* I have been hoping that, as his eventual nomination becomes more apparent, he will switch from to a more presidential persona. He will also need to bone up on policy once he is in debates with Hillary. We’ll see.
* Yeah, that style could be *way* too exciting when applied to international relations.
Trump seems to me to have exactly the wrong sort of temperament to be president. Even more than his apparent ignorance of a lot of policy details, that worries me when I imagine a Trump presidency.
* Trump is in uncharted waters here. I take his comment as an off the cuff reaction to the question of what would happen if he were denied the nomination by back room manouevres. It’s not a well thought through PC answer but it’s also a warning to party insiders to back off.
From Trumps’s perspective keeping his adversaries in the Rep establishment worried, afraid and off guard works to his advantage. Much more than being Mr Nice Guy who allows himself to be defeated by strict adherence to Marquess of Queensbury rules. That’s what Rmoney did.
It’s the exact opposite of what has succeeded and gotten him this far.
I think it’s very doubtful there are many Trump supporters who will engage in street violence on his behalf. But don’t forget that historically few political movements have succeeded without cadres willing to do so. More likely if Rep bigs deny Trump the nomination the millions who voted for him will sit on their hands come election time and let Ryan lose to Mrs C.
I was listening to CNN discussing Trump’s statement this morning. Ex BHO official Van Jones was particularly strident saying this comment disqualifies him from the presidency. Apparently in Jones’ world, hinting at riots if you dont get your way is unprecedented in American politics.
* There are three things giving Trump the election:
1. Combative, hilarious mike work
2. Immigration policy
3. Previous celebrity
He excites voters because he treats the entire system as contemptuously and with the irrelevance that many cynical folks have believed it was. He doesn’t mince words or use Washington speak; he speaks plainly in language common folk are familiar with.
And his combative style is what white male voters have long sought: a champion speaker who opposes the left’s identity hustlers on Jimmy Hoffa-esque level. Followers of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or Bill Ayers or Tim White believe those folks will take it to the streets if necessary, and will fight with them. That’s energizing.
People are rallying to him precisely because he looks like he will punch a dude who comes on his stage–even if the dude is black, or Hispanic, or gay. That kind of street-level alpha maleness has not been seen in U.S. white non-leftist leaders in decades.
Trump is basically pointing out that the left is nothing but a mob, and he’s not going to roll over for it; he’ll fight to the man with his own mob if necessary. Trump is pointing out that the system is a charade, and basically a reality show itself. That’s energizing; that’s sending his voters to the polls; that’s scaring Clinton, who has no passionate followers. Asking him to knock off his combative style is like asking police officers to go out unarmed.
Why would he give up one of his greatest assets?
* Steve having vapors that people might actually be mad enough to fight for something.
* Donald, learn to speak in oblique ways with political pablum. Don’t say what you mean and mean what you say, because it offends sissy-boy Steve Sailer.
* What Trump said was the plain and simple truth. Style and temperament had nothing to do with it. This wasn’t showmanship, and there was no ulterior motive behind Trump saying what he said, the way that he said it.
Trump’s statements have always been highly accurate, yet everybody still seems to think he’s just playing for effect and being a buffoon about it. That just isn’t true. Trump’s campaign has been 100% serious from the very beginning. He’s a very misunderstood man—misunderstood, it seems, even by most of his supporters.
What I don’t comprehend is, if you think Trump is just putting on a show, and you are a Trump supporter, why are you still supporting him? Did you really come out to the desert just to see a circus, since that’s what you think it is? This is decision time. Trump is for real; he is not a spectacle. I support Donald Trump for exactly what he says and does.
* I think Trump’s comment was appropriate given the context: a scenario that the millions of primary votes giving him a huge delegate superiority are overturned. That would be a great outrage, and ‘there would be riots’ is a phrase commonly applied to such an outrage. I agree he should be more careful with language and perhaps shouldn’t have said that, but only because the media grasps at every straw to slander him. In general, his anger at the outrageous state of the nation is needed and he must ‘fight’ for his voters.
* A shot across the bows of those who are thinking of how to keep him from being the candidate. It is may be part of his deal making skills that Trump has a meandering way of speaking and is often vague about his meaning, but I think he is wise to raise the spectre of him being denied the nomination. The only thing that will dissuade the Republican establishment is Trump taking his now massive support and forming a new party. That would be the riot.
* Trump himself last night started to address some of these points regarding what his critics have said about his candidacy. I mean, he’s going on nine months since he first announced he would run. A total bs show doesn’t last for nine months, let alone for nine news cycles. That’s probably the larger point: When the time comes, he’ll do the Presidential bit quite effectively. He’ll rise to the expectations of the moment. But until that time comes, there’s still some delegates to receive for the nomination.
