(UPDATE: Instalanches are like manna from heaven. Thank you, Professor.)
Assumption: Donald Trump is motivated not by superego, but by ego.
Ah, hell. It’s probably the id and we all know it.
If you agree, read on. If not, run along to Obama’s re-election campaign where you belong.
Right now Donald Trump is like a pig in slop. He was just another rich celebrity blowhard “punching upward” for attention. But then Obama swung back, because the Leader of the Free World is such a genius.
When Michael Barone advances a theory, such as that Obama is no Machiavelli, what can we do but agree? But we all have the nightmare scenario searing our minds’ eyes: Obama has elevated Trump into a “serious” Republican contender. Ego aflame, he runs in the primary and does well but doesn’t win. Then he goes Ross Perot and hands the Oval Office back to (in Trump’s words) “the worst President ever”. Obama sure looks like a genius then.
Let’s not take that chance, m’kay?
The proper counter is so simple and obvious that Republican leadership will never think of it. Let’s remind them:
United We Stand, Divided We Fall.
Make that An Official Plank before the primaries. “We hang together or hang separately.” Yes, it’s a real Paine going to this trouble. But if the good ship G.O.P. doesn’t secure its weapons, it will learn the origin of the phrase “loose cannon”.
So reject in advance any candidate who won’t vow to accept the will of Republican voters. Do it now, Elephants.
Non-Trump candidates, craft MOMS’DC–The Mickle Oath of Mutual Support or Dire Consequence–and swear it with great fanfare. (Christians who don’t swear can solemnly affirm, just as in court.) Then hand it to The Donald and see what happens.
It’s perfectly rational for the Republican Party to give Trump a forum. He’ll generate a lot of excitement and attention, maybe even cash. He’s willing to be a “bad cop” and hammer the opposition. Suppose he entered. Won millions of votes but lost the primary. Then selflessly supported the nominee while continuing to blast Obama.
We could call the election right now.
But you noticed that word in there, didn’t you? The one that really clashes with The Donald as we know him.
Republicans would be perfectly insane to give him access if there’s a chance he’ll bolt after a loss. They can’t physically prevent it. But if from the beginning “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” is a key theme, it minimizes Trump playing spoiler with Republican resources.
And if he goes back on his word? Tea Partiers and Republicans don’t tolerate liars the way progressives do. (In fact, progressives require their leaders to be liars. It’s the only way to advance their agenda.)
The problem is, Trump is strong at the negotiating table whereas Republicans are…you know. Republicans. Trump could easily break their will by threatening a third party. Then he loses in the primary, which is guaranteed. (Those “F Bombs” won’t play in my neck of the woods.) So he splits off with more support than ever.
And we all hang separately.
For once in their quivering lives, Republican leadership needs to show, yes, leadership. Maniacs like Trump couldn’t yank the wheel if it was already firmly grasped. Get Allen West to fire a gun near The Donald’s ear and say: “running in a primary but refusing to abide by it is a betrayal of voters. I don’t like traitors.”
(A man can dream, can’t he?)
Yes, it’s theoretically possible to harness The Donald’s newfound influence for good. But the stuff is like nuclear power: it provides reliable and tremendous energy when elaborately safeguarded, but a guaranteed disaster if set free.
Unfortunately, our only hope appears to be TEPCO: The Elephant Party Can’t Organize.
World's Only Rational Man 
Hopefully Trump will turn out to be a meteor. A flash in the sky and then gone.
Your lips to God’s ears. But I expect the press to keep giving him oodles of attention. Our fear of a third-party is their hope.
The problem with this approach is that many of us here probably would support a third party candidate in certain cases, just not this third party candidate. (Like, what if Ron Paul goes independent again? To me, not formerly a Ron Paul fan, he’s looking better and better.)
So, suddenly we’re rallying around the Republican party with the unity principal, when barely two weeks ago or so the general consensus at channel Worm was how sucky the Republican party was? That protest vote, and the potential protest vote, is a good tool to chastize the Republican party (that’s a good part of the attraction of the tea party isn’t it?). I don’t want to throw that tool away because Donald showed up to punk the primaries. Isn’t it better just to call him on his antics, and, especially, focus on his political record (like Mark Levin has)?
The Republican Party is sucky. It’s a reason I didn’t vote for all those years. To me, voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. McCain is a statist too, and I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him.
