like. That’s a pretty large source of leakage. Give his lifestyle choices, expecting his net worth to grow at the S&P 500 rate (dividends invested) sets the bar rather high. But jeez, you really should at least beat inflation: you should have a non-trivial and positive inflation adjusted return, during an era where both the stock and property markets performed remarkably well.
And when private objective estimates of your net worth are less than a tenth of your own estimates, well it’s actually pretty funny.
Let’s review.
Deutsche Bank: $785 million.
Donald Trump: TEN BILLION DOLLARS!!!
[sup]1[/sup]Sheesh, you’re slipping SA. Point 2 is that the other bank had a somewhat higher estimate of Trump’s wealth, possibly moving the rate of the return from shitty to mediocre. Still much worse than the stock market. But a big improvement.
You don’t want a high energy and untested football coach running the country. Unlike a sitting US Senator or Representative, Trump hasn’t been exposed to policy on a daily basis. Trump’s public statements have indicated that he’s far more moderate than most Washington Republicans (though ironically he’s not that far out of line with a good part of the GOP electorate). But objectively he will end up working with Republicans on capital hill, and frankly he lacks the experience and cunning of a Dick Cheney who can bend the bureaucracy to his will. Trump talks a good game, but he hasn’t a clue about what he’s doing.
I do respect his insight as a political commentator though and his grasp of the GOP zeitgeist. His skill set may be wacky, but he is certainly a force to reckoned with - a force of nature really.
I suppose I might give brief consideration to a failed Fortune 500 CEO/ failed politician like Fiorina if she could display some of her native intelligence. But so far she’s punched under her weight with a workmanlike recital of GOP talking points. Admittedly that’s what she has been called to do. But unlike other candidates, she has no track record of political or electoral accomplishments. She has to clear a higher bar if she wants the support of responsible conservatives.
I actually sort of agree with this. Let’s say -hypothetically- Trump is actually running for the Presidency. That’s not my best guess by the way. But even if this is the case, I’m guessing he has a plan B.
I also guess that not all has gone according to plan[sup]1[/sup] but… given his business, Trump understands that no plan survives contact with the enemy. He figures he can improvise/bullshit his way out of the situation businesswise, and frankly I agree with him. I’m actually looking forward to learning whether he can successfully leverage all this. The guy has a string of misfires to his name (most importantly Trump University, which I predict will be the source of devastating attack ads next year), but I’d honestly like to see the guy pull some rabbits out of his hat.
Trump Steaks!
ETA: Plan B involves the entertainment industry. Evidence: Many many of his tweets stress the ratings that he pulls in.
[sup]1[/sup]See the cancelled contracts by NBC and Univision.
Well, maybe in the sense that restaurants are lying sacks of shit because their actual food doesn’t look anything like it does on their menus.
Trump, foremost, is a promoter. And promoters are always inclined to shade the truth in their favor to make their products look more appealing. Pretty much every person and every company with something to sell does it.
Now Barry, Bill & Hill? Those are some world-class liars right there! And yet people of your apparent ilk treat them like rock stars. (Well, the first two anyway, the third has still been your early odds-on favorite to win the White House a couple of times now.)
Until you people start suitably condemning that crowd for their countless lies and deceptions you’ll continue to look completely silly and hypocritical for whinging about Trump’s various gildings of the lily.
As a sad irony I noticed a web headline noting that at the same time Trump is disparaging “anchor” babies, dead babies wash up on the beaches of Europe and Turkey.
Condition number three is was in effect in France several years ago when someone I knew wanted to live the expatriot life there for a few years. If you wanted to stay longer than you could with a visa you had to substantiate that you had some sort of specialized job lined up that likely couldn’t be filled by a French citizen, and/or that you had the means to support yourself while there and pay your way home should France at some point want you to leave.
Perhaps you aren’t aware it but these types of restrictions are very common among most first and second world countries. Probably a fair number of third world ones too. I don’t know of any country anywhere that allows unfettered immigration for anyone who wants it.