Hillary has had it a whole heck of a lot easier. Imagine if she had the entire MSM AND the entire liberal news media all stacked vs. her every single day, pointing out her flaws, gaffes, mistakes, coughs, barks, etc. and them replaying them dozens of times.
Let him get the nomination first, then when the time comes, the presidential bit will follow.
* Liberals gleefully leave open the possibility of unrest, riots, violence. Conservatives shake their head, tut-tut, mumble something about not wanting to cause unpleasantness and then write a blog post wondering how come liberals dominate everything.
* I didn’t pay as close attention to the 2008 race, did Steve tsk tsk when Obama told supporters to bring guns to the political fight at a fundraiser? Obama’s “elevated” divisive rhetoric has led to the rise of BLM and set back race relations 20+ years.
For all Trump’s bluster whose supporters actually jumped barricades and plowed through Secret Service agents to attack a candidate? Who organized to purposefully interrupt an opponent’s political rally, caused property damage, and injured people in Chicago? Not Trump people.
* At the time of the “Swiftboating” of John Kerry, I said that if Kerry had any guts he should confront whomever was responsible for the slurs and sock him on the jaw. By ignoring the allegations, he looked weak. (I have no particular view of the truth of the allegations, except that I think anyone who participates in armed combat deserves the benefit of any doubt, otherwise no one is ever safe from recriminations.)
By being verbally belligerent, Trump is pre-empting Swiftboat type attacks.
* It is funny how many people Trump has fooled. He is a very cunning, shrewd and ruthless operator. He has put on a persona that has now made people totally forget that he is basically a New Yorker with tons of money and the lifestyle of a New York celebrity (which means he has spent his whole life surrounded by people with hyper-liberal opinions even if he doesn’t agree with those himself). Trump’s biggest challenge was going to be to achieve “authenticity” with the hard-core Republican base (especially the South where a New Yorker would normally be regarded as having no chance). He has achieved this now. And how! Cruz couldn’t win a single Southern state although he is the evangelical!
Once he has the nomination and trains his guns on Hillary, the whole “tone” and “rhetoric” will again be modulated to destroy Hillary in the minds of the doubting Democrats who want to vote for HRC out of party loyalty but suspect that she is a fraud. The rhetoric that was aimed at the angry base in Alabama will be put on the back burner (only to be brought to the forefront when absolutely necessary to ensure that the loyal flock do not start dithering).
I think the intelligence and cunning of Trump is likely to be appreciated many years after he has served as President (assuming he wins). Even today many historians regard Eisenhower as a duffer but smart cookies like Nixon who served under him knew better!
* That’s because it’s the “liberals” who are the ones who wreck things and the conservatives who build and preserve them. This is only confusing to us all now because the people Americans call liberals are really illiberal and the people called conservatives are often destructive radicals themselves. The NRO crowd are viciously destructive when it comes to other people’s countries; they only start squealing for real conservatism when people start taking away their stuff.
* If you look at Trumps twitter you will see that he follows very closely what is said about him in he media. Seems he took great offense at Fox news coverage last night spinning every outcome as a defeat for Trump or a victory for Cruz or Kasich. In Fox’s view: Trump barely winning IL and NC were huge defeats for him and clear signs of his weakness and unelectability; the loss in OH makes it mathematically impossible for him to clinch before the convention; poor noble Marco just couldn’t get his message heard past Trump’s boorish campaign stunts, the close result in MO was a stunning repudiation of Trumpism etc. etc.
Here are some of Trumps’ twitter reactions to FOX election night coverage
This also explains his decision to not participate in the extra Fox debate on Mar 21; why give Megyn Chris and the gang extra shots at gotchas
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Can’t watch Crazy Megyn anymore. Talks about me at 43% but never mentions that there are four people in race. With two people, big & over!
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 23h23 hours ago
If media wasn’t so biased against Trump, he would’ve won all of the delegates.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 23h23 hours ago
” it’s ridiculous” Don’t worry, everyone is wise to Crazy Megyn!
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 23h23 hours ago
” I tried to give them a shot tonight, but they have the whole anti Trump cheerleading team.”
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 23h23 hours ago
” She’s choking on the results! Call her justifiable Kelly. Justifying everything she says.”
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 23h23 hours ago
” Was going to watch @Foxnews for the primary results but saw @megynkelly – looks like #CNN tonight”
* How many hours per day does Trump watch TV?
* Not everybody understands that professional wrestling isn’t real.
Not everybody understands that this whole democracy bit that includes the people selecting their leaders might not be real.
