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The first guardrail to go missing was the old set of expectations about how a candidate for president of the United States should speak and act...
The second broken guardrail is the expectation of some measure of trustworthiness in politicians....
A third broken guardrail is the expectation that a potential president should possess deep—or at least adequate—knowledge of public affairs....
One guardrail that Trump’s opponents all assumed would hold fast was the fourth: the guardrail of ideology....
Donald Trump would have been hemmed in a generation ago by a fifth guardrail: the primacy of national security concerns. Trump has no relevant experience, no military record, scant interest in the topic—and a long history of casual expressions of sympathy for authoritarian rulers. He famously explained that he gets his military advice from TV talk shows....
A deep belief in tolerance and non-discrimination for Americans of all faiths, creeds, and origins also once functioned as a guardrail against destructive politics...
Which brings us to the last and perhaps very most ominous of the broken guardrails... Once you’ve convinced yourself that a president of the other party is the very worst possible thing that could befall America, then any nominee of your party—literally no matter who—becomes a lesser evil.
Wayne Barrett covered Donald Trump for 40 years. Here's what he's learned. - VoxBut the way you're talking about it, it seems like it wasn't that straightforward of a transaction — that getting what he wanted out of politicians wasn't just about donations.
WB: Donations were just a weapon in the arsenal, and a significant weapon at some times. At times he was the biggest donor in New York City politics; he was a major, major donor. So donations were a major part of his arsenal in terms of bringing these projects to fruition.
Ed Koch had been a lawyer before he was elected mayor, and his law partner, Alan Schwartz, was probably one of Koch's three or four closest personal friends. And Koch had made him the corporation counsel of the city of New York, its top lawyer. And when he had left that job, Donald hired him. Even though they had had many tortured exchanges between the Koch administration, he hired one of Koch's closest friends and top lawyer.
He played every angle. He hired Andrew Cuomo when Mario Cuomo was governor. I don't think he invented this manner of leverage, but it was certainly more than just donations. Whatever it took to compromise a public official.
Joe Anastasio was Mario Cuomo's bodyguard, essentially. Mario never left Joe; he was by his side all the time. When he left state service, who hired him? Donald Trump!
It was a series of relationships like that that Donald used to help put together this empire. He is an expert at compromising politicians.
It would seem to me that that would more likely be viewed by voters as a disqualifier rather than a qualifier.
The wiser choice? Hillary Clinton is the wiser choice? Talk about corrupt, lacking any moral compass... besides being totally incompetent.Frum stopped just short of saying Hillary Clinton is a superior Presidential candidate to Trump, but was otherwise pointing that direction.
Unfortunately, a large number of Republicans have become so corrupted, so nihilistic they can't see the wiser choice before them. For all of their bluster, even the National Review has just enough seeds of Trumpism to falter.
The wiser choice? Hillary Clinton is the wiser choice? Talk about corrupt, lacking any moral compass... besides being totally incompetent.
The dude has actually built stuff in the real world. You know that world, the one that requires that you actually make something AND jump through all the hoops that government, like the incompetent and corrupt over-the-Hillary, create to make it harder for the rest of us? You don't think that what Trump has accomplished is a bit better than the big siphon hose connected to all kinds of nefarious doings sucking out money by the bucket loads, you know, the Clinton Foundation? Or are you one that thinks she and Bill created that foundation out of the generosity of their true hearts?Yes. At least with Hillary, her incompetence is within normal boundaries. Trump's incompetence and recklessness is unprecedented.
The wiser choice-period.
The wiser choice? Hillary Clinton is the wiser choice? Talk about corrupt, lacking any moral compass... besides being totally incompetent.
Don't make the mistake of confusing the term "wiser choice" with the term "good choice".
Am on board with all that. The whole "lesser of two evils" pretty much precludes good choice.Don't make the mistake of confusing the term "wiser choice" with the term "good choice".
Am on board with all that. The whole "lesser of two evils" pretty much precludes good choice.
6:00 AM ET
A long time ago, more than 20 years in fact, the Wall Street Journal published a powerful, eloquent editorial, simply headlined: “No Guardrails.”Twenty years later, that same newspaper is edging toward open advocacy in favor of Donald Trump, the least self-controlled major-party candidate for high office in the history of the republic. And as he forged his path to the nomination, he snapped through seven different guardrails, revealing how brittle the norms that safeguard the American republic had grown.
"In our time, the United States suffers every day of the week because there are now so many marginalized people among us who don't understand the rules, who don't think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them, who have no notion of self-control."
Here’s the part of the 2016 story that will be hardest to explain after it’s all over: Trump did not deceive anyone. Unlike, say, Sarah Palin in 2008, Trump appeared before the electorate in his own clothes, speaking his own words. When he issued a promise, he instantly contradicted it. If you chose to accept the promise anyway, you did so with abundant notice of its worthlessness. For all the times Trump said believe me and trust me in his salesman patter, he communicated constantly and in every medium that there was only thing you could believe and trust: If you voted for Donald Trump, you’d get Donald Trump, in all his Trumpery and Trumpiness.
Donald Trump and the Seven Broken Guardrails of Democracy - The Atlantic
You mean after the twin disasters of the Ds electing Obama? Nah.From Palin to Trump. It's a natural progression. Is anyone really surprised that the R's went this route?
Not quite "seeing" your analogy.I compare this election with the movie scene where a guy has a gun and the other guy is tied to a chair. The guy with the gun asks where the other guy wants to get shot. Clinton is getting kneecapped while Trump is taking one in the gut.
Not quite "seeing" your analogy.
As a side-note, we know the bad outcome that is the inevitability of Hillary. However, its possible we could get pleasantly surprised, as we did with Reagan, with an outsider actually getting a chance at bat.
I would heartily agree with the entire sentiment expressed right there.It felt clunky as I was typing it. :2razz:
Basically both of them are God awful. Which one is worse will depend on your values and priorities.
You mean after the twin disasters of the Ds electing Obama? Nah.
I suppose to a group of people that think Trump or Palin are Presidential material, Obama would look like a disaster. For thinking folk, however, I think you would have a much different assessment. Case in point, Obama is already ranked as one of our better presidents in recent survey's of political science professors (you know, thinking folk)....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
Outsiderism doesn't work. That's why it's stupid to see it as a virtue.
Goes to show how badly the current class of elite suck.
Which is why we need Trump.
Seriously.
Seriously and Trump are not to be used in the same sentence.... other than "you can't be seriously supporting Trump?; or, if you are supporting Trump, your not serious voter.
Never has such an unqualified buffoon come so close to the Oval office. Fortunately, this is about as close as he gets, as its a good thing that serious voters still outnumber the less serious.
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