Donald Trump

[Roger Bissell]

8 hours ago, PDS said:

Whatever happened to Rand Paul, i wonder?   I loved his first speech when he announced and jabbed Hillary pretty good.   But he faded so quickly after that...

I think he saw the writing on the wall regarding his re-election to the Senate being in jeopardy. The rich, liberal mayor of Louisville - a Democrat - is running against him in the fall, and the DNC has supposedly targeted him as one of those (if not the one) they'd most like to replace.

I'm thinking of helping out his campaign. He is almost a neighbor, living little more than an hour away from me. Wish he lived in Tennessee.

REB

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, Robert Campbell said:

Michael,

 

 

Telling people who are not receiving your message that they must be hurting is what a certain kind of Christian missionary does. 

 

 

This might happen when, politely indicating your lack of interest in the offering, you’ve handed back the pamphlet with the crude cartoons of a disordered life with Ego on the throne and of a harmonious life with Jesus in charge.  

 

 

The reaction is not empathic; it isn't a response to anything that the missionary has actually noticed about you.  It’s purest top-down reasoning.  What other motive, besides an unacknowledged spiritual deficiency, could there ever be not to accept the message?

 

 

I'm making the comparison with missionaries, because his followers really do seem to be envisioning Donald Trump as a Messiah.  Where they see a savior, I see a guy who knows how to sell things on TV, who has charisma (albeit the sort that leaves me completely cold), who can give his pitch all day long and knows how to keep the words flowing with scarcely a hesitation pause.  He doesn't have much of a program, and his followers find that a good thing, not a bad one.  He has no discernible principles, and they love him for that too.

 

 

Of course, he's not shouting and employing his gestural repertoire on behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Instead, he seems to be encouraging his audience to get revenge.  It's frequently not clear on whom, but that doesn't appear to matter.

 

 

If we take the man’s words literally (something his followers strongly discourage), we might infer that, more than any other extant human being, Xi Jinping is the author of Americans’ present woes.

 

 

Whether you are out of work, or you aren’t but your part of the country is seeing factories close, or you're worried about terrorist attacks, or just tired of expensive, crrappy services from governmental monopolies, or you have Bush fatigue, or you have Obama fatigue, or you wish Mitch McConnell would follow John Boehner into retirement, or the LIRR is going putt-putt-putt-putt-putt again on your ride to work, what’s diminishing every aspect of America is CHIIiina.  

 

 

Of course, the maximum ruler of CHIIiina lives 12,000 miles away, well protected by a major military establishment.  Those trade concessions on which Trump insists, he will not be able to compel the Chinese power structure to yield up. (And, unless Trump goes so far as to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization, the WTO isn't going to be siding with Trump on much of anything he's demanding.)

 

 

But there are people closer by, easier to reach, much easier to humiliate, discredit, defeat than Xi Jinping (or Shinzo Abe or Enrique Peña Nieto or even Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi).  For Trump, these are the vast crew that has enabled CHIIiina and other predatory foreign powers—or submitted to them, usually upon payment by (unnamed) special interests.   A lot of them are Republicans, and some of them have actually run against Donald Trump (or endorsed someone who has run against him).  

 

 

Their actual character, their actual performance? 

 

 

Irrelevant.  

 

 

Donald Trump sees them as standing in his way. 

 

 

So he has formed an instant desire for revenge, and he has no intention of ever letting go of it.  He'll never stop belittling them, calling them looooosers, demanding they beg his forgiveness.  (I doubt that, if nominated, he will be able to restrain himself from daily rips at his former Republican rivals and their supporters, even though his attention will be supposed to be fully riveted on the Democrat.)  

 

 

His followers take his example to heart.  Whatever it is that they want revenge for (they have different grievances, and none, we may be fairly sure, actually share Trump’s own), they can take it out on any of the targets that Trump has provided for them.  

 

 

It doesn't matter who Ted Cruz is, who Scott Walker is, who John Kasich is, who anyone named Bush is, who Mitt Romney is, who Mitch McConnell is, who anyone is, what any of them have done, what any of them haven't done, all he has to do is point the finger at them, and.... REVENGE!!!!

 

 

This is what makes the Trump campaign so effective at driving people apart.  For if you are not with Trump, you are accorded a brief grace period to view the proofs of sanctity.  And if they do not suffice for you, you become part of the Establishment (in other words, all that is non-Trump).  And, in your turn, you become a fit target for … REVENGE!!!!

 

 

Such social dynamics end one of two ways.  

 

 

Trumpism sweeps away all remaining opposition, because otherwise … REVENGE!!!!  OK, a lot of the former opposition is not converted.  It’s now merely keeping quiet.  (But who cares? They all deserved to be silenced, anyway.)

 

 

Or it runs up against resistance.  Resistance actually fortified, dug in by all those calls for REVENGE!!!

 

 

This is how the Trump campaign makes enemies out of friends.

 

 

Am I disconcerted by your decision to jump on the Trump Train?

 

 

Not nearly as much as I was, quite a few years ago, by Dr. Brickell Mertz Brickell’s decision to cross the into Castle Irvine, before they hauled it the drawbridge.

