Anyone care to put a positive spin on this bit of cake-hole rant:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/DoAriULv1P8[/youtube]
How is Trump worthy of Republican support? The only thing he has going for him is what is running against him across the aisle in the 2016 presidential election. But Trump is anything other than presidential. He is unfit to be commander-in-chief.
Corbin Reiff answers the man who would be dictator:
Please defend this. Let’s hear the positive spin. Go ahead and malign Corbin Reiff. Go ahead and attack me as a RINO or Hillary supporter.
Donald Trump certainly can’t tolerate any bad press. So why should his supporters?
Oh, yes, he’s going to treat our military so well.
Trump’s “America First” message seems more about “Make America Selfish, Again” than it is about America’s greatness.
He promises to “make America great again.” But where in his declarations can we find the language of the American creed? Think about it. In all his stump speeches, tweets, and debate performances, how many times have you heard him utter the words liberty, freedom, democracy, Constitution, Founding Fathers, rights, ideals, equality, opportunity? Has he ever quoted the giants of our political pantheon—Lincoln or Jefferson, FDR or Reagan? Unlike every other candidate, Republican and Democratic, in this race and in races past, he completely ignores the ideas at the heart of the American experiment.
Instead, he repeats words like winning, great, huge, beat, kill, deals, successful, rich. He quotes himself and his own books. The central idea at the heart of Trumpism is the idea of winning. And winning, by his definition, means beating a loser. Right now, he says, we’re losing to China and Mexico and Japan and all the rest. But he’ll change that. He’ll reverse the flow of money from foreigners and illegal immigrants back into the pockets of hardworking Americans. Trump’s world is a zero-sum game, and Trump’s America will start winning again only when everyone else starts losing.
This simplistic thinking defies logic and basic economics. But it does appeal to a certain sense of American nationalism: that “we” as a collective need to rally around a strong leader who will make us once again richer and more powerful than everyone else. Why? Because we’re us and they’re them. This kind of nationalism, however, is completely unexceptional. The leaders of literally any other country on earth could—and often do—say the same thing to their people and appeal to the same nationalistic sentiments. There is nothing uniquely American about what Trump espouses. There is no American ideal or philosophy providing a moral reason for this national mission to “win.”
What has been unique in American political discourse for 240 years is that our ideals have given a higher purpose to our common mission to govern ourselves at home and champion our values abroad. Americans, Jefferson wrote, are “trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.” It fills me with pride to belong to the one country in history to have built its foundation and forged its bonds of citizenship on these magnificent ideals. It has given me a deep love for my country—a patriotism I feel in my bones.
Many foreigners find this somewhat mystifying, if not unsettling. My European friends in particular are often shocked when they come to America and see how often and fervently we wave the flag, sing the national anthem, and celebrate our military. They recoil and ask how I can partake in such naked displays of nationalism. In their countries, comparable shows of national sentiment are often linked to racism, xenophobia, militarism, and chauvinism. And not without reason: The history of Europe and much of the world is replete with countless tragic examples of political leaders whipping their countrymen into a nationalistic fury to start wars, crush individual rights, oppress minorities, and even commit genocide.
But America is different, I explain, unique in that our national identity is based on ideas. Without a shared belief in liberty, democracy, and equal opportunity, we would cease to be Americans in any meaningful sense. Our patriotic displays express a shared pride and dedication to those ideals far beyond any brittle bond of race, ethnicity, or narrow sense of nationality.
Donald Trump is chipping away at that truth, reducing American patriotism to an ugly and tawdry nationalism bereft of true American values. He denounces and dismisses allies who share those values—peaceful democracies like Japan, South Korea, Germany, and other NATO members—but compliments and quotes dictators like Vladimir Putin and Mussolini, who dismantled democracies and invaded their neighbors. A core tenet of his foreign policy is to demand our allies give us more money in exchange for our protection. He seems to view the role of the United States and its military in the world not as FDR’s “arsenal of democracy,” but rather a mercenary force with little higher mission than to reclaim every penny of its cost from other nations.
