* Trump has an incredibly strong frame, and total self-confidence.
No fake laughs, no going along with some clownish foolishness in order to be polite.
You can’t help but love the guy; and even if you don’t, you’ll certainly respect him.
* Trump actually is the rare Ivy Leaguer with street-smarts and the ability to read people.
* Btw, the term ‘persona’ has a rather negative connotation, I find; it suggests that somebody is acting and isn’t authentic. That’s definitely not the case with Trump. With him it’s really ‘what you see is what you get’ – and he’s largely born like that, it wasn’t learned through reality TV.
Rather than ‘persona’, in his case I’d simply speak of personality.
* The Vox article proceeds on the faulty premise that “The Apprentice” made Donald Trump what he is today, which is putting the cart before the horse. He wasn’t exactly a totally unknown person before he landed “The Apprentice.” He got that reality show because everybody knew of Donald Trump already. He was a fully formed man when he got “The Apprentice.” I’m sure the experience with a reality TV show educated him somewhat, but he brought a lot of experience and background to that TV role, where he was essentially playing himself.
* I met Trump six years ago and spent a half-hour with him and his people/sons (non-business related). My experience was kind of like Steve Sailer’s experience meeting Michael Milken. Except Trump was very nice with overpowering charisma. Trump has a rare combo of extreme confidence, extreme intelligence, and extreme perceptiveness. Which comes across as no bullshit. Every time I’ve tried to imitate his style in my job (polite, no-BS, succinct language) I can see people react very positively and deferentially. But then I revert to my very friendly and unassuming self and they run all over me.
I love Trump’s take on Bill Cosby:
“…I was never a fan. His humor was always, like, slow and stupid to me. I never saw it. And then he’s obviously got this stuff. What amazes me is he was so quiet and then you see these depositions. What was he doing? Was he drunk? You see he admitted all this stuff on top of everything else. I think he’s weird. And I never found his humor good at all. Just sit in a chair, talk very slowly? And I say to myself, “What’s this all about?”
* Trump has said on many occasions when he was asked about his kids’ personalities or, for that matter, about his own, that “people are largely born the way they’ll be the rest of their lives.”
I loved that– a public man who is now a politician who understands nature trumps nurture and isn’t afraid to say it. He did go on to speak of how much he learned about business from his father, whom he clearly reveres. He said, “My dad was a really, really tough guy. He had always been that way and I learned a lot from him.” He said it was his daughter who seems to be most like him, at least when it comes to business.
I think he’s made a conscious choice NOT to use the old “nature is stronger than nurture” but he’s sending signals that he sees this as important. I am sure the progs are freaking. I have a liberal friend who freaked at that pronouncement.
* WP: “No one has figured out how to handle Trump,” said former New Jersey governor Tom Kean Sr. (R). “Everyone underestimated him terribly from Day One. But as someone who knows him and knew his father — the whole family — I can assure you, that was a mistake.”
* By boldly and plainly laying out what he will do regarding immigration, Trump was able to in one stroke completely destroy whatever chance the rest of the Republican field had of being duplicitous. Candidates such as Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and to a lesser degree Scott Walker held an appeal for immigration patriots because they MIGHT possibly do something, anything, to control immigration. All of them knew the American people’s plight and would hint and suggest possible actions as a way of giving what was probably a false hope while simultaneously licking Sheldon Adelson’s fingers. The fact that there is so much groaning and wailing coming from the mass immigration types should tell us that these proposals, if enacted, will largely work.
* The funny thing is that after invading numerous peoples spaces and privacy he (Baron Cohen) and his wife are very private themselves. They remain cloistered away in comparison to most showbiz couples.
* To be sure Trump is a loudmouth vulgarian, but he is also the only person giving voice to the despair of people — not just in the US, but the EU, Australia and Canada as well — who see their societies becoming unrecognizable as a result of wave after wave of mass immigration from unassimilable, if not overtly hostile, cultures. In the face of this despair, the political, governmental, and media elites have just one message for the people of the west: The countries you were born in, grew up in, and perhaps loved are gone, and they’re never coming back; so just get over it. Your home is no longer your home, your customs and your culture are passe. And so: We are bringing in more people than we can ever hope to assimilate, we are importing more poverty than we can ever hope to alleviate, and we are introducing more security risks into the society than we can ever hope to monitor. We elites did all this to you without even asking; nevertheless, if you object in any way you’re obviously a bigot, and we have no interest in hearing what you think about the matter. But we do have one question: Who is this Trump guy, and why are so many people supporting this simpleton?
Truth be told, to the elites the US isn’t even a country with a people and a culture; rather it’s just a labor market and a consumer market. And what the elites want (and get) from both parties is the freedom to maximize return on capital by managing these two markets without interference from the government. As a result, Microsoft can layoff 20,000 workers while simultaneously plumping for a massive expansion of the H1B visa program claiming all the while that the US is short of workers with technical skills. And nobody in either party (except Jeff Sessions) says a word . . . That’s the way the system works.