 

 

But I do get the feeling that, after one crosses over into Trump Ground, it will be as when one crosses over into St. Leonard’s.  The call will soon come down to denounce one’s former companions in iniquity.

 

 

And that hurts.

 

 

On the other hand, affiliation with the Ayn Rand Institute turned out to be its own punishment.  Consider how the prospect of locking up the nomination isn’t making Donald Trump and his cheerleaders more thoughtful, but pushing them to new heights of hypocrisy and incoherency, I’m inclined to think the same about passing over into Trump ground.

 

 

Robert

 

 

 

 

 

 

It might help to think of Trump as an unchocked shotgun. So far. Now that he seems to have the nomination his foreign policy speech seems to indicate some tampering down. But if he becomes President his shotgun will be chocked--by law, custom, culture, bureaucracy, economics, etc. Doesn't mean he can't pull the trigger at the wrong time at the wrong target, but he isn't going to run wild.

This entire is it a fiasco is it not a fiasco? is essentially three steps delineated. Getting the nomination is the first step. Running a general election campaign is second. Being a President third. The first we have a good and blatant idea of and it's almost done. The second is being slightly and slowly revealed. The third will determine how quick a study he really is about what is and is not important.

--Brant

(I'm not closing up the formatting on Robert's post to illustrate one of the on again off again problems from the still buggy new software--I just quoted him; I did not put in all that blank space)

[Roger Bissell]

34 minutes ago, Robert Campbell said:

Am I disconcerted by your decision to jump on the Trump Train? Not nearly as much as I was, quite a few years ago, by Dr. Brickell Mertz Brickell’s decision to cross the into Castle Irvine, before they hauled it the drawbridge. But I do get the feeling that, after one crosses over into Trump Ground, it will be as when one crosses over into St. Leonard’s.  The call will soon come down to denounce one’s former companions in iniquity. And that hurts.

On the other hand, affiliation with the Ayn Rand Institute turned out to be its own punishment.  Consider how the prospect of locking up the nomination isn’t making Donald Trump and his cheerleaders more thoughtful, but pushing them to new heights of hypocrisy and incoherency, I’m inclined to think the same about passing over into Trump ground.

 

I'm not sure the parallels are as extensive as this, but there is definitely some important truth in what you say. Robert.

1. I'm not aware that any of the Trumpanistas, either local or express, have dared as did Ms. Dr. Brickell Mertz Hsieh Brickell to actually engineer a palace coup. A few years back and not long after she had galloped off from TAS (then TOC) and lobbed some highly rationalized stink bombs at every significant non-ARI person who had helped her along the way, I witnessed an ARI Q&A session in which she tried to put St. Leonard on the spot about when (other than when Nazis are at the door) it might be morally permissible to tell a lie. I don't know whether someone behind the scenes put her up to it (using her as intellectual cannon fodder, as it were), or whether she did it on her own. But the reaction to this "impertinence" was the well-deserved beginning of the end, the administering of Primacy of Karma, to Comrade Sonia. I'm not sure what she's doing now, but I would wager that her hopes and chances of breaking into the ARI Inner Circle have been justifiably reduced to .somewhere between slim and none.

2. Also, there really seems to be little reason for MSK et al to treat their erstwhile friends the same way, even if some significant position in Trump-Land were dangled before them. Sad to say, stomping us would just not have the same octane rating for Trump and his Inner Circle as Diana's stomping the Brandens, Chris Sciabarra, and David Kelley had for the folks at ARI who were salivating at stealing away practically the only authentically "best and brightest" in Kelley's stable of graduate students. That's why it's highly unlikely that an entry requirement to Trump-Land would require savaging people on such a minor, out of the way place as OL. No offense, MSK, but this place just does not loom high on Trump's radar (or hit list), like Kelley's beleaguered group does to the Peikovians.

However, 3, I do see a similar ratcheting up of bizarreness and inconsistency in both the Trumpanistas' arguments (here and in the media) and Diana's whacked-out critiques of the above-mentioned former friends, now "Enemies of Objectivism." So, perhaps "Enemies of Trump" had better either keep silent or "pass over into Trump ground," eh?

REB

[Brant Gaede]

Diana thought it was about morality. The Brandens were revealed (to her) to be immoral so the natural default to morality seemed to be the Peikovian crowd. But for that crowd it was about power. What a shock it must have been to find the low value there of ratiocination. One does not substantially question Leonard Peikoff. He got that from Ayn Rand. He got her wrong right that way.

You can get pretty obnoxious if you think you're on the right hand of God.

Regardless, she always knew less than she thought she knew but didn't yet understand how knowledge breeds modesty. So off to war she went.

(To cap it off she thought she was qualified to advise others in some kind of priest-like function. Philosophy in Action? Objectivism in action? It's all top-downism, the fatal flaw--of Atlas Shrugged on to the ARI end.)

This seems to be the inevitable fate of youth. College campuses are full of righteous ignorance, which is the main source of their power and charm, now true and historically true. The kids don't know they're in jail with their teachers. They stick around as long as they like it. They think it's relief from their previously stricter incarceration. True. If they're smart they fornicate like rabbits and party, party, party*.

