Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Trump: he may not be a hypocrite, but he is a raging elephant

The Donald  has been trumpeting the Trump this week.  He appears to have been catching on with the extreme right of the Republican party  and promises to turn the Presidential campaign upside down. The ultimate test of his appeal will be the Republican primaries, if he does decide to run.  If I were betting in one of the Casinos he used to own, I would put my money on him to do it. Failing that, I would also expect him to run as a third party candidate. What does he have to lose? He has the money, or at least he boasts he is rich, though somewhere along the line he will have to disclose his personal wealth. He has plenty to gain even if he loses the presidency, since he will soon be an unemployed  TV star.

He is tapping into the gut feeling of so many in this country whose sentiments are in sync with his, but who also like  to ignore any consequences of such actions.  The last straw in any respect I had for him was when he advocated going into Libya and Iraq and seizing the oil fields to pay for our past sins of pre-emptive strikes or the ownership of the companies drilling there or the long standing allies we had in the area.  If those countries were  vacuums, the practicality of doing that (aside from the moral, imperialistic, anti US sentiment generating issues) would not be in question. The problem is: none of these, including the Libyan revolutionaries, would roll over and play dead.  The cost of such military action must be a calculation that would underline the total absurdity of his foreign policy. Our economy cannot even afford the relative limited commitments we have now, much less could he count on   public approval he would need to undertake such effort.  Americans are already tired of those wars.

When it comes to foreign policy, not only is Trump a bull in a china closet, he is a rampaging elephant.

On the hypocrite meter, he deserves credit: at least he would make it clear US foreign policy is not about terrorism or bringing democracy to dictator dominated  nations or even about hatred  and fear of Muslims..  It is about oil without any  idealism attached. 

 His immoral lifestyle past, as one commentator mentioned on Morning Joe, is world class, no doubt...right up there with Berlusconi of Italy.  He would not be wimping "I did not sex with that woman"; he is already   opining "he loves beautiful women".   His newly found religion of pro life is not exactly a trade off  for those who expect our Presidents to be somewhat of a moral leader as well as a political one.  But  on this issue,as well,  he is no hypocrite.

The question is, can most Americans accept his attitudes and policies,  hypocritical or not.

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