* I’m not entirely sure what the line is that Trump needs to stop at. He’s said a number of things that I thought would all but end his campaign, but it didn’t happen. And now I have to scratch my head to remember exactly what it was that I thought he screwed up on.
* Steve’s post is misguided and foolish but in a different way than the typical Michael Gerson/AceOfSpadesHQ/RedState mewling (which actually has now become too silly to read, for example the Weekly Standard’s Jonathan V. Last puffing his chest to call Breitbart “Pravda” then feigning concern about the high-holy bruised arm of a found-money source for Bezos cub reporter Ben Terris– yeah, she’s just like this century’s Anita Hill, man). Trump does not have a “business-like” side. He got this far because he started with money and a great personal charisma along with a talent for running his mouth– yes, the world really does work that way; too bad you meritocracy dorks can’t accept reality. Even if, as I suspect, he meant that figuratively the mood at a brokered convention would be akin to, quote, a riot, it’s all just bait for the ambulance chasers. Not surprising from a guy who doesn’t know much about the hyper-legalized hall-monitor culture of modern American politics.
If he’s undone by his own recklessness and the campaign collapses, so be it. What matters is that Kasich or Rubio or Jeb or any of the other frankenamnesty candidates were denied support from real, living, breathing voters. This motley bloc, accustomed to be played for biennial suckers, took a good long look, yet despite the breathless hype of the Stephen Hayes/Kevin Williamson/Fox News androids– supposing any healthy # of sane free men ever listened to these coin-slot thinkfluencers ever — they chose what’s behind Door D instead. Meanwhile you and a few credulous alt-righters were somehow laboring under the impression that Trump’s really, deep down, “one of us” while simultaneously, the consummate performer who “plays a version of himself” for the campaign. Assuming there is a point where the theatrical-consumption version ends and the responsibility-to-the-office version begins, would that diminished mortal candidate be likely to withstand the general election pulverization and win? Not a good question to flesh out in October.
Neither am I on board with Cruz but I know Trump has more upside as a competitor to Coughing Lady Macbeth. What happens in the fullness of time to all three of them concerns me not at all. The point was made, the GOPe replicants on the stage were dispatched or at least rewarded with very little actual voter support no matter how desperately they shrieked about Hitler-Mussolini-Satan part Fifty-Three. Let the heavens fall– there’s your “violence” blurb for this week’s table talk among ideological politics nerds.
* Trump Needs to Knock Off His Pro Wrestling-style Mike Work”
Making him … what? Tom Tancredo? Pat Buchannan? Duncan Hunter?
Level-headed, sensible statesman have been railing against open immigration and stupid globalist trade deals for at least two decades now. Mainstream media either completely ignores them, or briefly mocks them for having the racist cooties and then goes on to ignore them.
Trump is where he is – failing or not, at least with some chance to make a serious run for the Presidency – because he cuts through the clutter and reaches people who literally cannot or will not think about issues of government and policy for longer than 20 seconds. Trump generates a reaction from people who know what channel corresponds to Bravo or ESPN or E! on their cable box, but not CNN or FOX news. As shallow and worthless as those cable “news” networks are? They are too deep and complicated for the average voter.
“I understand that, but he has to stop being so crazy and start to look just a LITTLE Presidential.”
Again … why? Tom Tancredo had all the arguments about illegal immigration inpacting our wages, or schools and hospitals, etc. He delivered them all with a measured, respectable, logical tone. And literally 99 percent of our country could not tell you who Tom Tancredo is.
Respectability politics brought us to where we are. Now – who here likes where we are?
* I mean, is there any reason, other than anti-semitism, for anybody to object to a 4th lefty Jew to sit on the court?
And is there anybody on the respectable right willing & able to object?
* By speaking this way, Trump is fathering a lasting movement of concerned founding stock Americans. Whether he wins or not, it’s time for the anger to undergo politically meaningful expression.
* Conservative populist celebrity candidates have won in Blue States before: Schwarzenegger and Ventura. So writing off Trump as obviously unelectable seems like a pretty massive misreading of the electorate.
People don’t actually *like* wonky conservative nerds. The only Republican candidate to win the popular vote in 30 years was George W. Bush running as the defender of working class Americans against effete liberal snobs.
Nerdy conservatives really want to believe that there is a silent majority of sober, intellectual conservative voters in this country. News flash: there isn’t. You have to cater to the WWE demographic to have a chance at winning.
* Heather Mac Donald for VP. Can you imagine her in a debate?
When she was younger, she worked as an attorney for the EPA and left-wing enviro group NRDC. Getting to 63% of the white vote you need to get people who care about the environment, and I bet she can speak eloquently about how protecting the environment is a conservative value. And Hoolian would gay-smile back at her and sputter his canned talking points.
