Trump: Trying Desperately to Lose
It is plain that Donald Trump does not really want to be President of the United States. He has become alarmed that he might actually get the Republican nomination because the racist yahoos who comprise the largest part of his following are rabid in their enthusiasm, so has been striking out in all directions likely to alienate voters, if not within his core of support, then among serious people in the Republican Party overall, who want a real chance to win the White House.
+
Consider his most outrageous moves in recent weeks. He has:

• Attacked George W. Bush, Barbara Bush, George Bush's entire Administration, and the Iraq War — all very popular among Republicans.

• He claimed that he opposed the Iraq War before it even started, whereas there is no record of any such stance.

• He proclaimed both that Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that George Bush and his entire Administration knew that, so dragged us into the Iraq War — again, a hugely popular war among the yahoos he ostensibly wants to appeal to — by means of a malicious lie.

• Trump has advocated reinstating waterboarding and even employing other forms of TORTURE forbidden by international treaties to which the United States is signatory.

• He claimed that the Iraq War practically singlehandedly "destabilized the Middle East", a preposterous assertion, in that the Middle East has never, in nearly 100 years, since the end of World War I, been anything like stable, and esp. not since the establishment of Israel, which is the single most destabilizing incident in the region. We will know that The Donald is insistent on losing the nomination if he dares to denounce Israel.

• He picked a fite with Pope Francis, a hugely popular religious and political leader. Trump's yahoo base is virulently anti-Catholic, so Trump's disparagement of the Pope won't hurt him among that crowd, but definitely will hurt his chances with the Republican Establishment.

• Trump has been very intent on alienating most Hispanics, a large community that the Republican Establishment does not want to write off completely, by attacking Mexicans and Central Americans. If he moves on to condemn Cubans too, and not just the two Cuban U.S. Senators running against him, we will have yet more clear evidence that Trump wants to raise anxieties among English-speaking people about hordes of Hispanics flooding into the Nation and trying to change the U.S. into the northernmost Nation of Latin America.

• Trump attacked the last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, as tho he did not understand that Romney was the choice of the majority of Republicans in 2012, and well respected as a moderate and responsible person.

• Trump has threatened to run as an independent if he does not win the Republican nomination, which would almost certainly throw the election to the Democrats. So the party faithful cannot have any confidence that Trump has the best interests of the Republican Party at heart.

• Trump has, on innumerable occasions, spoken harshly of "special interests" and lobbyists, whereas the Republican Party has enthusiastically embraced massive infusions of cash into the political process by, you guessed it, special interests and lobbyists.

• In bragging about his Nevada win, Trump proclaimed that he was not only the choice of the well-educated but also of the poorly educated, and said "I love the poorly educated". Isn't that tantamount to saying his supporters are stupid? HOW poorly educated are his core supporters that they don't realize he looks down his nose at them and is calling them stupid without using the word "stupid"? One must wonder if the morons who support Trump would turn against him even if he did call them stupid with that very word. If they would not, what more can Trump do to escape the mess he has created for himself? We may soon find out.
+
Donald Trump knows he is not qualified, by experience or temperament, to be President. His ego would not permit him to take on a job he could not possibly handle. He assuredly does not want to go down in history as the very worst President of all time. Nor do I think he even wants the job. He would be stuck in a terrible, crushing job, for four years, unless he just decided to throw up his hands partway thru his term and resign. So that may be why he is making noises about wanting to select as his running mate a government insider who could handle the job when Trump wearies of it.
+
So why is Trump spending so much of his own money on a run for a job if he doesn't really want that job? I can see at least two reasons: first, egotism; second, adding to his "brand" for future marketing of all things Trump. Egotism is plainly involved in everything Donald Trump does. He does, after all, plaster his name all over everything he builds or buys. This campaign might have started as a giant goof on the public, a very expensive self-indulgence that he had reason to believe would make his investments more prestigious and profitable. But then it swirled out of control, in a whirlwind of crazy, irresponsible remarks that were taken as serious. When he said he could shoot someone on the streets of Manhattan and not lose his rabid supporters, that too was taken as something a serious person could say. But the President of the United States cannot run U.S. foreign policy thru insults to allies, or foot-in-mouth, ill-considered braggadocio regarding rivals and potential antagonists. Would Trump understand that world leaders have egos as big as his, so he cannot wage a war of words, because it could turn into diplomatic, economic, or even military war?
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:14 PM