In the domestic arena, he demonstrates disdain for our most dearly held freedoms, threatening to “open up libel laws” to sue newspapers that write negative stories about him, joking about killing reporters, and calling them “such lying, disgusting people.” He regularly whips his crowds into frenzies of anger and violence completely anathema to the democratic spirit, encouraging them to “knock the crap out of” protesters and have them “carried out on a stretcher.” When one of his supporters did assault a protester at a North Carolina rally and followed it up by declaring that next time, “we might have to kill him,” Trump praised the man, saying “he obviously loves his country.” That Trump confuses such hatred for patriotism is telling. And that this hatred is often directed toward protesters who are members of racial and ethnic minorities—at rallies where Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric flirts all too closely with nativist and racist sentiments—makes these episodes even more disturbing. When he leads his crowds in angry jeers of “USA! USA! USA!” to cheer on this vitriolic behavior, he inverts in the most awful way what that chant should mean.
Corbin Reiff is apparently going over to tape an interview for NBC Nightly News.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
See Greg we CAN do it !!
Who will be the next one ?
He may have been referring to some of the waste over there and there was waste. Unfortunately, given his past track record of disparaging what we did in Iraq, I’m not so sure. One minute he thumps his chest and says he’s going to kick the bad guys’ ass and the next minute he sounds like Code Pink. We took out a very bad regime in Iraq, one with terror ties, WMD, and that murdered tens of thousands of its own people. If he thinks we are worse off without that regime, he probably doesn’t have the foresight to deal with future threats much like the person he is trying to replace.
@another vet:
Cant recall Saddam killing Americans over here. Do recall that he was our boy in the Mideast when he was fighting Iran and that we #1 sold him the designs for the artillery chem weapons #2 gave permission for western companies to build him the factories to make them and #3 allowed western companies to sell him all the precursor chemicals
Here is the video of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam and pledging our support in his war with Iran
We replaced the strongest secular leader in the Mideast with a Baghdad government that is bff with Iran, and ISIS. I’d rather have Saddam thank you very much
“In late 2005, several U.S. citizens were criminally charged with respect to the handling of these funds—and have since pled guilty. In February 2007, five more were indicted, of whom four were convicted and one pled guilty,” CRS reported.
$774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division’s vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.”
The minutes from a May 2004 CPA meeting reveal “a single disbursement of $500m in security funding labelled merely ‘TBD’, meaning ‘to be determined’.”
The memorandum concludes: “Many of the funds appear to have been lost to corruption and waste … thousands of ‘ghost employees’ were receiving pay cheques from Iraqi ministries under the CPA’s control. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
The Pentagon is finally closing the books on the reconstruction programme in Iraq but still cannot say what happened to $6.6billion of the money. [I]nvestigators auditing the cash have admitted that more than half of that huge amount may have been stolen when it got there in ‘the largest theft of funds in national history’.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003101/Missing-6-6billion-sent-George-W-Bush-aid-Iraq-stolen.html
Listen to Trump’s context.
He was talking about IRAQI soldiers, not AMERICAN soldiers.
And who knows where all that money went?
No one.
We admit that.
Great comment, Nanny G. Hopefully Wordsmith will follow up with a post showing howwrong you are or apologizing for not being up on the issue at all. Maybe he’ll even promise to get the facts and the context right before posting a hit piece on Trump.
“Listen to Trump’s context.
He was talking about IRAQI soldiers, not AMERICAN soldiers.”
It’s even in the quote from Politico (right below the picture of Trump). “Iraq, crooked as hell.”
Why vote Trump? Because Hillary truly is THAT BAD and a totally corrupted system leaves us no option. If anyone hasn’t realized that by now they’ve had their head in the sand or up Hillary’s butt for several decades. God help this nation if by continued hook and crook that witch retakes the White House instead of facing long overdue justice for her many crimes.
Well Llyod of course you have options. First depending on which state you live there is an excellent chance your vote will not be required or be able to influence the election
There are going to probably be less than 12 states where the election will be competitive. Unless you live in one of those feel free to write in Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz.
Unless you live in one of the 8 or so states where a Senate seat is competitive probably your vote will be pretty much meaningless for control of the Senate. Remember the 2017 Senate will be approving the next SCOTUS nominee.
I can’t tell from the snippet of video you provided if Mr. trump was talking about Iraqi or American soldiers, and I really don’t care.
Why not?
When I was in the Army, I knew quite a few soldiers very well. One of them that really stands out in this context was a sawed-off little Puerto Rican dude from the Bronx who was a frequent, and welcome, guest in our home because he loved my wife’s cooking on the one hand, and because we trusted him on the other. He often stayed the night, or watched our young daughter when her mother and I both had the duty, because he was not fearless, but smart-brave, and we knew that anyone who wanted to hurt Teresa would have found it a hard path past him to her.