--Brant Who Is Not Afraid To Say Too Much

*all - night - long!

[KorbenDallas]

As a Trump supporter, if you don't choose Him you're gonna burn in Hell!
 

SINNERS!

 

[moralist]

5 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Rand Paul never recovered from his hair.

--Brant

Isn't that the truth, Brant?

Rand always looked like he just got out of the shower!

 

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

14 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

I'm making the comparison with missionaries, because his followers really do seem to be envisioning Donald Trump as a Messiah.

Robert,

I'm trying hard to make some sense out of your post, but it is awfully hard.

You talk of Messiah and revenge and so on, comparing me to Diana Brickell (formerly Hsieh), saying I am going to denounce my friends later and God knows what else.

I have no idea what you are talking about--literally. I'm serious. 

I have no wish to be a part of a Trump administration or gain power in anything. I merely saw my chance to help Donald Trump get elected president in my small corner of the universe and I did what I could, which was mostly keeping this thread going and posting online at a few other places. Why did I do that? Because I think Trump will be a great president, much better than anyone else who ran this cycle. As an American citizen who does care about this country, supporting Trump for president is the best way I found to help out.

(This election has also been a rich case study in human nature and media, but that part was in addition to my stumping.)

Neither Trump nor his supporters are going to exact any revenge against those who will be removed from power by his election--not unless they believe irrelevance is revenge. And that they will become--irrelevant. 

Trump is going to dismantle the neocon Endless War machine and put peaceful trade in its place. But he is not going to persecute neocons or people who opposed him. I have no idea where you get this kind of notion. He may mouth off back, but persecute and exact revenge through state force? I just don't see it.

Granted, he may allow the FBI and Justice Department to finish its job with Hillary Clinton on the email scandal, but that's not out of revenge. That's merely because she broke the law big time and flaunted it to the four winds.

You may find this hard to swallow, but I believe Donald Trump is one of the most principled men ever to run for high office. Not a Messiah. A principled producer. He does not express his principles in the standard jargon accepted in O-Land and he has street smarts, but by God he lives by his principles. He builds beautiful stuff that he sells to others on a free and open market and is proud of it. And he does not make his money with war. He makes it by producing stuff. Also, unlike the formal O-Land organizations that preach the virtues of capitalism, profit and the free market, Trump does not make his money from charity and donations. He lives and dies by capitalistic trade.

I can't help but notice that pro-Trump people are welcoming, orderly, behaved people who are immune to learning hatred like that you express. You are not the only anti-Trump person I know who lives in such hatred, either. There are several I know personally. But I know of no Trump supporter who does likewise. Maybe a fringe wacko here and there, but you get hateful wackos with supporters of almost anything and anyone. Anyway, you guys (the people I know) are not fringe wackos.

Notice when a Trump supporter misbehaves, the press has to run the same clip over and over, like say an 80 year old man who cold-cocked a taunting protestor. Why does the press have to repeat the same clip so much? Simply because there is nothing else to run. Trump rallies are peaceful--nothing like the Baltimore riots. Where are the buildings being trashed and cars burning? There are none at Trump events.

In general, if you talk to a Trump supporter in this election, he talks back in a friendly manner. Anti-Trump people, on the other hand, have behaved more like angry cultists who feel attacked. Sorry, but this is true. 

I, myself, have been called all kinds of names by people I like when I have expressed my support of Trumpo. I have been barred from talking to certain people. I have been told I am unprincipled, that I only think with my emotions, that I worship a Trump Messiah (you yourself say that), and on and on and on. 

Now Trump is winning and it seems like this is the worst sin in the world. Freedom as we know it is going to become Nazism. The American experiment is over. The sky is falling...

Sorry, but I'm happy Trump is winning. I meant it when I supported him and I still mean it. But it's an election and nothing more. 

I was deeply disappointed when Obama won the election--twice. But I took it like a man. This is the way America works. I don't recall ever behaving like I have been treated by anti-Trump people, nor do I recall anti-Trump people ever treating Obama supporters the way they treat Trump supporters. Why is their passionate hatred reserved for Trump and not for Hillary or Obama, or even worse, actual dictators out there in the world? I always see them talk against these enemies of freedom, but I rarely see in them the same passion as when they get on their anti-Trump harrangues.

It makes you wonder why such people want to eat their own...

If you are worried that I will gain some kind of position with some kind of political organization that will eventually demand I betray my former friends, then suffer the indignation of being expelled, you are not living in the same mental worldspace I am. If there is any danger of me moving on, it would be toward my writing career or another venture I am currently engaged in--something productive. I don't ever intend on working for the government.

But I have no plans of walking away from RandLand and I do have plans about eventually fostering a culture where people will write fiction, entertainment, videos, movies, etc., even self-help, with inspiration in Rand's work and ideas. 

None of this has anything to do with Trump. 

