Ever since Donald Trump first announced he was running for president in the 2016 election, I have had mixed feelings about him. I didn't think he was the best choice to head the Republican ticket, but once he won the nomination, I voted for him against Hillary Clinton and again in 2020 against Joe Biden. I make no apologies for that.
While I didn't care for his personal style, I supported most of his policies, and I thought he did a great job in terms of the economy, jobs, securing the border, putting America first, our trade policies, destroying the ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and many other aspects of his presidency. I never believed that he was involved in Russian collusion, nor did I ever believe that he was a racist or anti-Semite. I thought-and still think- that the efforts by the left, the media, and the Democrat party to bring him, down were despicable.
I could go on and on, but I think I have made the point. That said, I am very disappointed that he has chosen to run for president again in 2024. I think that the Republican party needs to move on from Trump. His recent attack against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was unwarranted and divisive at a time when many (including myself) are looking to see DeSantis run for president.
His recent statement that the 2020 election should be overturned and that he should be re-installed as president was also not helpful. I too have doubts about the integrity of the last election, but I can't prove it, and former Attorney General William Barr himself testified that whatever electoral shenanigans may have taken place, he didn't think it was enough to determine the outcome. I take Barr at his word. The bottom line is that nothing is going to change the result. I strongly believe the nation needs to address electoral fraud and ensure the proper safeguards are in place or else we will lose our democracy.
What may have been the tipping point for me is the recent dinner he hosted for Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, the latter a Holocaust denier and open anti-Semite. Trump should have broken his ties with West months ago when he (West) crossed the line of no return with his latest anti-Jewish screeds. That Trump allowed West to show up at Mar a Lago with Fuentes in tow is inexcusable. If Trump is so uninformed that he doesn't know about Fuentes' reputation, he has no business returning to the White House. It doesn't lead me to conclude that Trump really is anti-Semitic, but it sure doesn't help my case in defending him.
Frankly, I am starting to question Trump's current mental state. Maybe it is something I should have recognized long ago, but I do suspect that no normal person can withstand the constant attacks he has suffered without becoming, shall we say, paranoid for lack of a better word?
And what do I foresee for the Republican party (of which I am not a member) in 2024 with Candidate Trump? I see Ron DeSantis deciding not to run against Trump. I see the party tearing itself to pieces in the primary. If Trump wins the nomination, I think he will lose the general election and take down the party with him. If Trump fails to win the nomination, the party will still lose the general election because all those Trump supporters will sit out the election. Or Trump may well decide to run as an independent, and the Republican vote will still be torn in half. The final result will be a decisive victory for the corrupt, radical leftist Democrat party, and the disintegration of our country and society as we know it will begin in earnest.
My hope is that Trump will reconsider his decision to run again, withdraw back to Mar a Lago, and enjoy whatever is left of his reputation and legacy. He did establish a blueprint for successful policies that the Republicans would do well to follow if they recapture the White House. But as things stand now, they will not win in 2024. This last election showed that the Republicans cannot sit back and depend on voter disgust at the Biden failures to ensure victory. If they don't get their sorry act together, we risk finding ourselves with a one-party system of governance in America, a'la California.
And that is not democracy.
10 comments:
As they say in Germany, if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you've got a table with 11 Nazis.
I don't think that Trump is an anti-Semite in the same sense that Nick Fuentes is. If this was 1930s Germany, he wouldn't be a prominent member of the Nazi Party. However, he's the type who allowed the Nazis to do what they did, which effectively isn't any better.
Even if we can accept that he didn't know about Fuentes, Trump's silence since then is very telling. Does he hate Jewish people? I don't know. But he also doesn't care enough to clearly and pointedly denounce Fuentes. We have to ask ourselves why that is.
I also don't like the one-party rule in California, but the Republican party has become a hive of radicals and morons. It would be nice to not have a choice between "establishment tool" and "raving lunatic".
And I'm sorry, but to describe anybody in the Democratic party of being "radical left" is to not know what that term even means. Even AOC and Bernie Sanders would be considered center-left in any other Western Democracy.
And you want to talk corruption? No doubt that there is corruption among the Dems. But they're strictly amateur hour compared to the grift that Trump ran on this country for four years. Come on, Fouse.
"And I'm sorry, but to describe anybody in the Democratic party of being "radical left" is to not know what that term even means. Even AOC and Bernie Sanders would be considered center-left in any other Western Democracy.
And you want to talk corruption? No doubt that there is corruption among the Dems. But they're strictly amateur hour compared to the grift that Trump ran on this country for four years. Come on, Fouse."
