Donald Trump

[Martin Hash]

Drum roll please.
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I'm Martin Hash, and I can't wait to talk about the most exciting election season of our lifetime. So without much ado, let's start off by talking about the elephant in the room, the one everyone sees & everyone is talking about: Donald Trump!

You shivered right, when I said that name.. whether you love him or hate him, the guy triggers strong emotions, and they don't have much to do with him, the person. Obviously, because even a cursory examination of Donald Trump the man will expose him as an intellectual fraud, and possibly a damaged human being. I can only form my opinion of him from The Don's public persona, so maybe the man underneath is entirely different, but as for face value on TV: he's a turd. I'd still vote for him though. Perversity is a strong human emotion, and even when I'm conscious of a weakness to submit to it, the thrill of “puttin' it to 'em,” is just too powerful.

I'm rather committed to politics. I was an Obama delegate & I still think Obama's the best, most intelligent president I've had during my lifetime. That could partially be to the Republicans' credit because they've pretty much prevented him from doing anything, which includes stupid things, so maybe that played into it. And I'm still heavily vested: last week, Bill Clinton was in town & my wife, Gwynne, and I stood in line in the cold & rain for 4 hours to hear him speak. And he was good! Hypnotic even. This is the second time I've heard Bill live & there is no doubt in my mind that if metahumans exist, he's one of them. The guy can convince me of his & Hillary's sincerity & fitness for office when I know logically she's a shrill, self-centered, power-monger, who can't be trusted to say what she means, or do what she says, but on the plus side, she's the wife of a metahuman, and he's pulling for her, and once inside his aura, people do irrational things.

In a very similar respect, Trump is a metahuman too. There isn't another Trump, and I've never personally seen another Trump, but I assume some major icons of the past were Trump-like in their rich-guy-having-populist-appeal special ability, probably Teddy Roosevelt, maybe Franklin? It's not that Trump talks to me, we have nothing in common as human beings, and whatever social structure he comes from is alien & elitist: he just doesn't turn me completely off, and the anticipation of a PC-defying, not going to take it, up yours attitude towards the political establishment, titillates my vindictive sensibilities.

And Trump didn't just come out of nowhere: he's been in the Top 10 of Gallup's poll of Most Admired Man in the World 5 times, and was 2nd in 2015 only behind Barack Obama. Trump's 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal” spent 51 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list, reaching #1, and is the #5 top-selling business book of all time. He had a successful reality television program,“The Apprentice,” for 14 years, ranking as high as 7th. He first floated the idea of running for president 1988, on Oprah, and several other times in the past decades, with abortive attempts in 2000 & 2012.

Trump's appeal is easy to see. Americans have lost faith in their elected leaders. We see & hear fools like Lindsey Graham & any confidence we may have had is dashed. We wish there was someway to smash those guys in the face, somebody independent of the lobbies & Special Interests, somebody who would be as rude to them as they are to everyone else.

It would be better if his boat road a little higher in the water but what would a truly independent candidate look like if not Donald Trump? We know he's independent because every vested interest on the planet is against him. Who hates Trump? The Left, The Right, the MSM, Fox News, Roger Ailes, The Jewish lobby & The whole World. So who is it that support the guy? Only The People seem to like him, and their numbers seem to be growing because Americans likes confidence & Americans like winners & Americans like independence: it's part of our liberty equation.

No career politician could or would act like Trump does. People might imagine someone "better," but I can't see anyone without Trump's metahuman powers could make a go of it. I don't know what other people's expectations of Trump are, but mine are that the guy will be like a-bull-in-a-china-shop: stuff's gonna get broken. Trump's supporters overlook virtually everything about him: his propensity for exotic wives, his chronic philandering, his serial bankruptcies, even his apparent lack of fundamental knowledge about America's political history. Supposedly he's a billionaire but doesn't the guy have any handlers? Doesn't he have an attorney who might explain to him how government operates?

And Trump is certainly not a Conservative. In fact, on many issues Trump is more liberal than Hillary? You'd think the guy was a Democrat except for his “deport Illegals” stance. His hopelessly tedious book from two decades ago shows Trump to be quite progressive, and there are lots of YouTube clips showing him saying the same things now that he did when he had real hair.
1) Single-Payer healthcare.
2) Anti-"Free" Trade & anti-TPP.
3) Surtax on the very rich & anti-hedge funds.
4) War with Faux Noise & Karl Rove.
5) Anti-Citizen's United.
6) Not a military worshiper.
7) Stands up to Israeli lobby.
8) Unrestricted right to an abortion. (Except while running for president as an "R".)
9) Non-interventionist foreign policy
10) Getting rid of tax deferral on foreign income. (Is anyone else even saying that?)

A Trump presidency would be exciting, and Americans wouldn't blame him for screwing up because they would expect it: talk about managing perceptions. For example, even though I'm an Obama supporter, lately he's been very politically disappointing: TPP support, gun control, siding with Turkey, stuff that makes no sense so it makes everyone suspect underhanded deals & motives. Trump wouldn't be that hard to understand. Nobody would wonder if he was just being diplomatic or paying off some campaign contributor in the background, no, agree or disagree, you'd think, “that jerk can't work his way out of a paper bag,” not “I wonder who paid him off?”

