It's Later Than Trump Thinks

My attraction to Donald Trump's presidential candidacy started about half way through his announcement declaring his run for the presidency that I saw live on June 16, 2015.

 

Specifically, I saw the chance for a start of a change to the political correctness mindset that is ruining America unless it is reversed – & quickly.  Items like eliminating the fallacious destructive anchor baby claim to birthright citizenship, settling the incompatible relationship of Muslims who follow Sharia law taking a U.S. citizenship oath, banning people from Muslim countries from entering America until we know that immigrants & refugees from these countries are not terrorists, ending sanctuary cities, & restoring the enforcement of immigration laws – are all bedrock matters that must be settled before issues like tax reform, healthcare, climate change, the national debt, the budget deficit, or even adequate national defense can be addressed. 

 

Without Trump none of the politically incorrect issues listed above would have ever been brought up @ all by any other person running for office & for this every lover of America should thank Trump whether or not they hate him for any or every other reason.

 

Prior to 2015 I was not very familiar with Trump.  I had never watched his television program or read any of his books – in fact I didn't even know he had a television program or wrote books.  My only first-hand experience with Trump was the WWE Battle Of The Billionaires Match on WrestleMania 23.

 

There certainly were dust-ups in the primary season with Cruz, Kasich, & others but Trump only got stronger with each one of these.  Both Trump & Hillary each got 14% of the eligible primary votes & both will need about 50 million more to win the presidency.

 

RTE left off with the dust-ups with a post on June 26 about claims of racism against Trump for his comments about the Mexican-heritage judge in the Trump University case.  My research found that Trump made no racist comment whatsoever but that Paul Ryan had pandered to Hispanics in denouncing Trump using identity politics to further his career & that the entire Supreme Court is biased by classifying themselves as conservative or liberal justices – special emphasis of the June 26 post focused on Associate Justice Sonya Sotomayor who wreaked of prejudice against any non-Hispanic both during her confirmation hearings & since joining the Supreme Court.

 

More recently Trump had refused to back Ryan or McCain in their little noticed primaries later this month – in fact Trump @ least implied he backed their primary opponents.  Party unity starts with backing people you agree with & Ryan & McCain are not these people for Trump & they both have viable primary opponents within the GOP so real unity could be achieved if the primary opponents won.

 

Trump also has spoken poorly of incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte (NH) – & I still do – & says he will support Super-Pacs that target Cruz (2018) & Kasich (no date) the next time they run. 

 

You can see why on Friday night I was surprised when Trump spoke glowingly while endorsing Ryan, McCain, & Ayotte – three people I have no use for & certainly three people who have not spoken well of Trump.  It remains to be seen what, if anything, these endorsements get Trump.  Will any of these three endorse the anchor baby or immigration positions of Trump?  You know the answer.  Are the Bush & Rubio supporters coming over to Trump because of this?  I'd have to see it to believe it.  Will Trump lose people like me who start to feel betrayed by his move to the establishment?  A good chance if it keeps up.

 

Somebody obviously convinced Trump that the race is lost – not just currently losing – in order for him to make this quick reversal of endorsements.  It remains to be seen if he can recover.

 

Ron Paul explained in 2012 that he would not endorse fellow Republicans who had not in any way endorsed his views because it would be a betrayal to his followers.  Trump's above endorsements are much the same betrayal to me especially in the case of Ryan & McCain where there are viable GOP alternatives.

 

In the case of Cruz & Kasich Trump is looking for trouble that can only cost him votes especially in Ohio.  If Kasich does not endorse Trump, which he doesn't, & Ohio Senator  Sherrod Brown endorses Hillary, which he does, Trump's chances in Ohio are greatly diminished & based on the precedent that no GOP nominee has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio means the election is already over.

 

And then there is the dust-up with the Muslim Gold Star Khan family, whose son U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan was killed in the line of duty in Iraq in 2004 protecting men under his command from a roadside bomber.  Mr. & Mrs. Khan appeared @ the Democrat National Convention taking issue with Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the country including Mr. Khan viciously attacking Trump for "smear(ing) the character of Muslims" saying that with Trump's policies Captain Khan would not have even been allowed in America.

 

Of course Captain Khan is a hero & Trump stated so.

 

The problem is that Mr. & Mrs. Khan's willing exploitation by Hillary Clinton means that their presentation @ the DNC was no exploitation @ all but rather was a one-sided coolly calculated partisan act like all the others @ the DNC, but in this case had the natural sympathy of the audience because of the death of their son.  In short, the Khan's appearance @ the DNC makes this a political matter.