First of all, the European definitions of who is left, right, center-left etc. do not fall in line with ours. Ocasio and Sanders are not what I would call center-left, they are far left to me.
As to the corruption, I don't excuse corruption from the Republicans, and I am no Republican. I do feel that corruption is much more prevalent in the Dems. Trump is a boy Scout compared to Biden and his son, who are enrtiching themes;ves thanks to Joe Biden's political positions as VP and now president.
Okay, you seriously want to compare Biden to Trump when it comes to corruption?
Just yesterday the Trump organization was found guilty of tax fraud! He had to pay out $2 million for defrauding charities! He charged the Secret Service to stay at his properties (which he did NOT divest himself from) while he constantly golfed at Mar A Lago. Absolutely NONE of his "stop the steal" donations went to anything but his own pockets. He won't release his taxes. (Pretty sure Biden did.)
Saying that Trump is a boy scout compared to Biden is to completely divorced from reality.
I just gave you five very specific examples, and that's just off the top of my head. Can you do the same? Let's make it three, since the secret service thing, along with the taxes, aren't necessarily illegal and merely just the indication of something shady.
In other words, don't give me "Hunter Biden's laptop" considering that we don't know anything specific that might come of it (if anything).
And the only reason AOC and Sanders seem "far left" to you is because the right in this country is so extreme.
Dear Anonymous,
You are so gracious with your ground rules, reducing the number of examples of Biden corruption I can give you from 5 to 3. Then you take away the whole Hunter Biden case, which includes Burisma, the Biden demand that the Ukrainian prosecutor be fired, the Chinese angle where Hunter flew to China with VP Biden on Air Force Two and came away with a big business deal, the gift of a million or so dollars from the wife of the Moscow mayor, etc.
As for the NY prosecution of his business associates, I don't know the details of the case, but I do know that the NY Attorney General campaigned on promises to prosecute Trump. So forgive my skepticism.
If Trump has done something illegal, shame on him, but I have seen too many witch hunts for the past 5-6 years.
In addition, Trump did not get wealthy through his position as president. Biden translated his position as VP into lucrative deals for his son, who naturally, shared that wealth with "The Big Guy".
But I can't say that according to your ground rules.
What difference does it make that the NY AG promised to prosecute Trump? Did it ever occur to you that maybe she had a good reason? Are you skeptical of Al Capone's crimes because Eliot Ness said that he was going to bring him down?
The fact of the matter is that there are multiple instances of Trump being sued, successfully, for fraud - and they didn't all just start when he became President. This is like the time I told you about the Trump University debacle, and you basically responded that you "don't know about that".
Well, geez, if you don't pay attention to Trump's long record of being a scamming grifter, it really seems like he's not as bad as Biden!
I wanted to hold off on the Hunter Biden stuff because none of that has even resulted in any formal charges. Maybe they will. Maybe it won't. And maybe if it doesn't, it's for a good reason.
And maybe Trump didn't "get wealthy" from his position as President. (Much of his wealth came from being a conman grifter in general) but if you think that he didn't use his position as President for lucrative for himself and his offspring, then perhaps I can interest you in some really great bridges for sale...
It is highly unprofessional for a candidate for a prosecutor's office to declare that they are going to prosecute any individual if elected. She could have said she was going to go after child molesters, corporate polluters, or anything else in general.
"I wanted to hold off on the Hunter Biden stuff because none of that has even resulted in any formal charges. Maybe they will. Maybe it won't. And maybe if it doesn't, it's for a good reason."
I can say the same about Trump. He has yet to be indicted on anything.
"And maybe Trump didn't "get wealthy" from his position as President. (Much of his wealth came from being a conman grifter in general) but if you think that he didn't use his position as President for lucrative for himself and his offspring, then perhaps I can interest you in some really great bridges for sale..."
Pls give some examples as I did with Joe/Hunter Biden.
Let's back up a bit here. The initial disagreement was over who is "more corrupt". If criminal indictments are the yardstick, then it's a wash. If we're talking court cases involving fraud or other forms of malfeasance, then Trump wins the "most corrupt" by a landslide. (An actual landslide unlike his claims about the election!)
Here's a quick overview, which you can look up for yourself:
1973 - Trump sued for racial discrimination, the suit ending in him having to turn over his list of vacancies to civil rights organizations.
1983 - the tenants of Trump-parc apartments sued Trump's company for using abusive tactics to force out people in rent-controlled apartments. The suit ended with the tenants staying in their apartments and Trump paying their legal fees.
