* I’m not the first to note, Steve, that you’ve been strangely subdued throughout the primary process, even though it represents a culmination (of sorts) of all your political writing over the past decade and a half. If Trump isn’t following the Sailer Strategy (via Coulter via Brimelow), then he is following a strategy that’s a blood relative to the one you’ve sketched out. I sense that you are nervous about Trump, and I get it. He could destroy immigration populism for a generation (either by winning or losing the election), he could get crushed in the general election only to have his signature issues succeed very rapidly and generally (think Goldwater in 1964), or he could actually Make America Great Again.
One must make choices in life. It’s time to spin the chamber, Boris.
* My guess is that Steve is not overly effusive because he doesn’t want to jinx things. Maybe that’s projection on my part.
One of Steve’s strengths is his judiciousness, his lack of rush to judgment, and his tendency to keep a cool head. This is in spite of evidently some of his motives being driven by emotion, a yearning for an earlier and better America (I think). In another life, I think he would have made a good justice. It’s too early to know how good a Trump administration will be, and Trump is not the literal embodiment of Steve’s ideas. That being said, perhaps closer than most think.
Funnily enough though, I am not the first to call Trump a Citizenist, though certainly one of the first, judging by google. You would think that Trump was going to cancel AA and start shipping African-Americans to Liberia, the way the media and BLM carries on.
Does Steve remain a citizenist? I am not sure and I think I would rather not know.
* No politician is trustworthy. No politician can be counted on to carry out promises he made during a campaign. In 2008, Obama ran claiming that he was against gay marriage and that his healthcare plan would not require a mandate. Of course Obama was for gay marriage, but it was to his political advantage to say he was not (black church ladies matter!). Any universal healthcare plan requires a mandate, but it was to his political advantage to say his did not while Hillary’s did. The astute voter has to intuit what the politician will actually do and figure out which parts of his platform are “boob bait for the bubbas.”
Donald is the only candidate that regularly says that America gets into pointless wars, wasting money that would be better spent here. He is the only Republican willing to denounce W for the disastrous war in Iraq. He has said we would have been better off leaving Saddam in place. He doesn’t see why we can’t get along with Putin, rather than constantly insult and provoke him. So when he talks about how strong our military will be under his presidency and how we’re going to smash ISIS, I assume that he’s tossing out the requisite boob bait, but will conduct a far more circumspect foreign policy than the other candidates.
Candidates are in a quandary when they’re asked how they’re going to balance the budget or fix the schools. Our debt and entitlement expenditures are growing exponentially and no politician can change that, but no one running for president can admit it. As long as the school-age generation is far more non-white than it ever has been, our schools are going to be worse, but, again, no politician can acknowledge that. So on questions like those, I forgive Trump his meaningless BS answers.
What I would realistically expect from a Trump presidency:
Border control
More illegals deported
Action against sanctuary cities
More advantageous trade deals
No pandering to black criminals
No more demonizing/harassing law enforcement
A quiet death for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
Less meddling overseas
As far as I’m concerned, that would Make America Great Again.
* I have watched Trump closely on his well covered primary victory speeches and his news conferences. This man is going to govern from the middle. He even says as much if you actually listen to him. Paul Ryan is going to be his main political ally just as Pelosi was for Obama.
Trump constantly says one needs to stake out an extreme opening position in order to get close to what you want when the deal closes. His “wall” with Mexico is going to end up as more border enforcement with an expansion of the border patrol, some sort of compromise on resident illegals, and enforcing the legal limits on immigration which can get a majority in Congress to go along with which is what “comprehensive immigration reform” has always meant.
He takes the traditional Democrat approach to Social Security which is to leave it as it is.
He clearly plans to stop twerking the Russian bear’s nose and let them exercise power in their centuries old sphere of influence.
This man is going to deal with congress like Reagan and Clinton did and not eschew achieving majorities on bills that include some Democratic votes. After all, even if he wins the presidency he may well be facing a slight Democratic majority in the Senate. As a result be prepared for somewhat more stringent demands for reciprocity on trade deals which he can certainly muster a majority vote for in Congress.
Trump is actually a practical moderate with a burning desire to get to “yes” in negotiations and an ego the size of Bill Clinton’s. His main failing is his propensity to shoot his vulgar mouth off before engaging his brain when he is personally insulted.
Despite vicious video attack ads calling him a NAZI and street protests and riotous behavior from the SJW/Occupy crowd, he will beat Hillary in the fall as she will experience low turnout and fail to even achieve 30% of the white male vote which will be a new low among this demographic for Democrats.
* One of the bitter black women over at Lipstick Alley posted the full Kevin Williamson NR column where he states the white underclass deserves to die, in case anyone wants to read without paying the NR cucks. Unsurprisingly, they agree that whitey deserves to be trampled underfoot by the globalists because slavery.
* It wasn’t a terrible theory last summer.
It’s a terrible theory now.
Even if he was encouraged to run in order to help Hillary, it was a risky bet and has obviously failed.
Someone like Trump is like fire: can be a useful tool if properly contained, but easily can get out of control and do an incredible amount of damage.
He is too old and too rich to be bought off, and he is too narcissistic to be content with behind-the-scenes power like Rove, Soros, Adelson or Kochs.
Encouraging Trump to run will likely turn out to be the dumbest thing the Clintons have ever done.
* What do you think are the one or two key issues in the 2016 Presidential election?
Most useful for discussions if the answers are very short. As pithy as I can get them:
1. Mass immigration should be stopped because it destroys what’s best about America: decent wages for working people, the social safety net, tolerance, and environmental quality.
2. With good reason, many working-class white Americans feel that the country’s elites are hostile to their economic interests and cultural values.
* Schwarzenegger’s career in California might be a good model, or Jesse Ventura’s in Minnesota.
There’s a big issue though with the President being head of state as well as government, which means the President is supposed to not shoot his mouth off. Obama’s mildly frank interview in the Atlantic appears to have peeved various foreign countries. What’s a Trump presidency going to look like?
