Tuesday, May 24, 2016

I Will Not Vote for Donald Trump: My Top Twelve Reasons for Not Voting for Donald Trump



I will not vote for Donald Trump.

My top twelve reasons for not voting for Donald Trump are below.

Background:

I think George Bush and Barack Obama have both been disastrous presidents. The Iraq War, Obamacare: please God let us turn back the hands of time and erase both. We can't.

America needs a charismatic leader who can articulate and champion the Constitution, Western Civilization, the Judeo-Christian tradition and Emersonian self-reliance, achieve energy independence, keep us out of Sorcerer's-Apprentice foreign wars, declare a moratorium on all immigration, and get the American underclass off of generational welfare and doing the jobs immigrants do, earning a paycheck rather than shuffling toward a welfare check.

I planned to vote Republican, as I did in 2008 and 2012. I'm a registered Democrat, but when my party nominated a man whose campaign was typified by the notorious line, "Not God bless America, Goddamn America," the Democratic Party left me.

I don't own a TV and I don't follow celebrity gossip so I came to the 2016 presidential field knowing little about Donald Trump. I drove to a friend's house to watch the first debate and tried to see the best in him.

My favorite was Scott Walker. After he dropped out, I would have been happy with Rubio. I liked Cruz's intelligence and Christianity but had to acknowledge that the mob hated him for the exact reasons I liked him: intelligence, faith, and rectitude.

Trump? With careful study I realized I could never vote Trump. The reasons are below.

1.) Trump's Refusal to Disavow White Supremacists; and His Lies; His Continued Dog Whistling

On February 28, 2016, CNN's Jake Tapper asked Donald Trump three times to disavow white supremacist support, specifically that of David Duke. Trump refused. He later lied, claiming that he had a bad earpiece and could not hear the question. In fact Trump repeated David Duke's name. He heard.

In a more recent development, a critical mass of Trump supporters have openly expressed anti-Semitism. More on that here, but there's much more to this than one article can cover.

I cannot vote for the man in that Jake Tapper interview who declined to renounce David Duke's support and then lied about it. That alone renders him unworthy of my sacred vote.

Further – I *genuinely* don't understand how anyone, in good conscience, can vote for this man.

The KKK is a terrorist organization. No better than any other terrorist organization.

Some estimate c. 5000 lynchings in America, with c. 70% of the victims black. A good percentage of the rest were immigrants, Catholics, and Jews.

In Wisconsin and Utah, a white nationalist made robocalls for Trump. A white nationalist became a delegate for Trump in California.

No one is saying that Trump is personally a white supremacist, or that any given Trump voter is. Yes, since the Jake Tapper interview, Trump has seen which way the wind is blowing and tweaked his public statements, while continuing to dog whistle racists.

How can you play on the same team as David Duke?

2.) Trump's Infantile Temper Tantrum over Megyn Kelly

In the first debate, Fox newswoman Megyn Kelly asked Trump to answer for calling women "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals." To another woman, Trump said, "Must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees."

Here's how Trump should have answered. "I said those things before I became a presidential candidate. Now I am answering my country's call in a crisis. As part of my service, I now reject my former loose language. I ask forgiveness. I will speak with a new respect for women. Watch me. If I err again, correct me. But I promise you, I won't err."

Trump didn't do that. He collapsed into a mangled, messy heap like cheap lawn furniture. He broke down. He lost it. He made fun of Megyn Kelly for menstruating, even while he, Donald Trump, acted out a parody of a teenage girl overcome by a terminal case of PMS.

Trump refused to participate in the next Kelly debate. Subsequently, he lost Iowa.

Jesus said, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."

Man-baby Trump will do to America what he did to his own campaign in Iowa. He's done it already. He reduced America's relationship with London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, into a personal feud because Khan said something that Trump didn't like. "I will remember his nasty statements," Trump said. President Trump will bring America into nuclear war because Kim Jong-un will insult him.

You don't hand the car keys to a raving drunk. Not if you want to get home in one piece.

3.) The John Miller Interview Demonstrates Trump's Pathological Level of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In 1991, Trump, in an interview with a People magazine reporter, pretended to be a PR man named John Miller. In that interview, he spoke in an inflated way of what a great guy Donald Trump is. You need to read the transcript, here. This behavior is outside the realm of normalcy.

