Category Archives: Election ’12

Donald Trump: Corporatist Bully

Business, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '12, Fascism in America, Hubris, Independents, Individual Rights, Politics, Property Rights, Republicans, Theory and Ideas, Zoning and Land-Use

I do not like Donald Trump. I don’t dislike him because of his wealth; he probably earned most of his wealth honestly. Some dislike Trump because he is a self promoter. I don’t dislike Trump for this reason either. Many successful individuals are great at self promotion and developing a successful brand (a very good attribute to have to have a successful political campaign).

No, the reason I really dislike Donald Trump – even putting aside his becoming the new face of the Birther movement in recent weeks, his support of the auto bailouts, raising taxes, his anti-free trade proposal that would place a 25% tariff on all Chinese products, and his support for single payer universal healthcare – is quite simply that he is a corporatist bully.

For those who don’t quite understand the difference between a capitalist and a corporatist, I highly encourage you to read Brad’s post “Mercantilism, Fascism, Corporatism — And Capitalism.” This distinction is an important one. Donald Trump is the poster child for what many on the Left as a greedy capitalist; a caricature of everything that is wrong with capitalism as preached by the Ralph Naders and Michael Moores of the world.

But those of us who know better know that Donald Trump isn’t a capitalist at all but a corporatist. Trump doesn’t try to work within a framework of a free market as a true capitalist would, but like far too many businessmen, he uses his wealth and influence to encourage the government to work on his behalf to his advantage (and at the expense of anyone else who would dare get in his way).

In the early 1990’s, an elderly widow by the name of Vera Coking was in the way. Coking’s home that she had lived in for 30 years was on a plot of land that the Donald coveted. The Donald wanted the property so he could add a limousine parking area to one of his Atlantic City casinos. When Coking turned down his $1 million offer to buy the property, the Donald decided to enlist the help of his goons on the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Authority. In 1994, these government thugs filed a lawsuit to take Coking’s property for $251,000 and gave her 90 days to leave her property (if she were to stay beyond the 90 days, men in uniforms with guns would forcibly remove her from her home).

Fortunately, Coking’s case gained enough media publicity to gain the attention and help of The Institute for Justice (think a more libertarian ACLU with a focus on property rights). With the IJ’s help, Coking was able to keep her property. In 1998, a judge made a decision that turned out to be final finding that the Donald’s limousine parking area was not a “public use.”

John Stossel confronted the Donald about his failed attempts to take the widow’s home away; he reprinted this exchange in his book Give Me A Break on pages 152 and 153:

Donald Trump: Do you want to live in a city where you can’t build roads or highways or have access to hospitals? Condemnation is a necessary evil.

John Stossel: But we’re not talking about a hospital. This is a building a rich guy finds ugly.

Donald Trump: You’re talking about at the tip of this city, lies a little group of terrible, terrible tenements – just terrible stuff, tenement housing.

John Stossel: So what!

Donald Trump: So what?…Atlantic City does a lot less business, and senior citizens get a lot less money and a lot less taxes and a lot less this and that.

Earlier in the book (page 25) Stossel gives his impressions of this confrontational interview:

Donald Trump was offended when I called him a bully for trying to force an old lady out of her house to make more room for his Atlantic City casino. After the interview, the producer stayed behind to pack up our equipment. Trump came back into the room, puffed himself up, and started blustering, “Nobody talks to me that way!”

Well, someone should.

Had this case taken place after Kelo, the Donald may well have prevailed. In the wake of the Kelo decision, Neil Cavuto interviewed the Donald on Fox News (7/19/05) to get his reaction.

Trump:

I happen to agree with [the Kelo decision] 100 percent, not that I would want to use it. But the fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it’s local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make area that’s not good into a good area, and move the person that’s living there into a better place — now, I know it might not be their choice — but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.

Donald Trump is not one who respects property rights (other than his own). “Tremendous economic development” and “jobs” are great reasons to employ the full police power of government to take away someone’s property in the Donald’s world view.

I shudder to think of what a Donald Trump presidency would look like. Imagine the Donald with control of our CIA and our military. The Donald doesn’t have any problem using force to get what the Donald wants.

Now consider President Trump with a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. What sort of Justice would he appoint? Most likely one who would view Kelo quite favorably.

This bully, Donald Trump is the guy who is polling second place in some early Republican primary polls? Wake the hell up Republicans!

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Ron Paul To Announce Presidential Bid

Election '12, Politics, Republicans

National Journal is reporting that Ron Paul will announce the formation of a Presidential Exploratory Committee tomorrow in Iowa:

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, whose outspoken libertarian views and folksy style made him a cult hero during two previous presidential campaigns, will announce on Tuesday that he’s going to try a third time.

Sources close to Paul, who is in his 12th term in the House, said he will unveil an exploratory presidential committee, a key step in gearing up for a White House race. He will also unveil the campaign’s leadership team in Iowa, where the first votes of the presidential election will be cast in caucuses next year.

Paul, 75, ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988, finishing with less than one half a percent of the vote. After more than a decade as a Republican congressman, Paul gave it another shot in the 2008 presidential election, gaining attention for being the only Republican candidate calling for the end to the war in Iraq and for his “money bomb” fundraising strategy, which brought in millions of dollars from online donors in single-day pushes.

