Patterico's Pontifications

9/29/2016

USA Today Issues Very Rare Presidential Anti-Endorsement: Trump Is Unfit to Be President

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:38 pm



It’s remarkable because they never endorse:

In the 34-year history of USA TODAY, the Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race. Instead, we’ve expressed opinions about the major issues and haven’t presumed to tell our readers, who have a variety of priorities and values, which choice is best for them. Because every presidential race is different, we revisit our no-endorsement policy every four years. We’ve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now.

This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

From the day he declared his candidacy 15 months ago through this week’s first presidential debate, Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.

Whether through indifference or ignorance, Trump has betrayed fundamental commitments made by all presidents since the end of World War II. These commitments include unwavering support for NATO allies, steadfast opposition to Russian aggression, and the absolute certainty that the United States will make good on its debts. He has expressed troubling admiration for authoritarian leaders and scant regard for constitutional protections.

I have no quarrel at all with their conclusion, but I don’t support all of their reasoning. For example: why do we need to bother with NATO? There is no more Soviet Union. Why do we need foreign entanglements, when no less a personage than George Washington warned us against that very danger? And as for “the absolute certainty that the United States will make good on its debts” — wake up and smell the deficit, USA Today Editorial Board! It’s virtually a certainty that the United States won’t make good on its debts. We’re over $19.5 trillion in the hole with absolutely no plan to do anything other than run up huge deficits as far as the eye can see. This is a central reason someone is unfit?

No. There is a host of reasons that actually do make Trump unfit, and the piece touches on some of them. Trump’s penchant for dishonesty is so over-the-top and insane that he makes Hillary Clinton look like a fibbing nine-year-old rather than the habitual lying cretin we all know her to be. He once pretended to be a pro-Trump publicist named John Miller, and every person with ears and a brain knows it was him — yet he denied, in 2016, that it was him. I can’t get over that to this day. (And no debate moderator has ever called him on it!) He is carelessly cruel to people on a consistent basis. He is a whiner and a coward. He is a man who avoided military service based on a made up, bullshit medical excuse, and then mocked the service of a man, John McCain, whose story of courage would make anyone who heard it want to punch a lifesized cutout of Donald Trump in the mouth. Trump is everything that is wrong with this country. Indeed, on any objective basis, Donald Trump is a worse human being than Hillary Clinton, and that’s saying something. It is only the fact that her policies are nominally far worse for the country (although who knows what the lying Trump’s real polices really are) that prevents a vote for her from being the obvious choice. If my vote came down to nothing more than which person is a more moral human being, I would easily cast my vote for the lying, power-hungry, wretched old harpy.

And yet our tendency for our partisan reflexes to kick in has blinded Republicans to these problems of Trump’s. Trump’s comment about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue was supposed to be a kind of joke, but I believe it’s no longer a joke. Politics is the best profession for a con man — just ask Brett Kimberlin, who has clothed his cons in the garb of partisan politics for years — because no other area turns off the rational part of the brain like politics. I truly believe, with all my heart and soul, that Donald Trump could literally murder someone tomorrow, and if it were not captured on video, no matter the evidence, millions would still support him. “Well, the Clintons have murdered people, probably a lot more people!” the Trumpers would say. You know they would. They really, actually would.

I recently ran a poll, which was somewhat tongue in cheek to be sure, asking people whether they would vote for the worst mass murderer in history (Chairman Mao) or Hillary Clinton, given that binary choice. The small sample reflected the poll’s lack of seriousness, but it still is remarkable that Chairman Mao won a solid majority of votes, 61% to 39%.

mao-hillary-poll

If murdering people, or lying on an insane and pathological scale, aren’t going to change people’s minds about Trump, the opinion of a few editorial writers at a national newspaper sure won’t. It’s still a noteworthy piece and deserves your time.

UPDATE: These South Park clips sum it all up.

Democrats Shamefully Exploit Children As Long As It Furthers Their Agenda

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:10 pm



[guest post by Dana]

So here is the latest #KidsAgainstTrump political ad. It’s yet another example of children being grossly manipulated and exploited by the left:

Do these little pawns know that because of Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats, they could have been legally killed while still in their mother’s womb? Every. Single. One. Which reminds me, do you remember the overwhelming concern the left displayed toward another little handicapped fellow who was utterly helpless and wholly vulnerable? Surely you remember the sweetly protective comments directed at him when he was introduced to the country like every other candidate’s children before him.

Hey #KidsAgainstTrump users and supporters, spare me your obscene double-standard-faux-concern bullshit. You’re not fooling anyone. Well, except for a group of innocent children not yet mature enough to understand the very dirty game of politics you are playing with them.

–Dana

Trump to Aides: Don’t Say I Lost the Debate!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:15 am



There are only two options, and always only these two options: either The Leader won the game, or the game was rigged against The Leader.

Some of Trump’s aides have mistakenly concluded that there is a third option — that Donald Trump lost the debate because he didn’t prepare for it — and Trump is not happy about it. CNN:

Donald Trump is angry that his aides and advisers have conceded to reporters — largely without attribution — that the Republican nominee struggled in his first presidential debate.

In a conference call with surrogates Wednesday afternoon, Trump aides made clear the Republican nominee is upset that his allies publicly acknowledged they pushed him to change his preparation and tactics before his next bout with Hillary Clinton. And he wants them to stop it immediately.

The message was “not subtle,” a source familiar with the call said.

Trump wants his supporters to make an energetic defense of his performance and refuse to concede that he didn’t nail it.

Yes, but how do we know this call really happened? I’ll tell you. Trump’s people deny it happened. That’s how we know it really happened.

Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller denied the account.

“The entire description of today’s call is completely false and anybody saying otherwise is just making it up,” he said.

Donald Trump’s campaign revolves around the idea that he will look you in the eye and tell you that what you know to be true, is not true. You know he tepidly supported the war in Iraq, maybe quibbling about the timing? No, Trump tells you, I was against it. That “publicist” John Miller who sounds just like Trump, speaks just like Trump, and is obviously Trump? No, Trump tells you, it wasn’t me.

Trump lost the debate and it looks like Hillary is getting a bounce in the polls? No, Trump tells you, I won the debate. Who are you going to believe, the evidence and your own good judgment, or the things that come out of my liehole?

In totalitarian states, there is no option for the game to be rigged against The Leader. The Leader simply always wins — end of story. Now, I’m not saying Trump is a totalitarian leader. I’m not saying that at all!

He’s not in office yet.

But I am saying this, while it’s still legal for me to say so:

Donald Trump lost the debate.

P.S. Also he sniffed a lot.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0799 secs.