Whatever it is that is bugging you, I do feel the hurt. As your friend, it bothers me to see that. I want to help, but I don't know what to do about it. I'm not going to stop being me. You see one thing in Trump, I see another and that pains you. Your opinion contrary to mine does not pain me. Well... at least you are not one of the ones calling me awful names (yet  ). 

I'm going to read your post again, try to digest it better and see if I can figure out what on earth you are talking about.

Michael

[moralist]

2 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

As a Trump supporter, if you don't choose Him you're gonna burn in Hell!
 

SINNERS!

 

I'm not one of those.

I like both Donald and Ted... and whoever chooses Hillary is already in hell!

Greg

[PDS]

14 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Rand Paul never recovered from his hair.

--Brant

If bon mots were cards, this would be a pair of aces.  One of your best, Brant!  

[Brant Gaede]

9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Robert,

I'm trying hard to make some sense out of your post, but it is awfully hard.

You talk of Messiah and revenge and so on, comparing me to Diana Brickell (formerly Hsieh), saying I am going to denounce my friends later and God knows what else.

I have no idea what you are talking about--literally. I'm serious. 

I have no wish to be a part of a Trump administration or gain power in anything. I merely saw my chance to help Donald Trump get elected president in my small corner of the universe and I did what I could, which was mostly keeping this thread going and posting online at a few other places. Why did I do that? Because I think Trump will be a great president, much better than anyone else who ran this cycle. As an American citizen who does care about this country, supporting Trump for president is the best way I found to help out.

(This election has also been a rich case study in human nature and media, but that part was in addition to my stumping.)

Neither Trump nor his supporters are going to exact any revenge against those who will be removed from power by his election--not unless they believe irrelevance is revenge. And that they will become--irrelevant. 

Trump is going to dismantle the neocon Endless War machine and put peaceful trade in its place. But he is not going to persecute neocons or people who opposed him. I have no idea where you get this kind of notion. He may mouth off back, but persecute and exact revenge through state force? I just don't see it.

Granted, he may allow the FBI and Justice Department to finish its job with Hillary Clinton on the email scandal, but that's not out of revenge. That's merely because she broke the law big time and flaunted it to the four winds.

You may find this hard to swallow, but I believe Donald Trump is one of the most principled men ever to run for high office. Not a Messiah. A principled producer. He does not express his principles in the standard jargon accepted in O-Land and he has street smarts, but by God he lives by his principles. He builds beautiful stuff that he sells to others on a free and open market and is proud of it. And he does not make his money with war. He makes it by producing stuff. Also, unlike the formal O-Land organizations that preach the virtues of capitalism, profit and the free market, Trump does not make his money from charity and donations. He lives and dies by capitalistic trade.

I can't help but notice that pro-Trump people are welcoming, orderly, behaved people who are immune to learning hatred like that you express. You are not the only anti-Trump person I know who lives in such hatred, either. There are several I know personally. But I know of no Trump supporter who does likewise. Maybe a fringe wacko here and there, but you get hateful wackos with supporters of almost anything and anyone. Anyway, you guys (the people I know) are not fringe wackos.

Notice when a Trump supporter misbehaves, the press has to run the same clip over and over, like say an 80 year old man who cold-cocked a taunting protestor. Why does the press have to repeat the same clip so much? Simply because there is nothing else to run. Trump rallies are peaceful--nothing like the Baltimore riots. Where are the buildings being trashed and cars burning? There are none at Trump events.

In general, if you talk to a Trump supporter in this election, he talks back in a friendly manner. Anti-Trump people, on the other hand, have behaved more like angry cultists who feel attacked. Sorry, but this is true. 

I, myself, have been called all kinds of names by people I like when I have expressed my support of Trumpo. I have been barred from talking to certain people. I have been told I am unprincipled, that I only think with my emotions, that I worship a Trump Messiah (you yourself say that), and on and on and on. 

Now Trump is winning and it seems like this is the worst sin in the world. Freedom as we know it is going to become Nazism. The American experiment is over. The sky is falling...

Sorry, but I'm happy Trump is winning. I meant it when I supported him and I still mean it. But it's an election and nothing more. 

I was deeply disappointed when Obama won the election--twice. But I took it like a man. This is the way America works. I don't recall ever behaving like I have been treated by anti-Trump people, nor do I recall anti-Trump people ever treating Obama supporters the way they treat Trump supporters. Why is their passionate hatred reserved for Trump and not for Hillary or Obama, or even worse, actual dictators out there in the world? I always see them talk against these enemies of freedom, but I rarely see in them the same passion as when they get on their anti-Trump harrangues.

It makes you wonder why such people want to eat their own...

If you are worried that I will gain some kind of position with some kind of political organization that will eventually demand I betray my former friends, then suffer the indignation of being expelled, you are not living in the same mental worldspace I am. If there is any danger of me moving on, it would be toward my writing career or another venture I am currently engaged in--something productive. I don't ever intend on working for the government.

But I have no plans of walking away from RandLand and I do have plans about eventually fostering a culture where people will write fiction, entertainment, videos, movies, etc., even self-help, with inspiration in Rand's work and ideas. 

None of this has anything to do with Trump. 

