by Evert Cilliers aka Adam Ash
Bill Clinton exported our manufacturing jobs with NAFTA, and signed the two bills that repealed Glass-Steagall and removed derivatives from all oversight — to bequeath us the crash of 2008 and the Great Recession.
George W. Bush lied America into committing a war crime by invading Iraq and causing the deaths of over 4,000 of our young men, and giving countless more soldiers brain damage, loss of limbs, PTSD, and driving many to suicide, and killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children.
There's no way that Donald Trump can be that bad as our president.
He's not that dumb, for a start.
In fact, he's smarter than the entire GOP (not that this says much).
What people forget is that Trump is basically bullshitting his way to the nomination. After Eric Cantor lost to Dave Brat, who played the immigration card hard and accused Cantor of being in favor of “amnesty,” Trump stuck his finger in the wind and realized he could get somewhere as a presidential candidate if he got hard-assed about immigration.
He was right.
I don't for a moment believe that Donald will ever build a wall, or expect Mexico to pay for it. That's just his way of coming up with great bullshit, to dramatize the immigration issue so everybody gets it in simple terms. A fucking wall!? Yeah, right, that'll keep them out.
And once Trump got going, he started hitting the one issue that he is serious about, and that we should all be serious about: getting our jobs back from China. It would a great day for US manufacturing when Donald sticks some punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. That's not bullshit, that's what our manufacturing industry and our workers sorely need.
Trump must be the first Republican ever who has no respect for any Republican leader. He never stops insulting them, from the moment he said John McCain is no war hero, to neutering Jeb by calling him “low energy”, to claiming Mitt Romney would have gone down on his knees for Trump's endorsement, etc. etc. This guy may be running as a Republican in name, but he sure ain't no party man.
Don't forget, Trump is a socially liberal New Yorker, and not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative by any measure. Which is why he's got nothing against Planned Parenthood, Social Security, abortion or any of the other socially-retro bugaboos so beloved by the troglodyte GOP.
Trump is a man who can read people, and who has read America, and knows what bullshit works to get the nomination. Demonize Mexican immigrants, demonize Muslims, and so con poorly educated nativist older white men who've had a hard time since wage stagnation started in 1970 to eventually blister their American Dream to tatters, and who need to blame someone.
Despite being a man from the elite, Trump can talk the talk that regular Americans understand. It's because Trump is a real estate guy. If you've ever been around real estate guys, you know they're very down-to-earth. Got the common touch. Trump can talk blue-collar language, even though he was born rich and got his MBA at Wharton. Of course, he also happens to be a narcissistic blowhard vulgarian, but that's every poor guy's dream of how he would act if he were rich. So Trump is a walking wish fulfillment of every poor guy. That's why they love him. He's also a strong man, real macho, with the hottest wife in the field. As one woman supporter said, Trump has balls the size of watermelons, while the other GOP candidates' balls are the size of raisins.
Watch how Trump ducks and weaves against Hillary in the general. Heck, he doesn't even have to track to the center: he's gotten this far without really having any policies, so he's free to say whatever he wants, which he is pretty good at.
And Hillary had better watch out, because Trump is the best counter-puncher in the business. What happened when she complained about his attitude to women? He reminded her forcefully how she had treated the women with whom her husband had dallied. Hillary immediately shut the fuck up.
It's going to be a riot, watching the insider candidate being baited by the outsider. The establishment vs the anti-establishment. Where do you think the sentiment of America lies? With the anti-establishment, which is why Trump is demolishing the GOP field and why Bernie Sanders is giving Hillary a run for her money.
Trump could win if he hangs the establishment label around Hillary's neck, and you can be sure he will. Americans are fed up with politicians, and Trump isn't one.
And if Trump wins the presidency, so what?
Just like Hillary, he's from our elite. He'll surround himself with his elite pals in his administration, and probably call on a number of business types. You know, Bloomberg types, who don't feel very party-affiliated (like Trump himself), but like to do a good job.
Trump will be a pretty good president, methinks. Way better than Reagan, Clinton or George W. Probably not as good as Obama, our best president since FDR and LBJ, but a damn side better than the utter disasters we've had in living memory.