But this is about America’s survival. The Tea Party response was so strong, some of those primary protest votes turned out to be more than protest votes. I’m hoping a lot more political oxen get gored in the coming primaries.
I agree your preference is probably better. But Republican leadership is so timid, I don’t see them marginalizing him as they should. I also see inflation soaring, not the economy. Given that, the only way Republicans lose is if they’re as pathetic as they were during the Ross Perot Era. And right now Trump is the Perot on the horizon.
With Congress stalled, Obama is now using executive fiat to seize as much of America as he can. He absolutely must go. As much as I loathe preacher/politicians, I’ll vote for Huckabee if that’s what it takes.
One of the political blogs I visit is pretty pro-Trump. Sad thing is, I would estimate about 50% of the readers/commenters there are as well.
The problem Donald will have on the long run is… we’re not even half through 2011. I think he’ll lose momentum soon and he won’t have any come the actual campaign. What’s he going to scream about then? Obama’s phone bill from 20 years ago?
It’s a general problem for the GOP and the Tea Party. Who’s going to run?
Palin, more or less, offed herself (especially with this silly reality tv thing she was doing, what the blazes was the point of that, and today she’s usually just defending herself, ending in some name calling matches with retarded libs) and she’s quite the appeaser as well (her comments about koran burning say it all.)
Ron Paul is a nut (though, I find such crazy buggers entertaining.) Who else is there.
Huckabee or however you spell him. He’s a nut too.
Allen West. He’d rock, but I doubt he’ll run. Airborne bad mofo who has his facts together vs Obama, I’d love to see those debates. West’s no appeaser though, so that might not sit too well with the mass of uninformed voters.
Paul Ryan… no. Right now he can do a lot more than as POTUS. In a couple of years maybe.
It’s like over here. You’re screwed. Welcome to the party. Three drinks minimum.
Allen West is my fave, but I agree it’s extremely unlikely he’ll run. But any moderates he’d turn off with his red-meat rhetoric, he’ll get back because loudmouthed leftist racists won’t be able to keep civil. I don’t see him losing to Obama if he gets the nom. That would be the tougher race for him.
The reason reason that Trump is getting a big hearing now is that he’s aggressively going after Obama. He’s not weasel-wording or delivering politely-worded mild criticism: he’s picking up the hammer and pounding on him, using any issue available, putting him on the defensive so that the public can see how petty and petulant Obama really is.
If Establishment Republicans want to mimimize the Trump Threat, they can man up (for a change) and do likewise. There’ll be plenty of time to be polite to Barry O. AFTER he’s out of office.
I completely agree with your assessment of why he’s resonating. But by tossing around the “F Bomb”, he shows no more understanding of “flyover country” than Obama does.
So all those Republican Senators, who allow Princess Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to caucus with them after losing the Republican primary and running as an independent, where will they stand on this solidarity thing? Once she lost the primary and announced running as an independent she should have been stripped of her committee assignments. She wasn’t. Isn’t the term used “The Combine”? Entrenched blue-bloods of both parties care more for each other than for us. They’ll get stars in their eyes over Donald and we are sunk.
Yes, Murkowski was very much in mind when I wrote this. Establishment Republicans are just amazingly weak.
An independent candidate is exactly how Obama’s Friend (Patrick) won the Governorship in Massachusetts in 2010. Both Obama and Patrick have the same campaign advisers. I still waiting for the independent candidate to be rewarded – maybe with an ambassadorship.
And even without a quid pro quo it’s easy to see Trump splitting off just because his feelings get hurt if he doesn’t win the primary.
Trump also called Bush the worst president ever (to be fair that was before Obama).
It is also telling that he has donated to progressive politicians.
He is not an idealist, but an opportunist. If the republicans don’t realize that they in trouble. Even if they do realize it, it will still be a struggle to prevent Trump from causing damage to the real gop candidate.
I saw a list somewhere, he’s apparently used the phrase on about five presidents.
I’ve been contending for weeks that Trump might be an agent provocatuer from Bloomberg’s suposedly centrist organization, No Labels. I’ve always thought that Their only reason for being is to throw the election to Obama by splitting the Republican vote. This is what recently got Democrats Al Frankin and Mark Dayton elected in Minnesota and don’t forget Bill Clinton being helped by Perot. This is a tried and true Democrat dirty trick. Trump might even think he is doing the right thing but more likely he is hoping for crony favors from the second term Obama Administration.
