Donald Trump
3,487 pieces tagged “Donald Trump”, newest first.
He Never Said It
In the first paragraph of The New York Times' front-page story on Sunday, the Times said that because Megyn Kelly "questioned him forcefully at the Republican presidential debate," Donald Trump said she did it "because she was menstruating." He did not. Whether the Times was perpetrating a lie on its gullible readers or simply confused, I cannot say. In the next paragraph, readers can see for themselves what Trump actually said. He said, "You could see there was blood coming out of (Kelly's) eyes, blood coming out of her wherever," when she rather bluntly questioned him on indelicate subjects.
Trump, the Counterfeit Republican
In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay. When, however, Trump decided that his next acquisition would be not another casino but the Republican presidential nomination, he tactically and quickly underwent many conversions of convenience (concerning abortion, health care, funding Democrats, etc.). His makeover demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Republican and no conservative.
The Trump Catharsis
The coarser and cruder Donald Trump becomes, and the more ill-informed on the issues he sounds, the more he coasts in the polls. Apparently, a few of his targets must be regarded as unsympathetically as their defamer. Trump is rightly mocked for cynically spreading quid pro quo money around. But he quickly counters that his critics — from Hillary Clinton to his Republican rivals — have all asked him for such cash or for favors. Trump preps little. He has no real agenda. And he makes stuff up as he goes along. For such a New York brawler, he has thin skin, smearing his critics, often in creepy fashion. How can a former Democrat, once a pro-choice, pro-amnesty liberal and a supporter of single-payer health care, remain the godhead of the conservative base for weeks on end?
Megyn Kelly's Very Smart Question to Donald Trump
Unfortunately, the circus that Donald Trump has created around Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly and her allegedly "unfair" question to him in the Republican debate has drowned out the central importance of that "unfair" question. Voter frustration on the right reflects two things. One, we want to hear tough and straight talk from candidates. But two, we want a candidate who will be elected and set change in motion. All the tough talk in the world means nothing if the candidate doesn't get elected. Kelly's question to Trump was about this. It wasn't about whether Trump is courteous, or a jerk, or politically correct.
Trumping the Status Quo
Back in the late '80s, I worked in the music business with a well-known producer who shepherded Bruce Springsteen to fame and fortune. Like every producer, he was in search of a follow up act, and one idea he had involved creating a heavy metal band with a mythical god as the lead singer. Because much of that effort involved creating a spectacle of sorts, I got assigned to attend one those professional wrestling matches that routinely sold out at Madison Square Garden. It was a highly entertaining night with plenty of over-the-top action, thrills and lots of silliness. And despite the fact that everyone in the room knew the winner of each fight was "predetermined," the crowd cheered for their favorite heroes with as much gusto as they could muster up. I never attended another match, nor did I see anything like it — until last Thursday night's GOP debate on Fox News.
GOP's Trump Problem Will Fade, but Dems' Sanders Troubles Are Just Beginning
"We are trying to be reasonable," an organizer for Bernie Sanders' Seattle rally said. The black female protesters who stormed the stage became enraged. "We aren't reasonable!" they shouted back. "If you do not listen to [us], your event will be shut down," one of them declared to the crowd. Sanders caved to the protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement and gave activist Marissa Johnson the microphone. "I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, even with all of these progressives, but you've already done that for me. Thank you," she said, apparently in response to members of the crowd who booed her. I suppose if you've already conceded that you aren't reasonable, it's not hard to argue that booing an uninvited rabble-rouser is "racist."
A Debatable 'Debate'
The so-called "debates," among too many Republicans to have a debate, are yet another painful sign of how much words and ideas have degenerated in our times. No one expects these televised sound bites and "gotcha" questions to be anything like the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates on the momentous national issue of slavery. But the mob scene of candidates on stage that began with the 2012 campaign, and is now being repeated, is a big step down from the modern one-on-one debates between presidential candidates that began with John F. Kennedy versus Richard Nixon in 1960.
Establishment Must Quit Obsessing Over Trump
It's time that the sophisticated analysts who pride themselves in their ability to discern nuance realized that Donald Trump's popularity and his defenders are more nuanced than most people imagine. Because Trump is outrageous compared with the usual presidential candidate, Beltway pundits assume his followers and sometime defenders are classless rubes willing to overlook any objectionable remark he makes and his mixed record on conservative causes. These commentators seem more disgusted with Trump defenders than with President Obama's destructive agenda and the threat it represents to America.
Best of the First Republican Confab
The "debates" Thursday were endurance exercises, given the number of candidates on stage.
Donald Trump: Still Right About Mexican Rapists
There's a cultural acceptance of child rape in Latino culture that doesn't exist in even the most dysfunctional American ghettoes. When it comes to child rape, the whole family gets involved. (They *are* family-oriented!) In a 2011 GQ magazine story about a statutory rape case in Texas, the victim's illegal alien mother, Maria, described her own sexual abuse back in Mexico.
The Trump Card
With Hillary Clinton's multiple misdeeds coming to light and causing her political problems, reflected in her declining support in the polls, both she and the Democratic Party have reason to be concerned. But both of them may yet be rescued by "The Donald," who can turn out to be their Trump card. Donald Trump has virtually no chance of becoming even the Republican Party's candidate in 2016, much less being elected President of the United States. The reason is not hard to understand: Republican voters simply do not trust him, as the polls show. Nor is there any reason why they should trust him, given his chameleon-like changes in the past. Why then is he the "front-runner" in the polls?
Dumb as Trump
Trump can't help being Trump. He says outrageous or dumb things about immigrants or his fellow Republican primary candidates five times a day. But no one — not even the liberals of the mainstream media — really takes Donald Trump or what he spews seriously. No one thinks the billionaire's mix of egotistical bloviating and off-the-cuff policy positions represents the Republican Party or conservatism. Mike Huckebee and Rick Perry are a whole other story.
The Trump Card — Ace of Anger Affirmation
Donald Trump has harnessed the anger of disenfranchised grassroots conservatives.
Dealing With Donald Trump
A businessman once told me that in business, when things are not working, sometimes you have to "throw a brick through the window." Sometimes shock is the only thing that will shake up an entrenched status quo. A brick smashing through glass might be the only thing that will get attention. Donald Trump is a businessman who understands this. This is what he is doing and it's working. There's a lot of frustration in America today, and there should be.