Paul took 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses and 8 percent in New Hampshire’s primary. He finished second, with 14 percent of the vote, in the Nevada caucuses, and eventually finished fourth in the Republican nominating process with 5.6 percent of the total vote. Paul’s campaign book, The Revolution: A Manifesto also reached No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list in 2008.

An exploratory committee is one step below an actual campaign, but it seems likely that Paul is running, at least for now. Personally, for the reasons I mentioned last week, I am inclined to support Gary Johnson rather than Congressman Paul, but the more the merrier.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Former Governor Gary Johnson Announces Candidacy For President

Election '12, Politics, Republicans

The field of candidates for the GOP nomination for President got a little more palatable to libertarians today when former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson announced his candidacy for President at an event in New Hampshire:

Gary Johnson is running for president.

The former New Mexico governor — who favors legalizing marijuana — on Thursday skipped the step of an exploratory committee, saying bluntly on Twitter: “I am running for president.”

That coincided with a speech in front of the New Hampshire statehouse, which made Johnson the first Republican to launch an official presidential campaign. On his new campaign website, Johnson positions himself as “The People’s President,” laying out libertarian-leaning stances on deficit reduction, education, taxes and drug policy.

The campaign went live with a website almost immediately after Johnson began speaking this morning, and his Issues page will give you an idea of just how different Johnson is from most of the other likely candidates on the GOP side:

Gary’s track record speaks volumes.

He has been an outspoken advocate for efficient government, lower taxes, winning the war on drug abuse, protection of civil liberties, revitalization of the economy and promoting entrepreneurship and privatization.

As Governor of New Mexico, Johnson was known for his common-sense business approach to governing. He eliminated New Mexico’s budget deficit, cut the rate of growth in state government in half and privatized half of the state prisons.

Johnson isn’t likely to be the only libertarian-leaning Republican throwing his hat in the ring. It’s becoming rather apparent that Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who became an unlikely superstar during the 2008 campaign will throw his hat in the ring once again. If that happens, then Paul and Johnson would be essentially competing for the same voters and, as Slate’s David Weigel notes, Johnson would need to find a way to differentiate himself from Paul, who is not viewed very favorably by Republicans outside of his own followers.

Personally, I think Johnson is a better standard bearer for libertarian-leaning Republicans than Ron Paul for a whole host of  reasons. For one thing, he’s younger, which is no small thing when you’re talking about a Presidential campaign. While he was able to hold large rallies on college campuses across the country, Ron Paul didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm in 2008 for the kind of retail politics that you have to engage in when you’re running for President.

The other thing that differentiates Johnson from Paul is that Johnson doesn’t come with any baggage. The topic of Ron Paul’s support from extremist, racist, groups and the long history of the newsletter that he published in between his two stints in Congress were frequently discussed here during the 2008 campaign and they were, I think, one of the reasons that Paul wasn’t taken seriously outside of his energetic circle of supporters, many of whom behaved in a way that quite frankly was an embarrassment to the guy they were supporting. Johnson has none of that. Instead he has a successful business career and eight years as a Republican Governor in a state that, at the time, still leaned Democratic. He vetoed more bills than any other Governor. He came out in favor of marijuana legalization while he was in office. Heck, the guy climbed Mount Everest. That all makes for a compelling media story, all without the weird Ron Paul like baggage.

There’s no doubt that Johnson has an uphill fight ahead of him. His name recognition among likely Republican voters is in the teens, and his name hasn’t been included in most recent polls, although that’s likely to change now. However, he’s got a unique message and a solid record. Keep an eye on this guy.

Here’s the video of today’s announcement:

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Mike Huckabee’s American History Lesson

Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '12, History, Huckabee Watch, Multimedia, Politics, Republicans

Or to be more accurate, alternative American history lesson. Mike Huckabee, who is leading ABC’s latest G.O.P. presidential poll, informed George Stephanopoulos that President Obama will be very difficult to beat because “only one time since 1868 has an incumbent president been taken out who ran for reelection and that’s when Jimmy Carter ran in 1980.” (At the 1:17 mark)

Oh yeah, I forgot – George H.W. Bush won reelection in 1992 (despite violating his “no new taxes” pledge) and Bill Clinton ran again later to beat Dan Quayle in 1996.

What’s a little surprising to me is how little play this has received so far and that Stephanopoulos, who worked on Bill Clinton’s successful campaign to defeat the incumbent President Bush, didn’t call him on it! Why did he let Huckabee get by with this blatant historical error?

Okay, so he got his facts wrong, how is this different from other faux pas of presidential candidates of recent memory?

This one is different. This wasn’t a hasty misstatement of how many states are in the union or a slip of the tongue, Huckabee apparently has spent some time contemplating how Jimmy Carter is the only incumbent president to be voted out of office since 1868. He wanted very much to “remind” the viewers of this historical “fact.”

This is a man who would be president.

A big deal?

You tell me.

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Gary Johnson At CPAC 2011

Election '12, Politics

Gary Johnson, the former Governor of New Mexico and a likely candidate for President, addressed the crowd at CPAC this morning in what was a well-delivered and fairly well-received speech:

I spoke briefly with Governor Johnson last night at a meet and great that was attended by a large number of people. He strikes me as an excellent spokesperson for libertarians in the GOP.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com
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