Having said that, if the Army had given him a sack of cash and told him to pass it out to the civilians, he damned sure wold have tried to find a way to siphon off as much as he could for himself. His buddies only reaction would have been “Good for you. You’re buying at the Liebe Hotel tonight.”
Are our soldiers pretty damned good? Yes. Are they Boy Scouts? No freakin’ way.
Did money disappear in Iraq? Maybe. Don’t know, don’t care.
You seem to be more upset over the fact that he said something than you are curious over whether he was right or not.
@another vet #2 –
One of the more wasteful efforts was the Al-Arabiya network. Most Iraqis that we ran into said it was like Al Jazeera – chock of full half-truths, lies and propaganda. They preferred watching a channel that ran Arab language soaps all day, all night. News, they switched to CNN International and watch the lies from them, saying it painted a rosier picture. At least the Bush administration killed Al Arabiya.
There are many on both sides who would opt to believe Saddam wasn’t half bad. They forget he was a terrorism enabler, he was reconstituting his ballistic missile program in defiance of the 1991 cease-fire, forget he was siphoning off large volumes of food stocks and money from the UN “Oil For Food” program, etc.
But, of course, they did not have to face a 40-something woman looking for her husband who disappeared some 20 years earlier. I think I was maybe a year or two older than I was in 2003, but the Iraqi woman looked like she was in her 70s.
And, that is one of the problems. He may listen to the briefings and ask good questions, but he always defaults to his flawed understanding of the national security issues and challenges we are facing. He continues to say he is his own best national security adviser.
@David:
Sorry to say, we have our own version of that in this country. It’s called the Main Stream Media.
It’s like a self fulfilling prophecy for them. Sometimes I wish there was a way we could have had them live under his rule for a year and then ask if they would like us to get rid of him.
Which calls into question whether or not he’ll make the right decisions like Bush did when he listened to his generals instead of the armchair ones back here and went with the Surge.
As a side note, I checked out Corbin Reiff online. He writes for Rolling Stone Magazine. Not exactly a magazine that held our OIF mission or troops in very high regard. I would think if he was so angry about someone making statements like Trump’s, he would have picked a different magazine to write for. Something doesn’t smell right.
the removal of Saddam did not benefit the national interests of the USA
Yes it benefited the Shia 50% of the population it allowed them their free choice to become best friends with Iran and also a chance to take revenge on the Sunni that had oppressed them under Saddam
“And now for something completely different…”
@john: Why yes, I have the option to vote or not to vote and mine will be one of the votes that gives to Trump the pre-determined win in my state. I will once again vote proudly for the lesser of two evils, just the same as every election cycle because every vote counts regardless, even the ones not made, providing for any write in votes which is the same as not voting. Draw your line in the sand and take a stand but there’s no way this veteran is going to effectively make a vote for Hillary Clinton by not voting for Donald Trump.
If the hard heads who refused to vote for Romney (Yes, he sucks) had held their noses and actually gone and voted for that lesser of two evils last time around at least we would not have been stuck with the quite evidently, historically proven much greater evil along with everything that has accompanied him for the last four years. Vote for Trump or vote for Hillary if that’s how you’re bent but it’s one or the other because Obama apparently hates the U.S. enough to ignore Hillary’s vast and many crimes of which he is fully aware and he is going to let a criminal represent the Democrat ticket (perhaps he also hates Democrats?). He’s evidently still bent upon destroying us as a nation, and/or he is complicit in some of her crimes and/or otherwise he is acting under duress much as apparent for the rest of our national leadership.
Assuming the FBI is at all competent and still consists of patriotic citizens aside from being controlled by fully corrupted political hacks, they surely have enough on both Clintons to put them away for the rest of their short, miserable lives. Follow the money, folks, just follow the money, but there is still apparently “no controlling legal authority” as Al Gore put it. There was a time when much of that would be deemed high treason but no one is saying the “T” word even yet.
@Nanny G:
@boxty: .
Lol. “Hit piece”? The Donald is a walking daily bullseye that shoots himself in the foot, unassisted. The only thing he has going for him is Hillary as the Dem’s Annointed One.
AllahPundit:
Read from start to finish.
I could hold my nose and vote for a number of conservatives I don’t like. Trump is no conservative. How’d his talk with the NRA go, btw?
I am having a tough time hitching a ride on the Trump train. If the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming Trump train, America and the conservative movement may be royally screwed.
Then there is Hillary…..Aaaargh!
The only thing Trump has going for him is his opponent .”He is unfit to be POTUS.”
