He spouts off against the elites, then stuffs his administration with billionaires, several from the very banks he vilified. He rails about big government, then pulls a big-government move with Carrier, the air-conditioner manufacturer.
.. He claims (against all evidence) to respect women, then recruits a labor secretary who once defended the pulchritudinous ads for his fast-food chain by saying: “I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.”
.. He wants the whole world to see how many important people hanker to work for him. So they show the world, posing for pictures with him and fanning out on TV to proclaim their ardor and aptitude.
.. Mitt Romney .. he appealed to the president-elect in part because he was “a camera-ready option to represent the country around the globe.”
Ted Cruz Might Be the Only Republican Who Understands Donald Trump
If that wasn’t clear before the lights went up in the Quicken Loans Arena on Monday, it certainly was by the time Trump made his from-the-shadows entrance that night. Within minutes, you could find photos of the scene paired with shots of “the Undertaker” entering a crazed arena that made overt what we already suspected: that this week’s festivities were going to be as much W.W.E. as R.N.C.
.. And that’s what I like about what Cruz did last night: He embraced the professional-wrestling ethic that Trump has so fully imposed on this campaign. He leaned full-on into the spectacle.
.. But Cruz played the arena, as Triple-H or the Donald would. He understood that Trump doesn’t just want his former opponents to endorse him — he expects them to submit to him. This nominee does not consider it his job to reach out and favor his vanquished opponents with magnanimity and grace. His willingness to humiliate the likes of Christie, mocking his weight (“No more Oreos”), among other things, should make that obvious.
On Donald Trump and the rule of law
So what happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe Mexican, which is great. I think that is fine. You know what? I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs. I think they are going to love it. I think they are going to love me. . . .
.. No, this is called “authoritarianism.” It’s what Berlusconi sounded like, what Chávez sounded like and what Perón sounded like — for that matter, it’s what Sulla and Caesar and the others who helped destroy the world’s first great republic sounded like: I am bigger than the law, I AM THE LAW.
.. from a man being seriously considered to head one of the three branches of our government, it is a not-too-thinly-veiled attack on the notion of judicial independence and the rule of law. If the guy in charge of executing the laws thinks the system is “rigged” — against billionaires, I suppose he means — and a “total disgrace,” then . . . well, you can figure it out. Enforce the law against himself? Or against his pals? That’s for suckers.
.. if you are elected president and come back for your civil trial in November — it will be a disgraceful spectacle. Great for ratings, though — and that’s all that matters, right?
.. Our republic has survived some terrible presidents, with terrible ideas about how to run the country; but this is something different. We’ve never had a president who not only thinks the government will be a toy for him to play with and push people around — wow!! how wild is that!! — but who tells us, in advance, over and over again, that that is his game. If we vote him into office, I suppose we will deserve what comes.
.. Our form of government will not work if the executive branch does not respect the legitimacy of decisions made by the judicial branch, because our judicial branch is entirely without power to enforce its judgments without the assistance of the executive branch.
.. While I don’t want to be accused of over-dramatization, it is not inappropriate to point out, on this day after Memorial Day, that many people actually gave their lives to defend this idea, and we dishonor them if we throw it away.
.. And it’s not like he is standing on some important point of constitutional principle; he’s speaking out of naked self-interest, complaining about a case in which he stands to lose many millions of dollars if the judgment goes against him.
.. It is far, far too easy to imagine President Trump on prime time TV tearing up any judgment against him with a big smile on his face: “Hey, Judge Curiel, you think I have to fork $22 million to defrauded customers? Try and make me …” After all, the system is rigged – and the judge, to make matters worse, is a Mexican**. President Trump is going to be pushing them around, remember? Not vice versa!
.. That a TV celebrity wants to be above the law and immune to its commands is no surprise; I suspect that lots of TV celebrities would like to act outside the law.But the president actually has the levers of the law in his/her hands. And there is a name for a chief executive who believes he/she is above the law: tyrant.
Why Donald Trump Will Lose To Hillary Clinton
It turns out Donald Trump really is another Sarah Palin. By that I don’t mean that he’s ignorant, ill-prepared for the job, or incoherent in his opinions – all of those things were already clear months ago. Nor do I mean that he has no class, taste or manners – those things were also already clear months ago.
What I mean is that he has far less control over his own persona than I had previously assumed. Until fairly recently, I bought into the idea that Trump was a professional wrestler, putting on an outrageous show, breaking all the rules, and flummoxing all the traditional candidates who could neither win as the Marquess of Queensbury nor grab a chair and jump into the ring with him.
But I’m coming to the opinion, bit by bit, that, while Trump is indeed a wrestler, he’s also one of the saps who doesn’t know the fights are fake. He really believes he’s the character he’s been playing, and gets quite defensive when somebody expresses doubts about his actual prowess. This is a huge problem for Trump, because the core of his appeal is precisely that he’s the one who sees reality for what it is, and is willing to call a spade a spade.
.. The primary reason is that Trump – at the very moment that he most obviously needs to begin making a general-election argument – is instead driving the conversation back to himself, and to his peculiar obsessions and insecurities.
There’s no reason to do this. Trump no longer needs to be outrageous to get attention – he’s the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination; he has our attention.