Guest AuthorI’m taking one more swipe at Donald Trump before the Florida primary, hoping with all my heart that my fellow Floridians wake up Tuesday morning realizing they are being taken for a ride by one of the most negative people ever to seek public office.
That is not just hyperbole. It can be captured by his own words, uttered over time in many situations and circumstances. I am repeatedly shocked by people who I thought I knew, rationalizing why they support this man who, if elected, would do so much damage to the conservative cause in America that it would take years, maybe decades, to rebuild what conservatism is supposed to be.
Our political scene has become a poorly played drama on Lifetime TV, only the stakes are real and the ultimate costs are too high to calculate. If you think you want conservative leadership in D.C., why then would you seek to nominate someone who is not, and never has been, conservative?
He mouths platitudes now, saying what he thinks you want to hear, but within his words are his real goals; his personal ambitions and self-adoration have no bounds. You are just vehicles to get him to where he thinks he should be.
So let us take a look at his eloquence. Maybe we should begin to call him that, His Eloquence, since he so rarely uses more than a few words in a sentence with the vast majority of them one or two syllables at best.
Flowering rhetoric and inspiring words are not within his ability to craft. He does not inspire; instead he seeks envy, ridicule, and words that serve to darken our lives. He acts as if he wants to be like Ronald Reagan, yet his words are less than demagogic, at a level below traditional demagogues.
Should we not prefer to be lifted up by words that appeal to the best within us and not depressed by one who divides us and does not offer anything of substance as a goal, besides building a wall that will not accomplish what he says it will?
Here is what we seek to place at the desk in the Oval Office, the most powerful seat in the world. See if you are inspired by reading these hollow, negative words from one who seeks to be the face of our country to the world.
“We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning.”
I find this hard to interpret. If winning is our goal, would we then change our focus to prefer losing? Are we like children who tire of the new toys on a Christmas morning?
“When someone crosses you, my advice is ‘Get Even!’ That is not typical advice, but it is real life advice. If you do not get even, you are just a schmuck! When people wrong you, go after those people because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. I love getting even. I get screwed all the time. I go after people, and you know what? People do not play around with me as much as they do with others. They know that if they do, they are in for a big fight.”
This from someone who claims the Bible is his favorite book, albeit his own book “is a close second.” Is this someone we want being the lead diplomat in a confusing world, a man with his hands on the nuclear codes, who advocates torture, while mocking people from other lands and ethnicities?
“Protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself. I happen to be very conservative in business. I always go into a deal anticipating the worst. If you plan for the worst — if you can live with the worst — the good will always take care of itself.”
Can you imagine these words coming out of Ronald Reagan’s mouth? Can you hear these words from a Churchill or from Roosevelt? Do we want our leaders to inspire and induce us to aspire, or do we prefer to take care of the downside and let the upside “take care of itself.” The American people have always been the upside, but in our history we occasionally stray. Do not let this be one of those times!
And, finally, take heed from his own words:
“Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.”
Listen to your own gut. It is saying it is far too risky to buy into his schtick. He is better off sticking with what he knows, which is showmanship and sales. Governance is far outside his realm of understanding and it comes at too great an expense for us all.
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Ed Moore resides in Tallahassee and is still awaiting a rebirth of wonder; but now he wait also for sensibility and rationality. Trump artwork by Charlie Mixson. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