So the real Conservatives are scared. These are the people who call sensible Republicans RINOs, and vote for Ted Cruz. They already threw a $100 million ad blitz against Trump in the early Primary States, and now they have a major, half-billion dollar relentless smear campaign running against him night & day. If you were going to spend $100s of millions attacking Trump, where would you spend the money? If it were me, I'd spread it around the MSM for anti-Trump editorials, fear-mongering, distortions of what the guy said, and just every day reputation-bashing, so that every article is slanted, every mention is distorted, every sentence is taken out of context.

Entrenched interests obviously control what's being said about Trump. In fact, the MSM is full-on Godwin's Lawing him: George Stephanopoulos compared Trump to Hitler on "This Morning America," to his face. And I think John Oliver is funny but not the episode where he spent over 20 minutes basically calling Trump names. I kept thinking, did part of that big anti-Trump money go to his show? The only thing that would make me think he wasn't paid off is if he did the same kind of show on Hillary.

Of course, Trump is cast as a Fascist and a potential dictator, but if intelligent, capable presidents like Obama can't get their own way, Trump won't either. Bullying certainly isn't going to work but he may make some headway through Dale Carnegie-style negotiation. Trump is an inveterate showman & wheedler. Count on a charm offensive, photo-ops, and a strong opinion about everything, whether he's informed about the issue or not.

Trump is a worldwide spectacle. He embodies everything the rest of the world thinks Americans are like: they see us as either Homer Simpson or Donald Trump. In fact, Great Britain's parliament tried to ban him from entering their country! How's that going to work out if he wins? Yikes! Isn't Trump renown for holding a grudge? It will be a tossup of who's banning who. The World better be very afraid of "typical American" Donny Trump because he speaks loudly and carries a big stick.

Life is a lucktocracy. Trump was in a position to capitalize on it, he did & continues doing so. My major fear is that he might have been so lucky he never learned wisdom. I'd like to hear the guy say, "I was wrong," at least once. Like L. Ron Hubbard who said he could make a religion from a science fiction book and created Scientology, Trump said that he could run for office by fooling all the people some of the time. You can't fool all the people all the time & this guy has been under scrutiny for decades, so you've got to assume he's the real deal.

But he's getting along in age... I can categorically state whatever kind of genius Trump might have been when he was 40, he's 70 now and that intellectual prowess has been decreasing steadily for the last 30 years. So what he might have accomplished when he was 40 is no justification for what he is now. We don't even know how much the guy is worth? He won't release his tax returns, and there's all kinds of conflicting information whether he's a billionaire, and inherited millionaire, flat broke, we don't know? Trump is either one of the luckiest guys ever or he's got that metahuman thing going. When I hear Trump talk, I think "luckiest," but if that holds through the rest of his life like it has so far, President Trump, come on down!

I don't follow Trump's every word; not even a few words actually: I quit listening after the first sign of buffoonery, but I have read the rebuttals against what the MSM has unanimously misreported about what he said, and it is damning indeed, but Trump apologists are few & far between. That will change if he survives the half-billion dollar anti-attack. Supposedly, at one point before the smear campaign, 20% of Democrats, probably OWGs in this climate of Identity politics, said they'd vote for Trump. I'm giving him a pretty good chance in the General. It's the Primaries, with the Republican Party & every other vested interest going against him that seems problematic.

In simple terms, we have the wife of a politician running against a blowhard, and you know what, the blowhard has more of a chance of making the kind of changes we want than any politician. Some people think that Trump is like a politician & will not back up his rhetoric with action. I disagree. You may not like his actions but he'll take them. When people talk about slimy politicians, what they mean is that you never know what that sucker is going to do? In fact, you suspect they'll renege on every promise, and go whichever way gets them re-elected. Donny is not that. If he loses this election, it will be because people didn't want to vote for his truly outrageous plans, not because they didn't trust him to carry through. In fact, they're afraid he would carry through.

People can imagine anything they want about Trump but he's convinced me that what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Unfortunately, I feel the exact same about Hillary... And not in a good way. I happen to like how it is right now: America's not invading anyone, the economy is as good as it's gonna get, and I love the tech & TV shows. No question, the next president will be worse than this but I'll take Trump over Hillary.

This election cycle is not an anomaly. A larger & larger component of dissatisfied people will insist on breaking the status quo. The next generation after the Millennials has even less opportunity than they do. Add fear-mongering like climate change, and self-indulgent practices like veganism, animal rights, Earth First & nascent Luddites, and liberty could be in for a real beating. I could point my finger at suspected culprits responsible for the current state of affairs but we're talking about Trump, and how he is simply a manifestation of the disquiet. More anxiousness than dissatisfaction, a dearth of hope, a lack of naive optimism; people are grasping at the chance that Trump or Bernie may be part of the cure. For now anyway: if Hillary's elected, can you imagine what the next election's going to be like?