One Red State diarist wonders whether Trumps four-day journey from gracious concession to sober self-reflection about his ground game to shrieking about fraud and a do-over in Iowa to low-key its in the past dismissal means that hes actually insane. Old theory: Trump is erratic. New theory: Trump is bananas.
I dont think hes bananas. I think this is what it looks like when a candidate decides to test out new lines of attack in real time, with the entirety of the media hanging on his every word, instead of with focus groups behind closed doors.
In a striking reversal of rhetoric, Donald Trump would not rule out Ted Cruz as his hypothetical vice-presidential pick.
Well, I dont know. Look, I have nothing against him. It was sort of a sad thing that happened, but Ive always liked him, Trump told Hugh Hewitt on his radio show Thursday, after weeks of trashing his primary rival as nasty, hypocritical and disliked.
Trump added that he has always gotten along well with Cruz, but that Im so much now focused on New Hampshire.
What happened between Wednesday and now? My guess is that Trump concluded that crying fraud! over Iowa had backfired, partly because it made him look erratic and sore-loser-ish and partly because it risked annoying New Hampshirites who dont want to spend their week listening to Trump re-run someone elses election. Thats where the part about being so much focused on New Hampshire comes in. He said nearly the same thing verbatim to Anderson Cooper last night in the interview Ed blogged earlier, suggesting that thats his new message when asked about the results of the caucus even though that message, that the past is the past, is 180 degrees opposite his demand for a do-over 48 hours ago. Whats going to happen tomorrow night when hes inevitably asked about fraud in Iowa, probably in the opening minutes of the debate? Even if he tries to duck it, Cruz is going to use it as evidence that Trumps too unpredictable and prone to Trumper tantrums to be president. Does Trump double down on fraud! at the point or does he double down on lets move on? There seems to have been no strategy here beyond him rashly tossing the charge about cheating out there, seeing if it stuck, and then dropping it cold turkey when it didnt. Its just like when he started calling Cruz a maniac for not being able to work with his Senate colleagues before the December debate, took some heat for it on the right, and then was all chummy with Cruz again on debate night. Given how serious the accusations are election fraud! Cruz unhinged! these arent trial balloons Trump is floating so much as trial zeppelins. And then, a few days later, when it doesnt work out as well he planned, he turns around and essentially says: What zeppelin?
The really weird part of this, though, is that hes backing off the personal attacks on Cruz too, not just the fraud claim. How can you say youve always liked a guy whom youve been calling nasty, corrupt, cronyist, a hypocrite, a total liar, and someone whom no one likes once they get to know him? And how can you not rule him out for VP when youve spent the past month arguing that hes not constitutionally eligible to be president? Is Trump dropping that claim too? This whole weird backtrack smells like his campaign manager pulled him aside and told him that attacking Cruz relentlessly has started to hurt his own popularity, which is dangerous when hes being threatened by a well-liked candidate in Marco Rubio. So now Trumps going to chuck everything hes been saying since New Years and try a new low-key Im serious and Im staying on message approach. Good luck, I guess.
Via the Right Scoop, here he is last night getting angry (and profane) in a much more productive way than he did with this weeks fraud digression.
Isn't this the first time a presidential candidate has used the word "fuck" casually in a speech to a big crowd? I just don't recall any presidential candidates as potty-mouthed as Trump. How can a guy so rich be so unclassy?
Trump: Ive always liked Cruz and havent ruled him out as VP
Trump just sh!t in his mess kit again. He should be defining and talking about principle issues, not talking about people. If he were to define the issues he'd be a sure winner. Idle blabber such as the above is subtractive from the seriousness of a presidential campaign. If he had demonstrated an understanding and definition of the issues, he'd have won Iowa.
Isn't this the first time a presidential candidate has used the word "fuck" casually in a speech to a big crowd? I just don't recall any presidential candidates as potty-mouthed as Trump. How can a guy so rich be so unclassy?
You think they don't use the word. You're looney if you believe that. They are just fakes and trained not to use certain words in front of the camera.
Ever been around really rich guys? They are the captains of the ship, aggressive, bossy - and profane. Especially Northern urban ones.
They're not politicians. Politicians are boys who were high school class Presidents, who have never done anything substantial themselves, but who give speeches, bite and smile for the camera, decide things "collegially", and generally live middle class lives until cronyism and business contributions - because they are politicians - make them rich.
REAL rich guys who run things and made themselves billionaires are Pattons. Politicians are Powells.
Trump is a Patton of real estate. The rest of the candidates, except Carson, are high school class presidents who moved up the popularity contest scale.
Carson is legitimately a success in his own field, but the nature of his field is fighting with the forces of nature within the confines of cells and neural pathways and a single individual person's body.
