Dear America,
I started the day with the New York Times and the Washington Post on the internet, reading about Donald Trump of course, and I realized how little I know about his positions on the issues. So, I shuffled around and looked at what I could find everywhere from the New York Daily News to Mother Jones only to discover that there really isn't anything to read about his positions on the issues. The main reason is that when he speaks, whether during a party debate or on the television news programs, he really doesn't say anything other than what he has concluded about what needs to be changed in the world; there's never any mention of solutions to the problems. Oh, he has said that he wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and that he is going to make Mexico pay for it, but he never acknowledges the problems involve, not the least of which is making Mexico do anything. His answer when someone points such impediments to achieving the world according to Trump, his answer is, "leave that to me," or "I know how to negotiate." But despite the vaguerie of Trumpism, he has garnered the support of millions of people who are prepared to live in a country in which a man like Trump could become president. I find it frightening...not just that a Trump could conceivably occur, but that there are enough Americans to make that possibility a threat that can't be ignored. Let me tell you why I feel such trepidation.
I'll start with the trivial. Between his hair and his neckties, Trump looks more like a mafia don than a presidential Donald. Add in his penchant for anything that glitters (if you've seen some of the gold and chrystal festooned interiors in Trump Tower you know what I mean) and you have a man more notable for ostentation than prudence, much less intelligence. But George W. Bush's redneck tendencies were nearly as obnoxious and he managed to sit with the other leaders of the free world just because he was President of the United States, so the gravitas of the office might well outweigh the gauchness of the man if Trump got elected though there no doubt would be condescending sneers every time he turned his back. But less trivial is his lack of consistency: he used to be a supporter of abortion rights but now calls himself a right to lifer with the exception of pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother or are the product of rape or incest; used to favor a one time surtax on the wealthy of 14.5% to pay off the national debt, but now he wants to eliminate corporate taxation and reduce taxes for everyone else with no explanation as to how he would balance the budget; he used to accept same-sex marriage but now says his views are evolving ( a line he apparently expropriated from President Obama even though he says nothing good about The President otherwise). Then we get to the more weighty matters. He wouldn't be making any deals with Iran. He would just threaten them with oblivion and, according to Trump, they would fold like Bedouin tent. He would deport all 11million illegal aliens without considering their investments in the lives they have led in this country, and more out of self-interest, who was going to do the work that they do since he doesn't seem to believe in a minimum wage. Finally, his campaign claims that Trump has a nine issue position paper already written, but he won't release it. In other words, a compendium of his best and most broadly significant ideas...a catalogue of his best thinking about the most important issues of the day as he sees it...isn't suitable for broad dissemination. If his best and most cogent arguments for the things he wants to do are not such a credit to him and his candidacy that he wants to get them out, what is the country going to be subjected to if he gets behind the big desk in the oval office? Or is the claim that a comprehensive statement of policy exists just another bombastic boast on a par with his claim that he can brow-beat the Mexican government into building a multi-billion dollar wall down the middle of the Rio Grande. Really...who is this guy?
In the end, we probably know enough about him to make up our minds about voting for him from just what he has said and declined to say so far. He isn't going to get smarter or more rational, and no one is going to be able to reign him in. He will never be anything more than a narcissistic buffoon, but like Herman Cain in the last election, he has gotten support from a certain constituency that thinks of such idiots as iconoclasts rather than blowhards. Good luck with this one, America. We are going to need it, not just to keep Trump from exerting power but to keep his supporters from doing so. And I thought the Tea Party was a problem.
Your friend,
Mike
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