Ccncur
Corbin Reiff as the mother and grandmother of great Americans who have served in the armed forces, I say you are a disgrace to the uniform.
Trump is garbage. Hillary is poison. Congress may hold him in check. Congress has proven that they cannot hold the leftist machine in check. They can’t contain Hillary because the media won’t let them.
Tragic as it is, Trump is our only hope to stave off those with a goal of converting America into a cesspit of collectivist servitude.
@Wordsmith: Typical Trump trash talk-he’s-not fit to be POTUS.
@Wordsmith:
The conservative movement is screwed. Obama has damaged the country pretty much beyond repair with the help of his fellow leftists and spineless Republicans. Some of it is fixable, some of it is irreversible. The ground we have lost fighting radical Islam is fixable. It will take a Commander-in-Chief who appoints and listens to competent generals (Petreaus, Odierno, Austin) as opposed to incompetent ones (Shinseki) or political yes men (Dempsey) and who rejects fighting the war the PC way.
Other damage may be fixable to an extent but will require time such as healing the racial divide he bestowed upon us and restoring rule of law and the power of the Constitution. Mending his divisive race relations will require a President who acknowledges racism exists while not screaming racism every chance he or she gets. Restoring law and order will require a Supreme Court with a majority of Justices being Constitutionalists. Currently we only have two so that will require a conservative majority in Congress for quite a few years in order to approve them.
Other damage he has done is irreversible the main one being the debt. It is unfixable in not only dollar terms but also in the new standard he has set forth as to what constitutes fiscal responsibility. Before a balanced budget warranted bragging rights. Now a deficit that is under a trillion dollars warrants bragging rights. In order to balance the budget, there would need to be massive cuts to government spending even if the left wing wet dream of taxing the rich 100% were to be put in place. Given how Obamanomics has greatly increased the dependency on handouts, trying to get someone elected to do what is necessary will be next to impossible. That makes all of the above “fixable” damage irreversible because a true conservative won’t get elected in the general election and a left winger will only expand upon the damage Obama has done.
Yep. We are screwed.
Wordsmith,
It’s obvious that you can’t be taken seriously because someone posted information that refutes the entire premise of your post and you try to laugh it off without any argument of your own.
Get your eyes off your belly button and look around you. The media will manufacture any controversy to make their opponents look bad. Stop being their useful fool.
@DaNang67: You summed it up perfectly, DaNang67, thank you. And thank you for your continuing service to our country. God bless America1
@boxty:
Boxty, it is pretty common for posters here to write past one another rather than do point-by-point refutations.
So, are you Irish, by any chance?
I only recently discovered boxty as a way to serve leftover mashed potatoes.
It is SO good!
If you have a recipe I’d love to try it, too.
@boxty:
Lol. I did not laugh off Nan’s comment. I laughed out loud at your description of my post as a Trump “hit piece”. As I indicated, the “hit pieces” write themselves, whenever he opens his mouth.
Why do I need to write an argument of my own when AllahPundit’s already done a fine job of the grunt work? You asked for it and I linked you up. Click your royal derriere on over and read the entire “hit piece” for yourself.
No. Trump manure-factures his own controversies and makes himself look bad. The media merely loves covering it.
So is Hot Air being a “useful tool”? I wonder if you even bothered to click on over to Hot Air since you referred to Allah Pundit as “someone posted”.
Mind if I cite from MSM? Specifically the Associated Press? Is the AP liberally biased? Is it only when they disagree with your opinions? Because they do find that Trump has a point; however, the spin from his camp that he was referring to Iraqi soldiers is again, cringe-worthy. Your rah rah cheerleading of Nan’s comment and parroting the Team Trump spin ignores the previous occasions that clearly shows he’s referring to American soldiers.
@Nanny G:
Context? Hell no, that is not the name of the game. Trump is to get the D treatment by the R’s. It’s one reason we started calling them the uniparty.
And regards to Trumps conservatism, well if the people, Wordsmith in particular, who voted for Romney (the father of State run healthcare)… Where were you during the last election cycle? Where was the pushback and boycott of Romney the father of ObamaCare. He was conservative enough for your vote despite championing state run healthcare.
Meanwhile the man who wants to build a wall on our southern border is not conservative enough?
Not too mention, what conservative laws have been passed over the last six years? Did I binge and miss it?
Pardon if you did not vote for Romney, but if you did… I would ask you to reflect.
“Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric flirts all too closely with nativist and racist sentiments.”
Really? All I hear is dog whistle.