Whatever it is that is bugging you, I do feel the hurt. As your friend, it bothers me to see that. I want to help, but I don't know what to do about it. I'm not going to stop being me. You see one thing in Trump, I see another and that pains you. Your opinion contrary to mine does not pain me. Well... at least you are not one of the ones calling me awful names (yet  ). 

I'm going to read your post again, try to digest it better and see if I can figure out what on earth you are talking about.

Michael

I never took Obama "like a man." Why? Because I never took him--for anything.

The primary virtue of this thread is your consistency. It's its backbone. Everybody who reads it can therefore make soon orientated sense on what everybody is saying.

Unlike President Zero I'll take Trump until I can't take him any more.

We understand why the progressive-liberal elites hate Trump, but the conservatives? I think it's because they know or fear they won't be able to address him and influence him. All the talking classes will be straight in their faces, blatantly out of work. A lot of them--not all--have been living pretend existences, for not decades--generations.

Because Trump is quite the Democrat in Republican clothing, the lefties may try to appease him, especially if he significantly gains in the polls against Clinton post the conventions. The problem with that is he's not a Democrat who wants to fuck America, which is what the progressives want to do, always. There used to be a lot of prominent Democrats who cared about America, such as "Scoop" Jackson. Now it's a Congress of fat whores.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

41 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Because Trump is quite the Democrat in Republican clothing...

Brant,

That is not exactly true. Let me give you one example--and keep watching to see if it works out this way.

On the issue of Social Security, Trump said he is not going to mess with it.

Well, it's easy to claim he's a Democrat based on this, until you dig a little deeper. If Social Security did not exist, I don't think Trump would ever enact it. Why? Because at root, I'm almost sure he believes that retirement accounts is something the government should not be managing.

So why will he not mess with it, then? For the simple reason that the government made a deal with its citizens and Trump wants to make sure the government honors its end. It's that simple.

I expect him to plant the seeds of phasing out Social Security by making parts of it, then probably all of it, optional for younger people. But for older people who have paid all their lives, he will make sure they get their due consideration (in the legal sense).

That is not a Democrat. That is a man who does not want to welch on a deal the organization he will come to command made in the past. I believe he finds it repugnant to take people's money for years, then when they get near retirement, say the rules of the deal have changed, which many constitutionalists are even saying right now.

I don't think Trump minds getting the USA out of a deal it made with the bad guys (like the Iran deal), but not with the good guys (like the American citizens--who had that imposed on them, anyway).

This is how I grok Trump and I imagine many, many others do, too.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Wishful thinking? I don't know. For now Trump has out-smarted everybody, but maybe himself too. That is, maybe, as some have said, he never expected to get this far.

If the Rep. Party doesn't let him get a straight up first round vote, but change the rules to cut him off at the knees, he'll blow the whole thing up. If he gets his first round vote--the delegates he has earned--but not enough, I doubt if he'll get in on any other ballot. What then? Who knows?

I want Trump now instead of Cruz because of Cruz's recent deportment with that other guy--Kraish. Cruz is of, by and for the elite. What is characteristic of the elite is inability to understand and address the disaffected electorate. For the Republicans, it's the Tea Party. It goes deeper than that, however, for Trump seems to be addressing some disaffected Democrats too--blue collar guys, hence some intimations of thuggery characteristic of union goons.

I don't think the polls showing Clinton with a double percentage lead over Trump are going to mean much. I think Trump will eat her alive. Cruz might run circles around Clinton in debates with his brains and knowledge, but not address the alligator brains amongst the voters who will simply stay at home while those to the polls will hit their party defaults. Trump, however, will put his alligator brain, plus pithy speech-writing from guys with real brain content he may not have, right into her face. You'll watch her hair blow back on that. It doesn't matter if the Clintons were "invited" and came to his wedding. When it comes to his (weak) ego he'll ride her like a horse. Ironically, it's Ted Cruz who has the real, true, proper and strong ego. Without the felt need by Cruz to strike back realized, the Democrats will win in November. And, of course, the mainstream media will have to continue to give Trump all the free publicity because if they don't their corporate masters will fire them. Their masters care about money. The minions care about ideology. They get to keep their Toohey crap as long as it doesn't conflict with the ratings. Wynand is in control that way.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The left, especially the Latino left, staged some violence outside of Trump's rally in Southern California (see here for instance).

There are now pictures of bloodied Trump supporters, a leftist protester jumping up and down on a cop car, a Trump supporter praying inside her car as a swarm trashes her vehicle and so on.

The people inside the rally were peacefully watching Trump's rally and listening to the stories of people who had loved ones murdered by illegal immigrants. They had no idea that was going on outside.

Later I might post some of the images--or not. This might be a flash in the pan. I suspect it will not be, though... let's see.

At any rate, I would like to thank the left, especially the Latino left, in Southern California for helping to elect Donald Trump. They are feeding right into his message about illegal immigrants and growing violence with all the images, videos and actions any pro-Trump PR person could ever hope for.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

30 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Ironically, it's Ted Cruz who has the real, true, proper and strong ego.