2010 - The "Trump University" debacle, which resulted in him being accused of racketeering and Trump paying out a $25 million settlement. (There's more to this, including him being found personally liable by the Supreme Court in 2013.)
2018 - The Stormy Daniels affair (and I'm talking about how she was paid to cover up the affair and his personal lawyer wound up in jail).
And I already mentioned how he was sued for defrauding charities. Oh, and the whole thing about how he's asking for donations to "stop the steal" which does nothing other than line his own pockets.
I found a much longer list of his legal issues (over 3000 cases!) but only included a few highlights where it's pretty cut-and-dried that the guy is a con artist. I could also include:
*multiple credible accusations of sexual assault (including a rape accusation where he could exhonerate himself by submitting his DNA - something he refuses to do).
*multiple businesses (including casinos) that he bankrupted yet he managed to come out of it just fine
*him not paying the people who work for him (something he admitted to in the Presidential debates!)
*how many of his close associates have been charged with crimes? About 11?
Look, I'm not some kind of die-hard Biden fan. I don't think that any politician is an angel by the very nature of the job. I think that somebody has to be a bit off to want that much power in the first place. But come on, Fouse. The only reason you think that Trump pales in comparison to Biden is because you're simply not paying attention.
I'm also not so naive as to think that there's no way that Hunter Biden has managed to leverage his position as the son of a President to line his own pockets. I think it's safe to say the same thing of all Presidential offspring.
But let's look at the Trumps. First of all, why the hell was Jared Kushner given any position in the administration in the first place? What the hell was that guy's credentials other than being Trump's son-in-law? Don't tell me that his pockets didn't get heavier. Records show that Jared and Ivanka made up to $640 million while Trump was in the white house.
As for the Trump boys, dad turned over his businesses to them when he took the Presidency. While in office, he charged the secret service, government officials, etc. for staying at his properties. You think that they weren't making any money off of that? Come on.
This article gives a pretty good overview of the many ways they cashed in on the Trump presidency.
https://www.gq.com/story/trump-kids-profit-presidency
I am hardly qualified to assess the GQ article as to veracity, but I found it instructive that the article opens up by basically whitewashing the Hunter Biden scandal. So why should I not conclude that the article is biased?
Like you, I scoffed when Jared Kushner was put in charge of bringing about that elusive Middle East peace. However, what he accomplished was pretty impressive in helping get several Arab/Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel. Of course, that didn't even get him a mention as to a possible Nobel Peace prize.
I like to think I have an open mind when it comes to any malfeasance by the TRump family. Did they improperly cash in when Dad became president? Maybe so, but I absolutely do not trust the Democrat lynch mob that has been trying to bring Trump down since he first announced his candidacy. I am referring to people like Adam Schiff, the Russian collusion hoax, the actions of the FBI in pushing the Russian Dossier, not to mention how they colluded with social media giants to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop issue in the run up to the election. Not to mention our media.
I have pretty much jumped off the Trump bandwagon for reasons I laid out in the post, so if he is corrupt, let justice take its course. As a former federal agent, I think it is important that all investigations into corruption be fair and unbiased. I don't think that is currently the case.
Yes, you and I have our biases, but having conducted myself honestly during my government career, I do take corruption seriously. Whether one is Dem or Republican, liberal or conservative, we should all be very concerned about how corruption is growing in our government.
It's true that we all have biases, but what do we do about them?
For me, I try to be more suspicious of things that I want to be true. There were a few articles I found about Trump's misdeeds that weren't very well-researched and were little more than propaganda, so I dismissed them.
You say that the GQ article is "whitewashing" the Hunter Biden story. Is that what it is? I mean, is it inaccurate in its reporting? It points out more than once that this is still fairly problematic when it comes to Hunter Biden, so it's not trying to completely exonerate him so much as its setting the record straight.
Let me give you an example of how I approach things. I think that my feelings about Trump are pretty clear. However, I try to stick with the facts. I had several friends and family members share on social media a pretty damning quote from Trump. The problem? It was totally made up. He never said it or anything like it. And even though it made Trump look bad, I took every opportunity to point out to my friends that it was a fake quote. Most of them were thankful for the correction, but one person tried to argue with me and showed me a bunch of other awful things he said. My response was, "Yeah! There's plenty of real stuff from him. Let's not share fake stuff!"
What I'm asking you is this - if it turned out that Hunter Biden isn't as guilty as right-wing media likes to keep repeating, would you care? Would you accept the truth? Would you correct people who continue to get it wrong?
Or is defending your side more important than what's true?
I like to think I am intellectually honest enough to admit when I am wrong or partially wrong. I think this very post is evidence of that.
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