And is that a link/pic to MSNBC? And doesn’t the author you cite write for Rolling Stone. To each his own. I’ll take a Jeff Sessions endorsement vs your MSNBC cite and Rolling Stone author any day.
Donald Trump Shuns Social Security Reform, Takes Target off GOP’s Back
Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Social Security Plan ‘Takes Target Off GOP’s Back’
Donald Trump Rolls Out Winning Platform: Cut Taxes, Save Social Security and Medicare
Let us note that opening interstate competition for insurance companies was one of the things conservative Republicans wanted to do to help drive healthcare costs down. It also is in following with the tradition of supporting interstate commerce. But the Democrats refused to even let Republicans into the room when they were cooking up Obamacare.
I would make another note, and that is that if Trump’s “third way” proves successful, and if he succeeds in putting U.S. workers back to work by transforming the Washington D.C. establishment’s “Service Economy” back into a “manufacturing economy. If all this results in Trump’s promise of more jobs, (higher paying jobs if we can get rid of illegal immigration and its stagnation effect on wages,) then it also means more tax revenues. And one final note; If Trump succeeds, and America prospers, then this will result in raising the Republican party’s reputation, especially among all the voters that the old establishment guard has scorned.
Ah, yes. No doubt a highly detailed explanation of how you can have your cake and eat it too will be forthcoming.
The most credible projections indicate Trump’s tax plan would add $10 trillion to the projected national debt.
@mossomo:
Which conservative presidential candidate has campaigned against building a wall? Conservatives can characterize Romney as a RINO; but was Romney a hard-liner on illegal immigration in the 2012 campaign or soft? My recollection is that he went hard right; and yes, he was for building the wall.
The Secure Fence Act has been law since 2006. Problem with the emotional issue of completing the wall is that a high percentage of those who are here illegally didn’t sneak across the border. They overstayed visas. And part of the reason why the wall hasn’t been completed is eminent domain/property rights issues for those whose land our government wants to build the fence through.
It’s funny how those on the left smoulder over a do-nothing Congress that has obstructed President Obama every step of the way, refusing to compromise and work with him on anything, supposedly; and those on the right howl that the Republicans they elected to Congress have capitulated and not done their job, allowing President Obama to do what he wants. Jiminey crickets!
Any act of compromise- the only way to get anything done with divided government that is not completely controlled and dominated by one political party- is supposedly betrayal.
I did. As did millions of other conservatives who plugged their noses and voted against Obama, moreso than voted for Romney.
So how is Trump different? Because he is an absolute charlatan whose only appeal is populist anger, style, and snake oil rhetoric that is music to the ears of some hard-line, angry conservatives.
I could hold my nose and vote for any number of conservative candidates who are not my 1st or 16th pick. Trump…..I’m struggling with. If it weren’t for Hillary on the other side, I’d say voting for Trump would be like voting for Hillary if she ran on a Republican ticket. Trump is that distastefully non-conservative to me.
All he is doing is singing a siren-song; while all of his proposals are big-government solutions that come with a hefty price tag.
Here’s Reiff’s WaPo op-ed. Sorry if he did not submit his article to News Max, World Nut Daily, or Breitbart.
Anyone who shoots down the messenger without bothering to even listen to the message (and shoot that down as needed) risks living in an echo chamber and ideological bubble.
There are plenty of conservatives who are anti-Trump (George Will being the most recent over the weekend). There are plenty of them who, under normal conditions, would hold their noses willingly and go with the party nominee. Trump is a special kind of clown, though. He is no conservative.
And that is who you’re asking the base to rally behind.
@Wordsmith: Trump is a Populist—he is also a hater. IMO That is the reason that CONSERVATIVES like Will, Romney,David, Kitt, “W”, yourself and many others will not vote for him.
I believe the Trumpists here at FA find that to be his most redeeming quality.
@Greg:
One of Hillary’s own donors agrees with the assessment, but tries to spin it to show how badly it will hurt her Wall Street Crony-class backers.
Donald Trump’s Immigration Plan Boosts Wages, Cuts Unemployment, Says Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street Donor
So it appears that most of the “bad news” will be for a Trump presidency will be the Wall Street Elite crony capitalists who have had a cosy relationship with the Washington D.C. establishment politicians of both parties. (I understand, Soros has already taken a financial hit because of Brexit.)
Boo-Hoo-hoo.
In new poll, support for Trump has plunged, giving Clinton a double-digit lead.
What a surprise. Words cannot express my astonishment.