* Trump is far from being my ideal candidate. If a pollster had called me a week ago, I would have given Trump an unfavorable rating.
I still like Walker — and many other candidates in this race.
Trump, however, is the only candidate pushing to get rid of birth-right citizenship for the children of visitors. I think the electorate’s support for Trump’s position on that issue is overwhelming, even among Democrats. If a Constitutional fix turns out to be necessary, then a President Trump would push for and accomplish that fix.
Birth-right citizenship is only one issue in the illegal-immigration controversy, but it’s a good good indicator of seriousness. The rest of the candidates’ passivity on that issue tells me they will be passive in the entire immigration controversy. We need a political fighter.
We need a presidential candidate who will compel the Democrats to explain publicly why US citizenship should be granted to the children of birth tourists and to explain many other outrageous immigration policies.
* Steve’s offhand suggestion that Trump “stumbled” onto the immigration issue is something I’ve thought for a while. I’m not sure Trump came into the race to champion the cause, but of all the potential memes he threw out, that was the one that generated the most excitement, and now he’s running with it as a market-tested winner. And the timidity of the competition means he’s cornered the market on immigration as a campaign theme.
I don’t mean to say that he’s insincere in his embrace of the issue. And certainly his clear appreciation for Sessions, Coulter (and by extension, Sailer) is heartening. But it does make me wonder whether Trump would settle for a compromise deal down the road if that suited his purpose.
* Following is a passage from a Washington Post article, dated Aug 18, titled “Fading in the polls, Scott Walker aims to attract Trump voters”:
Stanley S. Hubbard, a conservative billionaire who oversees a Minnesota broadcasting company and has donated to Walker’s campaign, said the candidate has promised that he would not push a “social agenda” as president and is simply expressing his personal beliefs when asked. …
Hubbard strongly opposes one immigration measure pushed by Trump this week: a call to stop giving citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States. Walker said in an interview Monday that he would support ending birthright citizenship, then said other reforms might make that unnecessary.
Hubbard said that he “might really quickly change my allegiance” if Walker pushed for such a repeal, and that he “did not get a real straight answer” from the candidate at his Tuesday lunch. But Hubbard, who came away ready write more checks to help Walker, added: “I got the feeling that he is not at all anxious to talk about taking away those rights.”
This is why Walker supporters are becoming Trump supporters.
* Sure, Walker and Cruz can mimmic what they see is working. But, are they real, or are they opportunists? Trump took the initiative, and you gotta admit, he had to have the balls to do it. Why would anyone believe a sorry “me-too” at this point? Cruz already proved himself a phoney the last time around.
* Steve’s analysis of DT is perfection. He most certainly read Anne’s book, and, he likes women, and has always been very good at ascertaining what women like, want, and need – this is why the lavishness of his hotels & apartment buildings is so over-the-top. He knew people liked bling like magpies before many, yet he was clever to insert the “to the manor born,” design aesthetic simultaneously, like some fashion designers. But, he knew that glitz goes a long way if you can only afford one night at the now, defunct Trump Casino in AC. “You can feel like a million bucks.”
In fact, Miami, which is the center for the wealthy from S. America, and their top-choice retirement community, is the perfect Trump city. It is not out of the question that the Latino vote, whatever that is, may go big for Trump. Glamor, glitz and bling are par for the course in Miami. Liposuction, botox, lifts and weaves of any kind are mainstream.
At the same time, he may very well understand how former “soccer moms,” or “security moms,” (around 9/11) think. Now, I would venture to guess that women (especially boomers and genX’s) with college and HS kids today, may soon be called “student-loan-anxiety-moms; heavily-burdened-by-unemployed-grad-moms; fear-of-what-H1B-will-do-to-their-grad moms; forever-minivan-driving-moms; no chance-to-retire-to-Florida moms; no chance-to-retire-moms.”
And, it is so true that people of all political beliefs are looking for a strong man to state his opinions, whatever they are. Trump learned quickly that immigration is the biggest thing this election (I think I mentioned that about immigration a while back) and, people are responding… much to the gnashing of teeth by many who are revolted by The Donald.
* “I don’t know why Trump is using Hollywood Reporter to cast his message….”
Actually, he delivered the same lines at a live news conference last evening in New Hampshire, part of which was carried live by Fox News. I caught the last 5-10 minutes starting at 7 p.m. EDT, and I don’t know how much of the earlier conference they carried and I happened to miss. Those 5-10 minutes were very revealing. Trump was masterful. He was more in command than any President I have seen, and I have been watching press conferences since JFK. He had total command and was characterizing individual reporters he was calling on in a light hearted fashion (even when his remarks were critical of the reporter). I would imagine he won a whole boat load of voters with that performance.