Trump's business is the logistics and leadership of a massive private army, to achieve objectives.
Also, Trump is not talking to the people who are going to sniff at him. Who is screwed by Mexican immigration most of all? Working class people - the sort of guys Trump leads on every major construction project. Note in that vignette about the people who helped Trump when his limo broke at the side of the road. What did he do? Simply throw money at them - $20k in cash? No, he PAID OFF THEIR MORTGAGE. He focused DIRECTLY on THE thing that hangs over middle class lives, and he fixed it. You helped me in the way that I really needed it, and I helped you in the way that you need it most - and I know what you need most, because ALL middle class people need that most.
Trump has a great deal of awareness of working class and middle class people. And THEY are not going to be offended when he uses an expletive about things THEY use expletives about.
Are the upper class horrified by expletives? No. The Clintons are famous for them. Powerful people are profane in life.
But high school class presidents and wannabees have set a sort of "Marquess of Queensbury Rules" for communications, which serves to weed people out of their club.
That's nice, but Trump doesn't care. Those people are not going to vote for him anyway.
People like me are. And we are not offended when Trump says "Fuck you" to people that we all want to collectively scream "Fuck you!" at also. He does it for us. It's cathartic, and it makes us more ready than ever to vote for him.
The "Reagan coalition" included the Blue Collar - but Reagan's policies SCREWED THEM. Trump won't screw them. The only way to make America great again is to put America back to work, and that means taking the jobs BACK from illegal immigrants, by keeping the illegals out and pushing them out of the country. And it means punishing companies that don't make stuff in America by hitting them with tariffs that make American-made products cheaper than stuff made in foreign countries with slave wages and no environmental controls.
Trump is talking about that, and the cluck-cluck, tut-tut class are bitching about his STYLE.
Trump is great. He tells it like it is. He talks to people who have been screwed, who KNOW they've been screwed, and who want to no longer be screwed. He tells them how he's going to unscrew them. And he tells the people who say "Tut tut" to go screw themselves. And he CAN, because he's got $5 billion. ANd he's got $5 billion because he is a Patton of real estate.
Patton was controversial and profane too. He was a walking ball of decision, energy and will. Trump has done in real estate finance what Patton did on the battlefield.
When you're being led by a Patton, you win. People like to win.
When you are led by a Cruz or a Rubio, you get great speeches, and you keep getting screwed because men with the wealth and direction of Trump actually OWN the politicians and determine the outcome.
You're either going to get Trump straight, with Trump's peculiar affection for the working class (no doubt from familiarity on thousands of job sites), or you're going to get men just like Trump, who don't give a shit about the working class and who view them as COMMODITIES to be priced as low as possible and expended. But they'll hire the pretty face of a Rubio or a Cruz to speak nice, polite words and intone visions and promises that all sound like unicorn farts. And that never come true.
Rubio and Cruz will give us more of the same. Trump actually WILL make America great again.
And he'll swear doing it, while campaigning angry. Once he is firmly in charge, he won't need to swear so much. He'll rise to the dignity of the office.
But he's not in the office yet, and to actually WIN against the oily lies of the Republican political class, he has to motivate the working class and the middle class to come vote for him.
You do that by getting their energy up, reminding them of why they are right royally pissed, and putting clear words on it. And there's nothing like a good "Fuck!" to amp up the energy and anger.
Winston Churchill had a parrot. During World War II, he trained that parrot, which he kept in his office, to repeat the German salute with a one word change.
After Churchill died, the long-lived parrot lived on, but had to be kept at home in private. Because the parrot was still screaming "FUCK HITLER!" whenever anybody came into the room.
Sir Winston Churchill taught his parrot to regale people who entered his Prime Minister's Office with the salute FUCK HITLER in 1941.
I don't care if Trump swears. He means it. So did Churchill.
You shouldn't care if Trump swears either. He's right. Unless you WANT to be a 'tut-tutting' nancyboy. Don't be a tut-tutting nancyboy. It's weak and pathetic. Leave that to the oily class presidents who speak nice and present the smiling polite face of the rich men who have bought them and who own their balls.
Is there nothing that Trump can do that will stop you from making up some new pack of lames excuses for him?
The way you -- our self-styled Defender of the Poor and Downtrodden -- tie yourself in knots over this crude pro-abortion faux-Xtian cronyist tycoon is beyond belief.
You think they don't use the word. You're looney if you believe that. They are just fakes and trained not to use certain words in front of the camera.
You use the word too. We all do.
No, I have certain boundaries. For instance, in a speech to thousands of people with children in the room, I've never said "fuck". That would be Trump.
I honestly can't recall another pol who was ever so openly as crude as Trump is.
It's going to be a massacre of Trump in South Carolina.