4.) Trump's Pathological Lies. Truth Means Nothing to Him.

In May, 2016, on the day of the Indiana primary, Trump insinuated that Ted Cruz's father played some role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After winning that primary, Trump openly acknowledged that he did not believe that Cruz's father played any role in the JFK assassination.

Google "Trump's lies." Yes, we know politicians lie. But there is a difference between what most politicians do and what Trump does, and that difference is enough to disqualify him for any public office.

5.) There Is No There There. Trump Believes Nothing He Says.

Trump doesn't give a whit about the wall, or immigration, or making America great again any more than, when he ran four years ago, he gave a white about Obama's birth certificate. Trump poll-tested these issues and went with them because they got the masses riled up. Trump said, "You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, 'We will build the wall!' and they go nuts."

Trump didn't address Islam till the San Bernardino jihad attack. You can't turn into a counter-jihadi overnight. Trump made a ham-handed statement about Muslim immigration because he knew it would raise his poll numbers as Americans mourned more dead. He spoke about Islam so idiotically that he singled-handed set back the counter-jihad movement at least a decade. More about that at my American Thinker article, "Donald Trump and Counter Jihad" here.

Trump has backtracked on his key positions because his key positions mean nothing to him. If he were to attain office, he would backtrack and do whatever it serves his purposes at any given moment to do. The past is prelude: Trump has no record of work or sacrifice or leadership or accomplishment on tightening America's borders, putting Americans to work, thwarting jihad, lowering the number of abortions, keeping business in the US. He is merely mouthing words that make his mobs of supporters "go nuts."

6.) Trump Does Not Love America

Donald Trump will be seventy years old in June. He has been incredibly wealthy and privileged his entire life.

What, exactly, has Trump ever done for America?

When he was 45, Bill Gates set up the Gates Foundation.

When he was a bit over 60, Andrew Carnegie began giving away 90% of his vast wealth, supporting libraries, universities, and charities. Carnegie is practically synonymous with philanthropy.

Julius Rosenwald, a child of Jewish immigrants, grew up doing hard manual labor. He got rich. When he was in his early forties, began giving his wealth away to educate African Americans in the American South.

That's what rich people who love America do. They spend hours and hours and much labor and lots of money changing America and the world for the better.

One could go on. The Rockefeller Foundation. The Ford Foundation. The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation. St Jude's Hospital.

Trump?

Don't waste my time.

Trump could not take the time to understand the Constitution. He thinks judges sign bills. He does not respect free speech; he promises that when he is president he will squash free speech rights. He will order soldiers to commit unconstitutional acts. He encourages his supporters to beat up his opponents.

This is not a man who loves America.

This is a man who is using America to fulfill his narcissistic fantasies. We are the reporter audience to whom, as John Miller, he sang the praises of Donald Trump.

When Trump encounters men who have worked and sacrificed for America, like John McCain, who was a Vietnam veteran and prisoner of war, and Ted Cruz, who argued for our rights before the Supreme Court nine times, Trump mocks them.

7.) Trump's Plans, If Applied, Would Lead To Disaster, Say Economic Experts.

Trump's tariffs have no happy ending for American consumers. Read Mark Levin on this, for example, here.

8.) Trump's Worldview Is A Nativist House Of Cards that Delays Solutions.

Immigrants and cheap goods from China are the cause of all our problems. We are completely innocent. If we can just eliminate immigrants and cheap goods from China, we'll return to the glorious days of the late 1950s when America strode the world like a colossus.

Except that none of that is true.

Both Democrats and Republicans, both leaders and common folk, want immigrants. Immigrants gave you a cheap car wash. They give you cheap lawn care and cheap nannies and cheap food and cheap restaurant meals. If you can't face that, you aren't mature enough to vote.

You shop at Walmart. You buy cheap goods.

Any solution to the problems immigrants and China present will only be found when we acknowledge what Pogo did: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Trump's nativist rhetoric sells a fantasy that feeds on his followers' worst instincts. His rhetoric manipulates his followers into adopting and maintaining an infantile stance, one that rejects the demands of maturity: admit your own participation in the problems you face; don't pretend that it's all somebody else's fault.

"Make America Great Again" is a backward-looking slogan. The train has left the station. America will never return to 1955. Let us love and celebrate America as she is today, and move forward from today, not look backward to the past.