And the Republicans never learn…
Your assumption is spot on. Trump’s hair is a metaphor for his motivations. The id and ego are running amok.
Ha ha! Hairaphor.
I agree – Trump as an independent is Perot 2.0.
Here’s a picture of what that unfortunate event would look like …
http://alturl.com/zh5py
For some reason, KG, your comment went into spam instead of pending and I just now saw it. My apologies.
On the other hand, WordPress might have seen that pic of “Don Perot” and reacted like anyone else would.
Does commenting on a thread after it’s been linked by Blogfather constitute preening?
Or, is it better to just act nonchalant, like it’s no big deal.
OMG, I’m so nervous!
This is my third one, I don’t think they ever get routine.
Here we go again! The bulk of non-leftist Gaia worshippers [who prefer Osama Bin Laden and Charles Manson (see: http://oi55.tinypic.com/2jb7fk7.jpg) or Al Gore to actual reason] want CHANGE, but the religious right wants abortion outlawed so badly that they refuse to support unconventional candidates like Trump. So Obama wins again. Gee thanks, social engineers (“social conservatives”). Your Drug War is funding terrorism in South America and Arabia. Your desire to establish a state religion scares people because you took it too far in the days when all those televangelists were defrocked due to sex scandles.
Does Trump feel the same way as you? From what I’ve seen, he’s been j*rking off your despised religious right real hard. And, amazingly, succeeding. He must not really mean it, though, right? Which is kind of what I thought.
Er…state religion? Apart from the sharia crowd, I’m not aware of anyone pushing for that.
Yes, Trump is unconventional. As in, unelectable. Tossing the “F Word” around repeatedly in a public speech? He doesn’t understand “flyover country” any better than Obama, then. He’s either a smug moron uninterested in understanding “red state” Americans, or he’s not seriously running.
If he was serious about running he’d take pains not to offend half the country without scoring points with the other half. Stupid.
No, wait, I take that back. I urge you to continue this line of argument, Nik! Tell it!
(Psst! This is how we’ll stop Trump, guys! Let Nik drive a wedge between Donald and the Pat Robertson types! That’s his freaking base, man!)
Right on, Nik! What’s that you said about abortion again?
Check out the results in the Florida 2010 Senate race. The swing state delivered the vote to the conservative R, and the former Rino and Dem split the moderate/dem vote. There was a 3 way in AK that also let one of the two R’s win. In neither case did the two R’s split the R vote, allowing a dem win. Obama has so destroyed the Dem party he could get beaten by a popsicle stick. In a 3 way, Trump and Obama will split the moderate/dem half of the vote, while the Republican standardbearer will win.
Good point, and I agree it’s possible, but Lord, the stakes are high. I’m hoping oppo research will turn up Trump statements that won’t sit well with Tea Partiers.
After his F bomb strewn performance a couple of nights ago, I think the Donald won’t get to the starting block.
You may be right, though I still think the press will cover for him. Sportutegirl thinks he’ll split the moderate vote. If we have another 18 months of economic terror, maybe. But I’d expect any Democrats who secretly vote against The Won to lie about it. Which would ensure leftist claims of “another” stolen election when the polling and the votes don’t match.
Allen West is very good, but a little short of political experience now (His military experience gives him executive experience, but he still needs more political experience). He would be a great pick for VP though. He would also neutralize the racism charge pretty thoroughly as well.
Christie would also be good if he decides to run.
Huckaby has likeability and charisma, but needs to improves his cred on spending and deficit issues, and mend fences with libertarians.
Romney looks capable, but needs to find a way to distance himself from the albatross of Romneycare.
I dont see anybody right now with the stature of a Reagan, but then again even Reagan didn’t have Reagans stature until he had been prez a few years. Hopefully the primaries will finally reveal the nominee with the right stuff. Fortunately, Obama has enough baggage that even a moderately qualified nominee can beat him.
There’s also Mitch Daniels. Pawlenty. Ryan’s busy with his budget work.
Again, if the economy’s the same 18 months from now as it is now, the quiet executive competence of a Daniels or Pawlenty should be fine.