Brant,

Are you sure about that? Cruz didn't mind playing dirty with friends, and he doesn't seem to be losing with grace.

I don't consider these qualities as indications of a "real, true, proper and strong ego." 

Wait until his loss is real for real and let's see what he does.

Michael

[moralist]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

I never took Obama "like a man."

That's because he isn't a man... he's a feminized liberal male who failed to grow to become a man.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Brant,

Are you sure about that? Cruz didn't mind playing dirty with friends, and he doesn't seem to be losing with grace.

I don't consider these qualities as indications of a "real, true, proper and strong ego." 

Wait until his loss is real for real and let's see what he does.

Michael

Okay. I just think he out-thinks his situations. No big deal. We'll see.

What is a big deal is the anti-Trump demonstrators in California, waving Mexican flags. They're being played like a fiddle. Oops! They just "broke through the barricades" trying to "storm" the Hyatt.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

A couple of incidents should remind everyone that Donald Trump is not really opposed to the Republican Party Establishment.

He's opposed to what he calls the Establishment.  But all that means to him is, "whoever's not with Donald Trump."

The John Boehner remark, about Cruz being "Lucifer in the flesh" is the smaller of the two.  Boehner also boasted of playing golf with the Donald, and exchanging texts with him, and said he'd vote for him (and not, of course, for Lucifer).

But Boehner is out of office, after being pushed out as Speaker of the House.  His potential utility either to a Trump campaign or to a Trump administration is nonzero, but not very high.

Still, there's the little matter of a Trump donation (August 19, 2012) of $100,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, run by Norm Coleman and Vin Weber (ex-Senator and ex-Congressman from Minnesota, hate the Tea Party, love doing what Democrats want done when they want it done), joined at the hip to John Boehner, and actively opposed to Tea Party candidates.  That was when Boehner was at the height of his power.

A much bigger deal is Trump's now-evident policy of sucking up to Mitch McConnell.

McConnell is far worse than Boehner was, and with any justice should have been pushed out first.  I suppose some went easier on him because he only became Majority Leader in 2015, while Boehner had been Speaker since 2011.  But it really came down to the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker (add your favorites to the list) exerting more clout in the Senate than Hal Rogers and Bill Shuster and Charlie Dent and Peter King (again, add your favorites) exert in the House.

The only way McConnell could have prevented Senate Democrats from obstructing appropriation bills, forcing the now-customary dilemma of Cromnibus or "government shutdown," would have been by holding their feet to the fire, calling the Senate into session over and over, holding votes over and over, till they got sick of it.  (Of course, this would have made life temporarily, moderately inconvenient for Republican Senators.)  A little bit of counternuking (after Harry Reid had already partly nuked the filibuster) wouldn't have hurt, either, and would have served the Democrats right.  You know, like abolishing the filibuster on appropriation bills.

Let's not even get into Obama's Iran deal, which McConnell could have insisted was a treaty.  In fact, as leader of the Senate it was his job to insist it was a treaty.

Nope, Bill Clinton's most effective countermeasure against Republican Congresses remains intact, to be wielded by every future Democrat in the White House.  More widely, McConnell has been so ineffectual that Harry Reid is basically still in charge of the Senate.  The only thing McConnell's shown any zest for is stomping anyone who might upset business as usual (Cruz called him out as a liar over his false assurances regarding an attempt to renew the charter on the Export-Import Bank, which McConnell had said he would block).

In fact, McConnell's derelictions made Boehner's life much harder for him, before Boehner was pushed out, and will do the same for any Republican Speaker while McConnell is still pretending to run the Senate.

Anywhere you read or hear a defense of McConnell's conduct as Senate Majority Leader, you know it's coming from an apologist for the Republican Establishment.  

National Review runs a lot of apologetics for McConnell.  Commentary runs apologetics for McConnell.  The Wall Street Journal editorial board said it was against the Export-Import bank, but it was for McConnell.  In the end, Boehner and his Establishment crew banded together with McConnell and his, votes from Democrats did the rest, and Ex-Im was renewed.  Oh, the faint moan went up from the WSJ, it's too bad Ex-Im is back, but that has to be the fault of Ted Cruz and the Freedom Caucus.  The WSJ will probably still be defending McConnell when he's left office.

So Donald Trump wants McConnell out of there in the worst possible way, right?

So Donald Trump has realized you could get a better Majority Leader than Mitch McConnell by random selection from the other Republican Senators?

No he doesn't.

No, he hasn't.

The excerpt from Trump's speech in Rhode Island that I posted here, completely ignored by the Trump supporters, showed him mounting the exact kind of attack on Ted Cruz that Mitch McConnell would.  

You might have had to infer it there.  You don't have to infer it from other things he's saying.

In Indiana, Trump's now amplified a little: "the top man, Mitch McConnell, who is actually a good man, he calls him a liar.  You don't do things that way."

This is not just seizing on anything, absolutely anything, that Trump can use to re-stomp an opponent.

In fact, Trump has taken McConnell's side against Cruz on several previous occasions during the campaign.  And their ties go back farther.

