The Trumpster

 

"Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said he remains convinced Clinton is ahead, somewhere in the range seen among the polling aggregators.

“There has been a closing that’s completely natural,” Sabato said. “Every four years, you have two national party conventions that produce a bounce of varying sizes. Clinton got a substantial bounce this year that lasted for a full month. It’s usually gone around Labor Day, and by then we’ll be where we should be, which is right around four to five points” for Clinton.

In a separate question in the Reuters/Ipsos poll that included alternative-party candidates, Clinton and Trump were tied at 39 percent. Seven percent supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, and two percent supported Jill Stein of the Green Party."  Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN1182PT

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Well, pilgrims...   Larry Sabato is the same fellah I watched on the TeeVee as he reported from a Republican Party convention in Richmond that George Allen, the tobacco chewing, spittoon using faux bubba who had just been nominated for governor of Vajinnyah would never be elected.  Never!  Well, fellow pilgrims, he was elected governor and then he was elected to the US Senate and would have been re-elected if he had possessed enough mother wit to abstain from calling a reporter a monkey because he was "a person of color."  Sooo ... I am unimpressed with the Sage of Charlottesville's opinion.

Actually, I think that HC's many faults as a candidate are steadily diminishing her chance of being president and commander in chief, as she correctly states the natures of the job.  I would now give her a 65% chance of winning.

Accordingly, this is a moment in which to consider the pluses and minuses of a notional Donald Trump in the White House:

Pluses.

IMO he is a risk averse entrepreneurial deal maker and closer.   He is loud mouthed but I would judge him to be timid.  I knew many such in my decade long business purgatory.   If you want to see his clones, watch "Shark Tank."  These monstrously wealthy people are all risk averse.  They are not in any way interested in backing concept companies, prototypes, and even functioning businesses unless they have thriving sales and low costs.  Trump is like that and would, IMO, avoid war, the ultimate risk.

He identifies with the United States as a country rather than identifying with a larger utopian world wide "market" under US domination.  This may have to do with his personal history in having emerged from recent immigrant beginnings.  From my POV people with a recent immigrant past tend to be like that.

IMO he would successfully re-negotiate the various trade deals that have cost the US dearly in jobs and manufacturing.

He would also IMO re-negotiate international defense agreements that have in their present form outlived their usefulness.

IMO once you get beneath the public rhetoric Trump's immigration policy would be much like Obama's.

Minuses.

He does not listen well and is really not looking for unsolicited  advice or disturbing information.

He is incurious and knows little of the world outside his narrow experience of deal making and project construction.

He knows little of the nature of government and the US constitutional limits on the power of the presidency.  IMO he would have to make someone like Pence de facto manager of the Executive Branch of the federal government because he could not make the machine run.

He does not seem to understand that in business terms there are no quantifiable profit centers in government, only cost centers.  Taxes and fiat money are not profit centers.  They are part of the costs inflicted by government.

His business experience does not include successful day to day management of a large and continuously functioning organization.  It is hard to imagine him managing General Electric for example.  I doubt that he has the persistence and self discipline to do that.

pl

Comments

[Edward Amame]

Fred

I doubt that too. But Hillary would provide a brake on those two.

[Edward Amame]

different clue

Here I am scratching my head. A bitter Berner considering handing over the keys to the whole deal to McConnell, Ryan, Norquist, etc. And the SCOTUS to the extreme right for a generation or more.

[different clue]

Mike,

It would appear that planned self-destruction is the final stage of planned obsolescence. Self-destructolescence. " This Fridge, should you decide to accept it, will Self-Destruct in Five Years."

[oofda]

Just a couple of points...Sabato was wrong about Allen, but he has a good record overall. And in regard to Trump and not getting into conflicts abroad, I still am concerned about his comments on nuclear weapons, such as "Nuclear, just the power, the devastation, is very important to me." That an wondering why we haven't used them. General Hayden was very clear about his concerns regarding Trump in this area- noting that the system is geared to operate quickly, and the time frame for decision-making is getting shorter.

[Jack]

All

"I believe in a foreign policy based on our national interests that focuses on American security and regional stability instead of using our military to create democracies in countries with no democratic history and couldn’t care less about democracy,” -Donald Trump.

We only face one existential threat and that is a nuclear exchange with Russia. IMO, Trump's clear message is what every American should want after decades of meddling in other people's affairs with disastrous consequences for them and huge costs for us. The Borg Queen's track record of belligerence is dangerous for our safety.

[Stephen Calhoun]

Messianic does Mr. Trump's massive ego justice. He has come to save all of us by the dint of his god-like intelligence. After all, who but a God-like character would deem himself to be his number one advisor?

And when he attained his full strength and was [mentally] mature, We bestowed upon him judgement and knowledge. And thus do We reward the doers of good. (Surah 28.14)

Meanwhile, today Mr. Trump has outlined, after a fashion, an unaffordable plan to make the military-industrial complex a bit more richer, spread mayhem, and, otherwise, help himself to the death-dealing toys he has yet to manhandle.

Okay, we will have to agree to disagree.

[different clue]

Edward Amame,

If Trade Traitor Clinton is permitted to become President, she will find a way to conspire with her Wall Street Coalition of Country Club Republicans and Catfood Democrats to pass and sign TPP after some cosmetic "changes" to it. One of the basic parts of TPP which will be preserved will be ISDS and its system of International Secret Corporate Kangaroo Courts to "decide" investor "disputes" against sovereign legitimate governments in favor of the "disputing" "investor". The Corporate Kangaroo Courts will then levy fines against our National Federal Government in the amount of the money "alleged" to have been "lost" by the "disputing investor" because our laws or regulations would not allow that "investor" to rip off all the money or sow all the pollution that "investor" would like to do.

If a President Clinton is allowed to place America under rule by anti-national extra-territorial Korporate Kangaroo Kouncils, then the matter of who is or isn't on the Supreme Court is an irrelevant side show.

A Bitter Berner has decided that the Survival of National Sovereignty and National Existence is more important than who is or isn't on the Supreme Court. If America is reduced to a mere Crown Jewel in the Corporate Globalonial Plantationist Empire, what difference will it make any more if there even is or isn't a Supreme Court at all? That's what a Bitter Berner has decided is at stake.

[Fred]

Tony,

"be careful" or what, the BLM Blitzkrieg will come after me? The average wages for the semi-skilled labor doing this work in China is ~$6/hour. It's cheaper in Thailand. It's still slave labor. Maybe Mr. Jobs' widow can unionize them so they can actually have a wage that will enable them to buy house, car send a kid to college.