Politics

Trump vs. Flake

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump has a lot riding on Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. Trump’s M.O. is classic bully: threaten someone mercilessly with the expectation that they will kowtow to you because you are stronger. Trump’s message to Flake is, “I can take your senate seat away by supporting your opponent so you’d better get in line.”

If Flake wins his primary battle a year from now (August 2018) then Trump’s threats will be shown to be empty. This could be right around the time that the Senate is considering impeachment charges against Trump, assuming the House actually proffers them. Even if not, senate committees could be uncovering a whole lot of unflattering information about the Donald, his business and his political alliances with the Russians, Arabs and others.

Not a good time to have Flake win the primary and show that your threats are harmless.

The Wrong Leaks

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Jeff Sessions just announced that he will redouble retriple his efforts to stop government leaks after pressure public humiliation by Donald Trump. That may probably won’t have an effect on the flow of harmful information about the Trump administration to the media, but that’s beside the point.

The leaks that the media should be really going after are ones about Trump’s business. For all of the media’s investigative prowess, no one has been able to create a score card detailing how much Trump is profiting from his presidency.

Sure, there have been articles exposing conflicts of interest. However, the detailed financial statements are missing. One would think that Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Economist, etc. would be able to put these together. They have the skills, but they are missing the data.

What they need are leakers. They know how to get people in government to talk – let’s see if they are any good at cultivating business people.

The fact that Trump is making millions or more off the presidency probably won’t bother his core supporters. But it could make a bunch of congressmen jealous and even more resentful of him.

Trump And The KKK

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

For some strange reason, people keep expecting Donald Trump to turn on his base. Trump has no support from the press, has alienated mainstream Republicans by firing Reince Priebus and has insulted the Republican leaders of Congress. He has even flamed members of his own cabinet. The only meaningful support that Trump has left is his base.

Why would he ever do anything to upset these supporters? They are primarily white, so Trump will never rush to condemn ‘white rights’ advocates. They are primary middle class and traditionally valued, so Trump will never go our of his way to support gay rights, immigration, etc. Whether or not Trump agrees with them, it just smart politics not to piss off your supporters.

The exception is when the condemnation of Trump gets so intense that he has to do something, like the situation with the white supremacist murder-by-car recently. Trump finally issued a condemnation, but his supporters know that he did it only under extreme pressure and as part of playing the game.

It kind of makes one nostalgic for George W. Bush. At least he had principles. Trump will embrace whatever keeps him in power, even if it is the KKK.

Trump Won’t Be Impeached

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

As the Special Counsel’s investigation heats up and Donald Trump’s relationship with Congress continues to cool down, some are speculating about impeachment.

In the history of the United States, only two presidents have been impeached, i.e., charged by the House Of Representatives with serious offenses. Both presidents went to trial in the Senate, and both won their trials when the Senate declined to convict either of them of the crimes the House charged them with.

The presidents were Andrew Jackson, nicknamed “Old Hickory” for his fortitude, and Bill “Big Dog” Clinton. There is no way that Donald Trump is going to let himself be bested by either of these presidents by getting convicted. Especially Clinton.

Trump’s pattern in legal matters is fight, fight, fight, settle. It is more likely that Trump will follow Richard Nixon’s path and resign before it gets to impeachment, although there is a chance there resignation will happen after the House votes to impeach.

Assuming the potential charges against Trump include conflicts of interest, bribery or worse related to the financing of his businesses, the resignation will probably be part of a ‘settlement’ deal that lets Trump and his family stay out of jail and keep most of their assets.

The threat of impeachment may work, but it is unlikely that it will actually happen.

The Best Defense . . .

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump does not play defense. He is a true believer in the adage that the best defense is a strong offense. If attacked, he fights back harder, like when hit by the “grabbing” charges during the campaign. His ‘apology’ was an attack on Bill Clinton.

So his Tweet the other day that his base is “is far bigger & stronger than ever before” was completely out of character.  Normally Trump would not even be responding to media reports that his base was shrinking. For him to take to Twitter to contradict this can only mean one thing:

Trump himself believes he is loosing supporters.

Good time to go on vacation.

Et Tu, Boris?

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump is the master of the Taunting Tweet. Whether he is taking on the Democrats, Republicans or even members of his own cabinet like Jeff Sessions, he is pretty handy with the snarky, cutting comment.

To be sure, there have been plenty of Tweets tweaking Trump, but none of them are from anyone he cares about.

