A Few Of My Favorite Things About Donald Trump

JB recently posted this comment:

I watched Trump's interview on Colbert last night...I'm starting to like that guy. For a conservative dick, at least he's not the xtian Taliban. His saber rattling with Iran and China is stupid and pointless but entertaining. If I didn't think he'd serve elephant steaks dusted with powdered rhino horn at the inaugural dinner I might just be inclined to vote for him.

I couldn't agree more. Trump is my favorite GOP candidate after Kasich, and I dislike the rest of the field so much I couldn't even tell you who'd come in third for me. Maybe Rand Paul?

Trump actually supports raising taxes on the wealthy (no doubt because, unlike the rest of the candidates, he doesn't have any rich donors pulling his strings) and he supports a single payer health care system (he just doesn't like Obamacare because, you know . . . Obama!!). My one problem with Trump is that he gets incredibly repetitive on the campaign trail -- which is very bad for him because he doesn't have a lot to say substantively anyway -- and that is why once every week or so he needs to pick a fight with somebody in order to sound fresh again.

But what I like most about Trump is that he focuses on things he knows could never happen but that the extremists in the GOP love to hear, and he is destroying the Republican Party in the process. This includes the "need" to build a huge wall on the Southern Border and the "need" to ship tens of millions of Mexicans away in cattle cars to Christ-knows-where (despite the fact that illegal immigration is currently at a net zero).

Trump has correctly surmised that the Republican base is very angry right now, not because the country is in bad shape, but because things are going pretty well despite the fact that an illegal immigrant from Kenya has occupied the White House since January 2009.  Trump knows that there is no better way to appeal to a shitload of pissed-off GOP racists than to blame all their "problems" on a bunch of brown people.

In fact, I can't imagine anything that would infuriate the racist GOP base more than Obama's accomplishments in 2015, mostly because these haters were undoubtedly looking forward to Obama being an ineffective lame-duck president. 

Instead, these Amurikans have had to endure one Obama victory after another, and the list of successes is a long one: the Nuclear Agreement with Iran, the de-thawing of the U.S. relationship with Cuba, the recent climate change agreements (made even more infuriating given that the Pope is siding with the President on this issue), Obama's recent successes in the Supreme Court on health care reform and gay marriage, poor people actually having access to affordable health coverage, the big reduction in the deficit under Obama's watch (which is why you don't hear Republicans talking about the deficit anymore), the confederate flags coming down, the GDP at nearly 4%, etc.

Indeed, it's been a pretty tough year for Republicans, and Trump knows how to capitalize on all the resulting frustration.  And it certainly doesn't help matters much that all these Democratic successes occurred after one of the worst -- if not the worst -- Republican presidencies in our country's history.

UPDATE:  I guess you can scratch one of my favorite things about Donald Trump off of the list -- he now wants to lower taxes for the rich.  Nice flip-flop there, Don.  Very Republican of you.