 

The partisanship of Mr. Khan's speech starts with Mr. Khan singling out Trump saying "You have sacrificed nothing" referring to Trump never having served in the active military.  By the standard of "what have you sacrificed?", compared to Captain Khan, neither Hillary or Bill Clinton, BO, or virtually anyone else in the convention center for that matter has sacrificed anything.  Why not single out these Democrats also unless the point being made is partisan politics?  There are 1.3 million people in active duty military service.  These are the people who are willing to sacrifice something (their lives) & that is why they, & Captain Khan, are better than the rest of us.  Trump, Hillary, Bill, & BO do not rise to that level.  (Police & Border Patrol personnel are excluded from these remarks.)

 

Just consider the facts regarding this matter:  By Khan's own admission his son would be alive today if he had not come to America – Trump had nothing to do with his death.  Hillary voted for the war in Iraq in which Captain Khan was killed.  Humayun Khan volunteered for the U.S. Army & was killed by Islamic terrorists – i.e., Muslims.  Had al Qaeda been taken out in 2003 there would have been no war for the son to have fought in.  How many delegates @ the convention had read the Constitution themselves – especially those cheering wildly when Mr. Khan wondered & asked whether or not Trump had ever read it?  By pulling the Constitution out of his pocket & declaring allegiance to it Khan would not be considered a Muslim himself by those Muslims who hold Sharia law as the highest & only supreme law.  Mrs. Khan was not able to speak @ the convention (women being subservient to men is one of the tenets of Sharia law that is practiced in Muslim countries) allegedly because of her emotions but she was able to take credit for writing an op-ed in the Washington post on the subject.

 

But the problem is that Trump allowed this personal attack against him to be spun away from the fact that Islamic fascists are @ war with America & he let the news media center on his counter attack of a Gold Star family.  Instead of concentrating on the facts regarding the hundreds of thousands of Islamic fascists who would murder us as quickly as look @ us the news story degenerated into portraying the Khans as victims & Trump the aggressor – i.e., Trump took the bait.

 

If Trump chose to answer Mr. Khan's remarks @ all, or if he is asked about them later @ a news conference or debate, he should stick to the point that although the Khan's came to America in 1980 when the Muslim terrorist threat was virtually non-existent there is a common sense need for carefully vetting people coming to America today from Muslim countries where terrorists thrive.  Mr. Khan agrees with BO who previously said "as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country."  But of course practicing their religion was exactly what Mohammed Atta & Marwan Al-Shehhi were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001.

 

Several months ago Hillary showed her political savvy when she started a "Republicans for Hillary" group led by John Podesta & Leslie Dach.  So far more than 45 high profile, to one degree or another, Republicans have backed Mrs. Clinton in public statements.  For instance, last week Hillary personally called Meg Whitman, former Republican candidate for governor of California & current CEO of Hewlett Packard, who has now endorsed Mrs. Clinton. 

 

All of the above points show that the Republican Party is not capable of being united & has been in that divided condition during BO's entire time in office.  The break of the Tea Party members seven years ago from the establishment GOP has only gotten worse.  What good does it really do in the long run to have Ryan, McCain, Ayotte, & people like Meg Whitman saying they endorse Trump & he endorses them if they are not all willing to push for the same policies if Trump is elected.  Can you imagine any of these people governing as if there is no birthright citizenship of anchor babies or that they want to build a wall on America's southern border.  Ryan could not even support Trump on the Mexican-heritage judge issue saying that Trump's (non racist) comments were the text book definition of a racist comment.

 

If Trump is to make a difference he has to focus & relentlessly drive home what he can do to improve the lives of every American – Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, single mothers, teenagers, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, homosexuals, transgenders, & people who think socialism is the answer to their problems.  Trump has to convince all Americans that it was capitalism that originally made America great & it is capitalism that will make America great again.

 

On Friday the Bureau Of Labor Statistics reported that the July U-6 unemployment/underemployment rate increased to 9.7% because of the number of people who stopped looking for a job plus those who were working part time but wanted full time work & could not find it.  There are also millions more people who are working for a fraction of their pre-recession income.

 

Trump has time to reach all of these people & if he is good enough & they are worth it he can win; otherwise the country falls further down the Death Of Democracy spiral.

 

Every pundit focuses on November 8 saying there are 93 days until election day - that is a big mistake.  The graphic below shows that 34 states plus DC (plus three all-mail states) have early voting to one degree or another with some states starting early voting in September.  In 2012 over half the ballots cast in Florida, the biggest battleground state, were cast before the official election day in November.

 

It's later than Trump thinks.

 

click on graphic to enlarge