We can see this in at least two ways.

First, Trump has given money to an organization McConnell started, with the specific aim of blocking Tea Party challenges either to McConnell himself, or to any other Establishment Republican Senator.

Some here might remember when McConnell was overheard on a conference call, saying of any Tea Party or other group that was trying to replace sitting Republican Senators, "we have to punch them in the nose."  Donald Trump helped him deliver that punch.  $60,000 worth of reinforcement behind that punch.  (In case nothing is really awful without a Bush connection, Karl Rove was also involved.)

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/is_trump_a_mcconnellrove_establishment_tool.html

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/menage-a-establishment-the-trump-boehner-mcconnell-love-triangle

Note: I don't buy theories that the present Trump campaign was purposely dialed up by the Republican Establishment.

But here's an amazing turn of events.

Against anyone who has crossed him, Trump pursues revenge.  Repeatedly, relentlessly, à l'outrance, even when it detracts from his current goal.

So what was McConnell doing, at the end of February?

Telling Republican Senators they had his blessing to run ads against Donald Trump, to help their chances of being reelected.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/mitch-mcconnell-republicans-will-drop-trump-like-a-hot-rock-if-he-wins-the-nomination/

And it hasn't been thunderbolt after anvil drop after death ray from Donald Trump?

He isn't running against Mitch McConnell every day?  

The guy who said to drop him like a hot rock?

Nope, backing him up.

There isn't even the customary demand that McConnell come crawling to Trump Tower for a small chance at forgiveness.

If anything, Donald Trump is sucking up to Mitch McConnell.

Sorry, folks.  Donald Trump is not fighting against the Republican Establishment.  He's fighting for it.

PS. Two House committee chairmen have now endorsed Trump.  The one from Jeff Miller may not be deserved, but it's worth touting.  The endorsement from Bill Shuster?  Again, one is not supposed to keep track of such things, because history began when the New Trump Era was proclaimed, in what is now NTE 1 but we used to call 2015.  Still, for those who ask the wrong questions, Bill Shuster is the son of the inimitable Bud Shuster, whose Congressional seat he practically inherited.   The Shuster Dynasty has basically worked like this: We're here in Congress to make sure Altoona, Pennsylvania gets the finest Federal highway projects that the suckers' taxpayers' money can buy.  You want a nice transportation project for your district, you'll have to make it worth our while.  Even better, Shuster, who has been dating a transportation lobbyist, just fended off a Tea Party challenger...  So who will be next onto the "anti-Establishment" Trump Train?  Hal Rogers (the Appropriations Committee chairman neither Boehner nor Ryan would get rid of)?

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/278008-transportation-chairman-endorses-donald-trump

Edited April 29, 2016 by Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

For the Republicans, it's the Tea Party.

Brant,

Do you think Donald Trump has any interest in the Tea Party, other than how hard he can stomp it?

Robert

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Robert Campbell said:

Sorry, folks.  Donald Trump is not fighting against the Republican Establishment.  He's fighting for it.

Robert,

Your post sounds like the way Cruz reasons when he comes to the conclusion that Trump wants an individual mandate for health insurance.

The only problem is, he doesn't. Debating skills don't help when people can see the contrary with their own two eyes.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Nifty interactive visual tool, with simple iframe embeds, from Graphiq.com (you  can sign up and chart your own selections of data):

RCP Poll Average for Republican Candidates vs. Clinton | InsideGov

Is it just me, or is The Presumptive Candidate inching up smidge by smidge against Madame Secretary in the polls (at least in the 'Which one stinks less for you today, if you had to vote today?' aggregates)?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is a post I just made elsewhere on Facebook (here on a Biddibob discussion) to a person who asked, in good faith, how I could say Trump was principled and my defense of him was, too.

Enjoy. I'm not going to use the quote feature:

===================================================================================

I have given your request some thought and I am having difficulty finding common ground. Let me start with a statement I believe will make Robert [Bidinotto] gag, but I think Donald Trump is one of the most principled men ever to run for the presidency. The problem is how to put this in words for people who despise him.

It starts with looking at Trump's achievements, which I see as magnificent, rational, etc., and anti-Trump people find trivial at best. Usually, they dismiss Trump's achievements as the result of political pull, corruption or even inheritance. 

There's a passage in Atlas Shrugged (during the John Galt Line run) where Dagny is musing over the morality of train engine design and construction saying every piece was an answer to a question of what it is for according to its nature, and if one of those answers ever came up wrong, the entire thing would crash. It required the strictest adherence to a code of reason for the engine to run at all. That reality and abstraction had to be linked correctly for the thing to work. Those are not her exact words, but that is the gist of them.

When I read arguments from anti-Trump people from a Randian perspective, they call Trump a pragmatist, narcissist and so on. Rather than repeat what I and others have written (which is a lot), I want to provide a link to a defense of Trump as not a pragmatist from a person who does not like ARI (his name is Mark and his site is ARI Watch). I often disagree with him, but in this particular article, he got a hell of a lot right.

http://ariwatch.com/FearAndLoathingOfDonaldTrump.htm

To quote from that article (the quote is separated by double lines): 

===============================

Donald Trump is a real estate developer. He master-manages the design, construction and management of office buildings, hotels and residential buildings at the high-end of the market. He has been extraordinarily successful, starting with a few million dollars inherited as a young man and turning it into several billion. 