A big anti-Trump super-PAC has formed (probably Rove-controlled). They're going to attack him over what he said about McStain and, by extension, all POWs. They're gonna Swift-boat his ass with all those veterans in SC. That attack will surface this week but it will be the preamble to an attempt to bury Trump in South Carolina.
And maybe those nude photos of his wife Melania in GQ might finally raise a few eyebrows. All that stuff is going to come out. Like Trump bragging about committing adultery with other men's wives years back. Yet, he has told us he has never asked God's forgiveness for anything. And Trump will eventually have to account for why he was bosom buddies for decades with a profoundly immoral pervert and all-around scumbag like Roger Stone.
How about Trump promising to expand the federal gay agenda? How is that going to play in the South?
BTW, have you guys cobbled together your explanation for why Trump is now considering Cruz as a VP when last week he called Cruz an unqualified Canadian anchor baby who was ineligible?
In the meantime, you can enjoy a photo of Melania, obviously a prim Presbyterian gal.
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
Nothing new about that,and it's not a theory. He's COO COO COCAPUFFS and has been for decades. Maybe for his whole life. He is a sociopath that sees everything through a "what's good for ME?" filter.
ISLAM MEANS SUBMISSION!
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
American Indians had open borders. Look at how well that worked out for them.
He should be defining and talking about principle issues, not talking about people.
You can't talk about principle issues when you have no principle and everything seems personal to you because you are a narcissistic sociopath that lives in a altered reality. When everything is about "Me,ME,ME,DAMMIT!" people is all you can focus on because everything other people do reflects back on you.
ISLAM MEANS SUBMISSION!
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
American Indians had open borders. Look at how well that worked out for them.
The "Reagan coalition" included the Blue Collar - but Reagan's policies SCREWED THEM. Trump won't screw them. The only way to make America great again is to put America back to work, and that means taking the jobs BACK from illegal immigrants, by keeping the illegals out and pushing them out of the country. And it means punishing companies that don't make stuff in America by hitting them with tariffs that make American-made products cheaper than stuff made in foreign countries with slave wages and no environmental controls.
Trump is talking about that, and the cluck-cluck, tut-tut class are bitching about his STYLE.
Trump is great. He tells it like it is. He talks to people who have been screwed, who KNOW they've been screwed, and who want to no longer be screwed. He tells them how he's going to unscrew them. And he tells the people who say "Tut tut" to go screw themselves. And he CAN, because he's got $5 billion. ANd he's got $5 billion because he is a Patton of real estate.
Complete and utter BullBush. Not a single truthful statement in anything you said.
Patton wasn't born as a General and nobody gave him a command. Yes,he was born into a wealthy family,but he EARNED his way through West Point,and he worked his ass off "learning the trade and appplying what he had learned".
Trump was born into his Generalship,and had it handed over to him from a trustfund created by his grandfather on his 21st birthday. A Trust Fund worth 12 MILLION DOLLARS IN 1967 CASH and 15 THOUSAND pieces of rental property in NYC.
When his father died,he inherited another 200 million and a share in his fathers investments.
He no longer owns ANY of the real estate he inherited from his grandfather or father. He sold it all to build up the casino and hotel business that he went bankrupt in,and ended up being put on an allowance by the bankruptcy court.
His net worth this days is NOT 5 billion dollars,it is,by Trump's own accounting,worth 4 Billion dollars. 2 Billion of that is his estimated value of the Trump name,which he refers to as his "trademark".
As for him saving American jobs,ask him why he has the paperwork in to bring in hundreds of Mexicans to work for minimum wage in businesses controlled by him.
Trump is a lying ego trip with legs.
ISLAM MEANS SUBMISSION!
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
American Indians had open borders. Look at how well that worked out for them.
Of course, you do realize that these Trumpkins will make any excuse for him. You can't debate them, present facts, etc. They just clap their hands over their ears and refuse to hear it.
Where this devotion to such a crackpot comes from is beyond me. It's no more rational than the Bernie Sanders groupies.
How's the weather forecast for NH next week ? Hate to see the extremely strong Trump miss any more campaign events because of the weather . Or did he go home to get a change of clothing ?
"If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools." Plato
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
American Indians had open borders. Look at how well that worked out for them.
Hate to see the extremely strong Trump miss any more campaign events because of the weather .
Me.too. As a life-long denizen of NYC,we know he's not used to cold weather.
ISLAM MEANS SUBMISSION!
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
American Indians had open borders. Look at how well that worked out for them.
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, ... But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
The "Reagan coalition" included the Blue Collar - but Reagan's policies SCREWED THEM.
How did Reagan's policies screw them? It must have been terrible for you to have lived through the Reagan presidency. You have my sympathy over the terrible distress he supposedly put you through.