So it must have been particularly galling for Trump to read the Russian prime minister’s Tweet that his administration is showing “total weakness” in the “most humiliating way.” To have his buddies the Russians publicly proclaim him as “an incompetent player” (Facebook post) has to be the ultimate insult for smart, tough guy Trump. Truly humiliating.

Of course, there may be more to it behind the scenes. The best way to gauge Trump’s relations with the Russians is to follow the money. Is Russian financing still flowing to the Trump family of companies? Is Trump Inc. doing any new real estate development in Russia? We might have to wait until Robert Mueller speaks before we find out.

Kommander Kelly To The Rescue

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s appointment of John Kelly as his Chief of Staff will probably work. Kelly is retired military, and Trump spent five of his most formative years in a military academy under a tight command structure. If anyone can inject some discipline into Trump and his administration, it would be a four star general.

For a while.

Until Trump starts remembering what he didn’t like about the academy and the military life. Like how his command was taken away from him when he was ‘promoted’ into an administrative position. And how he chaffed at the rules (but got away with breaking them).

That’s when he will fall back on the fact that as commander in chief he actually outranks a four star general. He’ll go back to shooting himself and his administration in the foot. At which point Kelly might quit. Because if there’s one thing that really annoys a military man, it is friendly fire.

Loyalty Is A One Way Street

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Richard Nixon’s enemies list was secret but Donald Trump’s is right out there for everyone to see. If Trump does not like what you are doing, he will let everyone know in a tweet. Or fire you. Or both.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether or not the person is a Trump supporter. If Trump is upset with you, be prepared to be called on the carpet. Jeff Sessions was the first US Senator to support Trump, but he is now the subject of major presidential Twitter sniping. Reince Priebus supported Trump through the primaries to the dismay of the Republican establishment, which wanted any nominee but Trump. Priebus now has the distinction of losing his job faster than any Chief of Staff in history.

Both of these men were among the most solid Trump loyalists. But their experiences have shown that while Trump knows how to appreciate loyalty to himself, he has no loyalty to anyone else. It is all about “what have you done for me lately?”

Republican Washington is picking up on this. It will only get worse for Trump’s agenda as members of congress realize that he will sell them down the river in a New York minute if he doesn’t like something. Not exactly the Dale Carnegie approach, and it will likely fail sooner rather than later.

It Wasn’t Supposed To Be This Way

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump must be wondering. Here’s a guy who acknowledges having been ‘raked over the coals (in public) for thirty years.’ He finally ascends to king of the hill, winning the presidency. It’s time for a little bit of respect, right?

But it is not working out that way. The press, which has never been friendly, is even worst to him. His political party cannot seem to get things done, which makes him look weak, which is the opposite of the strong presidential image he deserves.

Heck, he can’t even get respect from his own administration. The press continues to get plenty of leaks from the White House, which totally pisses him off unless of course he is the leaker. His press secretary doesn’t seem to be able to make him look good – he had to go. Even his attorney general won’t go to bat for him. This guy was one of his most loyal supporters and now he’s just ducking the hard stuff.

No, Trump must feel like he got the ultimate raw deal. Which may be part of the explanation for his tweets about pardoning. He may be thinking, “Screw it. I don’t care about the recognition and respect. I’m just gonna do what I want and if they want to come after me and my family they can. I’ll just pardon our way out.”

What The Dems Can’t Figure Out

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Met up with some friends who were Democrats. When the conversation turned to politics, the ‘can you believes’ started flowing. “Can you believe what is coming out about Trump’s kids and Russia?”  “Can you believe Sean Spicer just resigned?”

The ‘can you believes’ are almost always followed by the ‘how cans’ and this was no exception. “How can anyone believe/support/vote for/trust Trump?”

Unfortunately for the Democrats, while this is exactly the right question, they just cannot figure out the answer. They feel that Trump supporters must be uneducated/hoodwinked/bigots or worse.

What they cannot figure out is that there are legitimate reasons for supporting Donald Trump. They are actually very similar to the reasons for supporting Bernie Sanders. A lot of Americans feels like they are getting a raw deal and the deck is stacked against them.

They are right.

Income inequality keeps rising in the US, and it seems like the techies, Wall Street and corporate America are taking over.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were the only candidates really calling this out during the last election campaign. That message still resonates with at least 30% of the country, probably more. And they believe Trump can fix it because he has too much money to care about getting rich anymore (very not true) and he is not afraid to throw verbal bombs in normally reserved Washington to shake things up (very true).

They realize Trump has flaws, but they still see him as the only chance of changing the status quo. Until the Democrats have a message and leaders that resonate with the part of the country being left behind, Trump will remain the only game in town.