Shortly after Barack Obama swept into the White House while giving Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid a coattail Marxist Congress, Newsweek Magazine ran the cover “We’re all Socialists now,” based on Jon Meacham’s lead article with the same headline. Without a doubt, the election of that president and that Congress moved reality closer to Meacham’s point. It was astonishing that liberal apologist Meacham admitted as much.
Yet it took until last night before it was literally true, as New Hampshire gave a full-throated socialist a rout over semi-socialist Hillary Clinton on the Democrat side and the once and now apparently again socialist Donald Trump won the GOP primary after going left of Bernie Sanders in his final rallies in the state. To translate, Obama’s hope and change and fundamental transformation of the nation are right on track – barreling warp-speed to the left in both presidential primary contests.
No wonder South Carolina, at least on the Republican side, quite often gives New Hampshire a middle finger a week later with a totally different result among a much bigger population.
We can all agree that Senator Sanders is of course a socialist. He’s said it, proudly, loudly, and often. A good percentage of our precious safe-spaced Millennials think socialism is great, and they think Bernie is great. And apparently many of them are trying to decide between Bernie and…Hillary. No, wait, Bernie and Trump!
And why not? Trump has flirted with socialist talking points and ideas for decades, including quite often recently.
Now, I’m sure some of you are giving me the middle finger by calling out Trump as a once and now again socialist – but I defer to Trump’s own words in the final rallies of his New Hampshire campaign. I’m not making this up. Words mean things – especially in the specific context of politics – and the fact that Trump parrots Bernie Sanders quite often doesn’t make me a RINO or establishment shill or even “Yeb Bush.”
It makes Trump a damned dangerous option for conservatives, even as I will vote for him over any Democrat – and many other Republicans as well.
According to Breitbart News, Byron York reported that “in a nearly one-hour speech, Trump railed against pharmaceutical companies. He railed against oil companies. And insurance companies. And defense contractors. And he set himself against a political system that he said allows big-money corporate ‘bloodsuckers’ to control the government with campaign contributions.”
In case this confuses you: According to Trump, the problem is business, not government. No, government is as pure as the wind-driven snow. The problem with health care is big pharma and not the precious, amazing government bureaucrats.
And by the way, what kind of mathematical mind thinks big oil is gouging anyone right now? In 2011, Trump was obsessed with OPEC. Of course, it was American “big oil” and not Trump’s negotiating Jedi mind tricks that made the cartel irrelevant.
Additionally, it seems the Donald thinks that big pharma and big hospital and big insurance went to Obama and begged him to totally ruin our health care system. Either that or he’s just flat pandering and lying because he thinks the odd ball liberals in New Hampshire will lap it up. Obviously they did.
Oh, and for the record, underlying Trump’s premise is that only rich people should run for office. Now there’s a conservative principle if there ever was one.
Keep in mind that the man behind these words stumbled and bumbled and fumbled the question “what is a conservative” in the last debate worse than Cam Newton handled Von Miller in the Super Bowl. He was totally clueless, murmuring something out of the dictionary not applicable to the context of the question.
This is not isolated, nor just in the past, either. For decades – as we all know – Trump has been an advocate for universal government health care. And while now he promises to replace Obamacare “with something terrific,” other than mentioning something about state lines, his rhetoric reeks of a big-government program and has nothing to do with market economics. I don’t care what some ghostwriter put down on the website position paper…I’m talking about words from The Don himself.
He’s said very recently that “we’re gonna take care of everybody” and that Ted Cruz was “heartless” for apparently wanting to immediately replace Obamacare without some government-based Cruzcare. Funny thing: Rick Perry effectively ended his campaign in 2012 with his infamous “heartless” comment in a debate over deportation. Trump gets a pass. Hell, he even gets credit for saying that.
Consider: A few months ago, Trump promised that “I’ll be terrific for women’s health care.” The Don himself will be terrific for women? Cue the creepy Daniel Ortega billboards, etc. What the hell does it mean that “we” and “I” will take care of everybody? It means our money and some iteration known as Trumpcare.
These words – these phrases – mean certain things in context of an election. Trump is sounding like Bernie now and as Obama sounded in 2008-9-10. We have to elect Trump to know what is in him, I guess. But actually, we don’t. When you sound like a Marxist on health care and attack someone like Cruz the way a Marxist would attack someone like Cruz, then it follows logically to apply “the duck test.”
(Memo to Rush, Laura, Sean, Steyn, Coulter, and others – feel free to notice months of red flags that have been in your colossal blind spots. They are not hard to spot.)
“Whether it’s the insurance companies or the drug companies or the oil companies, it’s all the same thing,” Trump said. “We’re never going to get our country back if we keep doing this.”
Doing what? Allowing big companies to find energy, cure disease, and protect risks? Just damn them!
Well, according to York, “Trump has promised to allow the government to negotiate drug prices — a common position among Democrats but rarely heard at nominally Republican events. He said he would not raise military spending, arguing that the nation’s defenses can be improved without increasing its already huge Pentagon budget. He promised tough sanctions on American companies that move jobs overseas.”
Think about that. He’s full Bernie on the military, and instead of rolling back our liberal government to entice companies to stay onshore or move onshore, Trump wants to sic the IRS on companies who don’t hire the way he wants. These are Trump’s jobs, after all, not the companies’ jobs. In other words, Trump stopped just short of “you didn’t build that.”
York added that “Trump was, in other words, in full populist mode as he wrapped up his New Hampshire campaign.” York understates. He was in full Bernie Socialist mode. Meanwhile, daughter Ivanka Trump yesterday insisted that “from day one, my father has set the agenda for both parties.”
Indeed he has. It sounds a lot like Bernie’s socialist agenda. And he and Bernie both won. Beam me up, Scotty…
