Category Archives: Donald Trump

Mainstream Republicans Catching Up: My Jan. 2016 Picks For A ‘Winning Trump Cabinet’

Donald Trump, Elections, Foreign Policy, Government, Republicans

Good to see mainstream Republicans catch up. “The Winning Trump Ticket & Cabinet,” written January 22, 2016, suggested “the talented James Webb for the Trump ticket.”

Webb,” I wrote, “is a decorated Marine who served as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the navy. In particular, Webb is the recipient of the ‘Navy Cross for heroism in Vietnam,’ the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts”:

Indisputably the last salt-of-the-earth Democrat of his generation, Webb had considered a bid for president as a Democrat, last year. However, he appeared out of place at the first dominatrix-dominated debate in October of 2015, where he confessed to killing a man or two in battle. He soon dropped out.

Citing paleoconservative thinker Pat Buchanan, Mr. Webb had argued forcefully against affirmative action and for poor whites, well before reports about the early demise of white working-class America percolated to the public.

Webb the Southern Democrat can galvanize Reagan Democrats as well as fans of the military on the Left.

It’s three years late. Maybe even too late. But perhaps the president—who has squandered 2 years appointing Kushner neoconservatives—will heed mainstream Republicans, who’ve finally, and somehow, stumbled on a sane candidate for secretary of defense.

2016 column: “The Winning Trump Ticket & Cabinet.”

2016 book: “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June 29, 2016).

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Meet The Kushners: First Couple In-Waiting

Donald Trump, Family, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

NEW COLUMN IS “Meet The Kushners: First Couple In-Waiting.” It’s currently on WND and the Unz Review.

An excerpt:

In itself, criminal justice reform for non-violent offenders is not anathema to Trump’s libertarian supporters (check).

For what it symbolizes in the broader political context, however, the passing of the First Step Act—as the criminal justice reform bill is called—is a bit of an abomination.

Good or bad, the First Step Act is Jared Kushner’s baby. And Kushner, Trump’s liberal son-in-law, should not be having legislative coups!

Yes, Jared and Ivanka are on a tear. The midterm congressional elections of President Trump’s first-term have culminated in a legislative victory for an anemic man, who provides a perfect peg on which to hang the ambitions of the forceful first daughter.

In no time at all have Jared and Ivanka Trump moved to consolidate power. This, as intellects like Steven Bannon and Stephen Miller were either fired, or confined to the basement, so to speak.

Today, Bannon is just a flinty glint in Ivanka’s eyes. But by January, 2017, the president’s former White House chief strategist had already “assembled a list of more than 200 executive orders to issue in the first 100 days. The very first EO, in his view, had to be a crackdown on immigration. After all, it was one of Trump’s core campaign promises.” So said Bannon to Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Many a pundit has suggested that Trump give a kick-ass rah-rah address to explain immigration to the nation.

Nonsense on stilts. The Make America Great Again (S.O.S.) agenda needed to be explained daily and repetitively by someone with a brain. It should have been MAGA every morning with Miller, or Gen. John Kelly or Kirstjen Nielsen. Instead, we got stumblebum Sarah Huckabee issuing a meek, meandering daily apologia.

About that promise to put in place only “the best of people”: Ice princess Kirstjen Nielsen is super smart with a cool temperament and looks to match. Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen had been brought into the Trump Administration by retired United States Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, formerly White House chief of staff. Nielsen might not be optimal in her current position. But she would’ve made a great MAGA mouthpiece.

It’s quite clear that President Trump’s promise to hire only “the best” ought to have begun with firing The Family. Instead, Mr. Kushner‘s national security portfolio has expanded in a manner incommensurate with his skills. It now includes, I believe, China, Mexico, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The same can be said of Ivanka, who was soon briefing the South Korean president on sanctions against North Korea. That Ivanka lacked a permanent security clearance was the least of the country’s worries, given Steve Bannon’s assessment  of her cerebral acuity: “as dumb as a brick”. …

... READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN IS “Meet The Kushners: First Couple In-Waiting.” It’s currently on WND and the Unz Review.

 

 

What Women & Minority Majority Transformations Do To Elections

Democracy, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Feminism, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Republicans

The area “in or near Orange County, the densely-populated suburbs between Los Angeles and San Diego … were once an unassailable Republican fortress.” (“Orange Is The New Purple,” The Economist, Oct 20th 2018.)

“The OC” incubated Barry Goldwater’s conservatism and was home to Richard Nixon. Until 2016, its voters had last backed a Democratic presidential candidate in 1936, when they voted for FDR.

But the fortress has fallen to shifts in the population. Orange County, which used to be the colour of pith, is now minority majority with 34% of its population Hispanic and 21% Asian. Its voter registration reflects the change. It is 35% Republican, 34% Democrat and 27% independent, the definition of a competitive district.

The change that has most salience, though, is the rise in the number of university-educated people, especially women. In four of the five closest-fought districts in the county, graduates make up 28-34% of voters. Fully three-quarters of California’s female college graduates disapprove of Mr Trump (compared with 58% of male graduates and 61% of women who did not graduate). More than two-thirds [said] they [would] vote Democratic.

“Orange Is The New Purple,” The Economist, Oct 20th 2018.