How did he do it? If the organized Objectivists at the Ayn Rand Institute – call them OrgOists – can be believed, he used the pragmatic approach, pragmatic in the philosophic sense of the word. He unthinkingly purchased a plot of land, chose a random architect, random general contractors, random equipment manufacturers, random managers, and when the building fell down he scrapped it and started over again. And again, until eventually the building stood up, at least for a while – until “it worked.”

Yes, it’s ridiculous. The equivalent of The Three Stooges didn’t build New York’s Trump Tower. The OrgOists refuse to see the focus and dedication it took Trump to build, time and again, “on time, under budget, top quality” to quote one admirer. The OrgOists sneer (we’ll provide extended quotes with references later) “Trump is a pragmatist.” You should be so pragmatic.

===============================

I don't believe the people on both sides of the contrasting ways of seeing Trump (on the right) are dishonest, but I do believe they think differently. So the problem is epistemological, not political. If you are familiar with Ayn Rand's writings (which I believe you are), you realize that epistemology is more important in the conceptual hierarchy for philosophy than politics.

So before we get to talking about individual rights, free markets and limited government, we have to think about how we think. I'm not trying to make a cute turn of phrase to detour the topic. I mean this literally.

Using reason to me means a very specific sequence in an otherwise automated brain. I must identify something correctly and make sure of that, then I can follow with my principles, past knowledge, evaluation and so forth. Once I get the cognitive concept right, I can apply normative abstractions.

The sequence for reason to the other kind of perspective means thinking through a principle at one point in life, but then automatically judging everything from there on out according to that principle, even before any new thing is identified correctly. 

The danger of reification of principles, especially moral principles and by extension political principles, making them the equivalent of metaphysical facts, is that this clouds your vision and makes you literally not see things. It's necessary because of how the brain works (long discussion), it's a great short cut, and it establishes a great code to guide man's choices of values. But a principle is not the reality value in itself. It is a code for choosing that value.

Trump uses the first kind of sequence and does it the way I do it (identify then judge). This is not pragmatism, although it is called that by people who do the second sequence--and these last are people like ideological conservatives or traditional Objectivists and so forth.

So Trump's main principle in business, and I believe in government, is using reason according to the identify correctly to be able to judge correctly sequence. Even when he appeals to right-brain or lower-brain resonance in his marketing, he does so because he identified the human brain correctly and knows this stuff works.

The people who put ideology first try to impose their mental model on the world irrespective of context, and often irrespective of the reality they look at right in front of them.

Using reason Trump's way (and my way), means you fight for individual rights, free markets and limited government when you are reasonably sure these things will be observed by everyone. I.e., when bullies or other bad guys hanging around are contained. When there is a way to prevent them from doing what they always do.

In the ideology first manner, you fight for these principles (individual rights and so on), but think everyone will observe them somehow, that self-defense will keep the bad guys contained--and that it will all work out in the end if only the right laws get passed.

I could elaborate with some concrete examples, but this post is too long as it is, and it is getting to the point of abusing the space of someone I care about, Robert. 

In the end, I believe we have to use both sequences in using our reason, but this is a long, long discussion. 

At any rate, it is an identification mistake to claim that Trump is unprincipled. I think people make that mistake mostly when they have already judged Trump negatively (usually based on applying their principles to media narratives and the like) and are looking for facts to back that judgment up. In other words, they are leading with the model in their minds (the principles), and then looking to see what they can see that fits.

If they did the other sequence, they would start by looking at Trump's massive number of top-quality achievements and asking what kind of mind produces them. This is what most Trump supporters do--they do it in their own words, but they do it. And since they generally use the first sequence in their private professions and pursuits (identify then judge), they resonate with Trump's way of thinking. 

Please note, they all have principles and are committed to them, just like you are. Regardless of what Trump or Trump supporters call it, they just start with epistemology rather than politics.

I don't expect to persuade you, but at least I hope you can see that there is some deep thought involved and that Trump's appeal is much more than simple mind control or propaganda or (Robert's current favorite thing) narrative.

I wish you well.

 

===================================================================================

Michael

[william.scherk]

From the same set of tools and data:  

Donald Trump Presidential Candidate Profile | InsideGov

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Trump is milking it...

 

And man is he going to milk it further.

These thugs think they are going to prevail this time.

Ain't gonna happen.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Trump had to hop a fence.

He said it felt like he was crossing the border.

 

Michael

[Selene]

Just now, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Trump had to hop a fence.

He said it felt like he was crossing the border.

 

Michael

They are running the marxist playbook and it is perfect blunder pitch for Trump to smack out of the park....

Fools.

I am waiting for some of our rational brethren here on OL to accept what an incredible achievement is apparently going to occur.

Keep this a secret Michael ... it appears that Trump's delegate total just reached 1,001...

A....