9.) Trump Does Not Walk the Walk; He Does Not Practice What He Preaches.

Trump talks up employing Americans. In fact he and his subcontractors hired illegal Polish immigrants to clean up asbestos in the preparation for Trump Tower. They were not given adequate safety gear for this carcinogenic work, they worked twelve hour shifts seven days a week, and they were promised five dollars an hour, and not even paid that. They sued; Trump and his cohorts settled, after sixteen years of litigation. The story was covered in the New York Times back in the 1990s and it is easily found online.

At Mar-A-Lago, Trump declines to hire American applicants. He hires Romanians. That story is also in the New York Times.

Trump merchandise is made in China.

10.) Trump's Ego Would Not Inspire Him to Succeed; Quite the Opposite

The other day an author I like and respect very much was on the Dennis Prager show. This author said, paraphrase, "Trump has a big ego. He puts his name on everything. His big ego will force him to succeed. He doesn't want to fail."

Wrong.

This is how someone with Trump's personality disorder works.

If Trump becomes president (heaven forbid) he will fail. He will fail because he lacks the temperament, the commitment, the love of country and training necessary for the job.

After he fails, *he will blame us.*

He won't change real world facts to coincide with his own self-narrative as Mr. Success.

He will merely change the story he tells himself and others to coincide with his own self-narrative as Mr. Success.

He will say, "Congress was against me. There was a conspiracy. My plan was really good but Megyn Kelly sabotaged it. It's all Ted Cruz's father's fault."

Want to see an example of this kind of self-mythologizing, this kind of manipulation of facts to coincide with one's inflated ego?

Read the John Miller – People magazine reporter transcript. Trump cheated on Ivana, thus sabotaging his marriage. Trump cheated on Marla Maples, thus sabotaging his adulterous relationship. Did Trump change his own behavior to save his marriage? No, he changed the story he told. It was all somebody else's fault. It was Ivana's fault. It was Marla's fault. Trump was superior and blameless. You can read a lot of it here.

Trump is not Hitler, and most Trump = Hitler analogies are absurd. But in this small respect, this analogy works.

Everyone thinks Hitler loved Germany, just as Trump's supporters think Trump loves America.

In fact Hitler ordered Germany destroyed. It's called the Nero Decree, after another ruler who destroyed his own empire. Hitler said, "If the German people loses the war, it will have proved itself not worthy of me."

Hitler could have said, "Whoops. I screwed up. The Soviets are advancing from the east. The Allies are advancing from the west. We've committed history's most notorious war crimes and Germany will be hated for generations. It's all my fault. I'm sorry."

No such luck.

No, Trump is not Hitler, but a failed President Trump would resort to the exact same psychological legerdemain for the same narcissistic-personality-disorder reasons. He would say, "I'm not the problem here. You are. America, you are unworthy of me. I wanted, by encouraging you to hate each other, by slapping tariffs on foreign goods, by building a wall, even though most illegal aliens arrive by plane, to make America great again. You didn't follow up. It's all your fault."

11.) Trump's Wealth Braggadocio Is Bogus

Trump is nowhere near as rich as he claims. See here.

Trump's hidden taxes hide secrets. See here.

Trump shafted Atlantic City says Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, see here.

Yes, Trump's four bankruptcies matter. See here.

One analyst says that if he had just invested his inheritance, he'd be richer today than he is now. Read that here.

12.) Cults of Personality Always Go Splat

Trump's followers love Trump. Not positions. Not policies. Not America. Not Americans. Trump.

"Only he can save us!" "Without Trump we are lost!" "I don't care if he insults women / publicly humiliates the Republican Party / promises to violate the Constitution. He is our leader!"

I don't hear, in those hosannas, any investment in America, any respect for, or even awareness of, the Constitution, or any faith whatsoever in American citizens. Without Trump America will fall? What about three hundred million Americans? Are we all chopped liver?
 That's a cult of personality. Cults of personality have a history of ending badly.



4 comments:

  1. Hello dr Goska,

    What I like about Americans is that they have courage to ridicule their leaders.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJM6OEd2Fps

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Lukasz. He's not my leader!!!!

      Delete
    2. And if he gets elected?

      Delete
  2. To most of your comments, my response is, "well duh!". The only important question re: your vote is, what is the alternative?

    ReplyDelete