"The Donald" May
Not
Be Crazy
Gary Gerard,
dumbhoosier.com
Some people think Donald Trump must be crazy.
I don’t think so.
I think he just knows how to get maximum air time.
If I had to bet money, I’d say he probably doesn’t really
believe
President Barack Obama was born in Kenya. He probably
realizes, like
everybody else on the planet, that if there was a snowball’s
chance in
Miami of that being true, his opponents in the presidential
primary and
general elections would have rooted it out.
You can’t keep a secret like that in this day and age. And
that
oft-asked question, “Why doesn’t he show his real birth
certificate.
Not just that hospital one”? Why would he? I bet he likes
the fact that
the number people who believe he isn’t a U.S. citizen has
climbed to 24
percent.
Seriously, the more his opponents harp about his birth
certificate, the
less we’ll hear about issues that really matter.
And I really like it when Obama supporters decry the
“birthers” for
picking on the poor president. If the birthers are the
whackiest
detractors Obama has, he’s got it easy.
Heck look at President George W. Bush. People accused him of
being
complicit in 9/11, stealing an election and knowing all
along that
Saddam didn’t have any big bombs.
And what about President Bill Clinton. Remember that list of
people he
supposedly had killed?
So no, the birther thing is no more than a chuckle in my
view.
But back to Trump.
He has this wildly populous rant he likes to go on and it’s
playing
quite well across America. A poll last week by NBC/Wall
Street Journal
had him in second place behind only Mitt Romney among likely
GOP voters.
That’s pretty impressive considering he just jumped into the
fray.
But what he says gets people going. They say, “Yeah, that’s
right.
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, that’s what we need to do.”
Here are some Trumpisms, “If I run, and I win, this country
will be
respected again.”
“I wish we had somebody who is great. We don’t have anyone
who is great
and I don think he (Obama) will every be great.”
“I will do the best job. If I run and I’m elected, I will do
the best
job. People may say, ‘gee, that doesn’t sound like George
Washington’,
but if I run, I will be the best one.”
Trump wants to impose a 25-percent tariff on China.
He wants to start charging other countries when we deploy
our military
to defend them
He wants to tax rich people to pay down the national debt,
which, he
says, is threatening to destroy our nation.
He wants to drill.
All that stuff plays well with the average American. Trump
knows that.
But how to get the most exposure? Easy, plunge down
the birther
rabbit hole. Next thing you know, you’re on every network.
And if you notice, he’s always saying, “I hope I’m wrong
about it, but
I just want to know.”
So, of course, when he is wrong, he can say he’s glad things
came out
the way they did and just move on.
Beside the populist rant, the other thing Trump has going
for him is
the fact that he is not a politician. People really like
that. Most
people think politicians are disingenuous bums.
So that works for him, but does it really?
My sense of that is CEOs don’t make great politicians.
See, if you’re a CEO, like Donald for example, you make a
decision and
you have your people carry it out for you.
You want to buy that piece of land over there? You tell your
people and
they make it happen. You want to build a golf course on it.
You tell
your people and they make it happen.
Politics doesn’t work that way.
You want a 25-percent tariff on Chinese goods coming into
America?
Suggest it to Congress. Let them bandy it about for awhile
in the House
of Representatives. Then let the Senate get ahold of it.
Then let the
conference committee tweak it a little more. Then, months
later,
you may have a 5-percent Chinese tariff bill lying on your
desk.
So my guess is that Trump, while very flamboyant and
entertaining,
would not make a very good president.
I think he knows that and my guess is he won’t even run. I
just think
he wants to try to influence the issues.
*****
A couple other observations.
I remember back when George W. Bush was president and gas
prices
spiked, I saw bumper stickers that read: “When Bush was
elected gas was
$1.46.” OK, now that gas prices have spiked again, why don’t
I seen
bumper stickers that say: “When Obama was elected gas
was
$1.84.”? Of course both of those bumper stickers are
completely
unfounded and unfair, but it seems only one of the guys gets
blamed.
And have you heard about the “Kill Team” photos? Probably
not.
Seems a certain group of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan were
killing
Afghans – some of which were civilians – and then posing
with them like
hunting trophies in photographs. There also are videos of
Afghans being
killed by U.S. soldiers.
And whether the deaths were the result of legitimate combat
operations
or not, the photos certainly violate military standards.
When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke, the story had legs
on the
nightly news for weeks and the New York Times op-ed page
demanded the
resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The “Kill Team” story has only really appeared in Der
Spiegel, the
German newspaper that broke the story, and Rolling Stone
magazine,
which ran a big story a few weeks back.
Der Spiegel apparently has 4,000 graphic photos from which
to choose.
Photos of soldiers with dismembered Afghans.
There has been coverage here and there in various newspapers
and
magazines and on the Internet, but the mainstream media has
largely
ignored it.
When I first caught wind of the Der Spiegel story, I thought
it would
be huge in the U.S. But no. No networks. No New York Times
op-ed.
The major difference between the two stories? Nobody died in
Abu Ghraib.
I would be willing to bet if this story had happened while
George W.
Bush was Commander in Chief, “Kill Team” would be a
household phrase.
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