Quite the education, perhaps a former neighbor of SS:
High School: Harvard-Westlake School, North Hollywood, CA
University: BA English,Yale University (1978)
University: MA English, Cambridge University (UK)
Law School: JD, Stanford University (1985)
She’d ensure Trump was safe from being impeached or shot too, since she is with him on the important issues and would probably be more effective once in office. Two non-PC Scottish Americans from New York City is quite the combo too.
* Trump needs to look very carefully at Schwarzenegger’s playbook. He won something like 2/3 of the white vote with dumb slogans aimed at low end whites and environmental and social stands to cater to affluent whites.
* To be fair to Trump, watching TV would be very different for him than it would be for the rest of us. Many of the people on the cable news and financial channels would be people he knows personally and who would respond when he calls them up, whether on air or later. He’d know who the money bunnies on screen are dating and all the rest. Watching TV would be much more like video conferencing for him. The Donald broke the fourth wall decades ago.
* Yeah, that was cringeworthy. But in a way it was a brilliant way to expose the leftist media’s hypocrisy on the subject of riots.
Similarly, when he said his supporters might go to Bernie’s rally and everyone started gasping Hitler. Well, so much for the idea that everyone has a right to show up en masse at another candidate’s rally in order to interrupt it.
But yes, at some point he needs to tone it down. It might not be possible for him.
I don’t mind too much. He is what he is and if he’s too much for the more pc voters, so be it, he’ll lose. What he’s accomplished is beyond our wildest imaginings. The most successful paleoconservative presidential candidate in my lifetime. He has brought issues into the mainstream that I have had to discuss anonymously online all my adult life. Most of us would get fired for saying what he does. For conservatives, his candidacy has been an easing off of the suffocation we have lived with for most of our lives. I think a lot of us are very grateful.
* During the congressional investigation of Andrew Jackson’s actions during the First Seminole War, Ol’ Hickory threatened to cut off a certain senator’s ears. He didn’t, as it turned out, but perhaps General Jackson was indulging in a bit of Southern frontier bluster.
Jackson actually had a knife & gun fight with the Benton brothers, so he wasn’t above pitching in to a rival. And there’s the guy he killed in a duel.
He applied a similar ruthlessness to politics, and generally succeeded. If his own aide-de-camp pulling a gun on him didn’t make Jackson blink, then some effete, lace-britches politicos weren’t going to make Jackson sweat.
My point, if you want to make America great again, sometimes you have a use for the sort of character who threatens to crop an ear. For good or bad, it’s part of the package.
* Trump will defeat the Wicked Witch of the West and become the 45th President of the United States of America. And Trump will be a disaster as a President. We all know this now, and we all knew this from the beginning. We did not want this fight, but there were two choices. Trump was always the lesser evil.
Trump will have arrayed against him not just the parasitic sycophants pretending to be journalists, but the intelligence community and the rest of the administrative state. The errors won’t just be his, they will be manufactured by his enemies.
Consider the best state of nature. Trump could put two chickens in every pot (and a lobster to boot), raise the test scores of NAMs by an entire standard deviation, and create peace between Israel and the Arabs, but it would not matter. He will be demonized even beyond the demonization visited upon Reagan. It will be vicious. Trump will be relentlessly, robotically, and mindlessly demonized by the Left and their fellow travellers on the right.
But Trump, the deal-maker, will follow Arnold and Jesse Ventura in tacking to the Left. He will lose his base, but no amount of Leftist/Socialist policy implementation will erase the contempt in which is ‘superiors’ hold him. (Cf. Nixon) Trump will be bereft of friends, and vulnerable to all the enemies he has made by telling the truth.
Nevertheless, Trump is our chance to say that we will not sit and watch, we will not go quietly, we will not passively stand by while we are marginalized, mocked and demonized.
It does not matter. It is not our job to rectify the stupidity of the Left or the perfidy of the Right. It is our job to raise the American Eagle, the middle finger of either hand, the gesture of contempt to our overlords.
Trump will have everyone against him. Trump’s faceplants will be recorded, amplified and distorted beyond any measure of reason, common sense or experience.
Put your seat belt on. It is going to be a rough ride, and it is just the first stage in the counterattack.
Vote Trump. But if you don’t think Trump will disappoint you, and disappoint you in a manner worthy of the worst thoughts you have of a tycoon with contempt for nearly everyone but himself, you are not paying attention.
* Some of the suggestions and hand wringing by people in this thread is worthy of an NRO article.
Trump should stop doing what’s been working fot him and listen to a guy who labors in obscurity to beg for shekels on a quarterly basis.
