As a non-New Yorker, I never knew anything about Trump until the 2016 election campaign. What I think I know now is that he was a Democrat and a good friend of the Clintons who switched to the Republican Party to run against Hillary for President, with the full connivance of Hillary and the leftist establishment media that supported her. Normally, they just give candidates they don't like no coverage, and let them die on the vine, as they did the same season with Sanders. But Trump got front page coverage almost every day, cast as a right-wing lunatic certainly, but the coverage nevertheless that wins campaigns. The whole Clinton strategy was to pump him up to win the Republican nomination, whereupon he would be solidly rejected as an extremist by the big bulge of responsible Bell Curve moderates, who would then have to vote for Clinton.
It was certainly not the GOP establishment that nominated Trump. He was an outsider to them, and humiliated their candidates again and again. He got that nomination, and ultimately won the election, by a confluence of alienated rural and working class people with the establishment media and Hillary Clinton herself. The Clintonists have been doing damage control ever since, and hence the insane levels of hatred they continue to foster against the man and his supporters.
I cop to having voted for Trump in '16 because Hillary represented the dynastic more-of-the-same incrementalist hogwash that had disappointed me for decades as a Democrat. Trump was my Hail Mary vote, and my expectations were low. He sure surprised me in a delightful way! If you had told me in 1987 that that philandering, gold-plated real estate blowhard on the cover of People every other week was not only going to be president, but a *good* president, I would have hollered, "Get outta town!"
You were ahead of me. I was a Bernie supporter then, and voted for Jill Stein when the DNC nominated the one Democrat I detested at the level of Bush-Cheney. I had mixed feelings: I was a bit disturbed that Trump won, but also relieved to the point of euphoria that Hillary had not. I was pleasantly surprised that his administration was actually fairly decent, in contrast to the hysterical hatred fomented by the Clintonists over his every move. Between the Covid scam, the George Floyd race riots, and their open support for censorship, the Democrats had gone full-on terrorist-totalitarian by mid 2020. The Green and Libertarian third parties I usually voted for were busy showing lack of leadership on current issues by pretending it was still the 1980s, and Trump seemed to be the only one who was at least trying to do anything good, so I voted for him with reservations. In 2024, I voted for him again, with enthusiastic conviction, and so far have been at least 80% tickled pink at the result.
THAT is an interesting point of view. I had always wondered at how in the world Trump got the 2016 nomination:
such an anti-orthodox GOP, insulting to the other 15 candidates,
BUT: Front page coverage w/ MSM's, and Hilary quasi-backed as a strategy for HER success!
I scratched my head: "HOW could this be? There are so many other good options like Rubio, Cruz, . . . "
Trump was a celebrity, with no "chops". . . of course, I was patently proved dead wrong on that one!
I did not vote for him in 2016(Cruz as a protest vote; I have in the last two elections though). I believe you hit the nail, that makes a lot of sense.
and I love it how you sum it all up with the Clintons' eating their words, frying in their own slow boiler of "elite-strategy"!
Considering that "every accusation is a reveal," that perspective also brings out the supreme irony of the Russiagate scandal promoted by the Clintonists to take him down afterwards. Supposedly Putin conspired with Trump to "meddle" in American elections, when in fact it was Hillary herself who was conspiring, likely with Trump, to interfere in the internal politics of the rival party.
As a non-New Yorker, I never knew anything about Trump until the 2016 election campaign. What I think I know now is that he was a Democrat and a good friend of the Clintons who switched to the Republican Party to run against Hillary for President, with the full connivance of Hillary and the leftist establishment media that supported her. Normally, they just give candidates they don't like no coverage, and let them die on the vine, as they did the same season with Sanders. But Trump got front page coverage almost every day, cast as a right-wing lunatic certainly, but the coverage nevertheless that wins campaigns. The whole Clinton strategy was to pump him up to win the Republican nomination, whereupon he would be solidly rejected as an extremist by the big bulge of responsible Bell Curve moderates, who would then have to vote for Clinton.
It was certainly not the GOP establishment that nominated Trump. He was an outsider to them, and humiliated their candidates again and again. He got that nomination, and ultimately won the election, by a confluence of alienated rural and working class people with the establishment media and Hillary Clinton herself. The Clintonists have been doing damage control ever since, and hence the insane levels of hatred they continue to foster against the man and his supporters.
I cop to having voted for Trump in '16 because Hillary represented the dynastic more-of-the-same incrementalist hogwash that had disappointed me for decades as a Democrat. Trump was my Hail Mary vote, and my expectations were low. He sure surprised me in a delightful way! If you had told me in 1987 that that philandering, gold-plated real estate blowhard on the cover of People every other week was not only going to be president, but a *good* president, I would have hollered, "Get outta town!"
You were ahead of me. I was a Bernie supporter then, and voted for Jill Stein when the DNC nominated the one Democrat I detested at the level of Bush-Cheney. I had mixed feelings: I was a bit disturbed that Trump won, but also relieved to the point of euphoria that Hillary had not. I was pleasantly surprised that his administration was actually fairly decent, in contrast to the hysterical hatred fomented by the Clintonists over his every move. Between the Covid scam, the George Floyd race riots, and their open support for censorship, the Democrats had gone full-on terrorist-totalitarian by mid 2020. The Green and Libertarian third parties I usually voted for were busy showing lack of leadership on current issues by pretending it was still the 1980s, and Trump seemed to be the only one who was at least trying to do anything good, so I voted for him with reservations. In 2024, I voted for him again, with enthusiastic conviction, and so far have been at least 80% tickled pink at the result.
THAT is an interesting point of view. I had always wondered at how in the world Trump got the 2016 nomination:
such an anti-orthodox GOP, insulting to the other 15 candidates,
BUT: Front page coverage w/ MSM's, and Hilary quasi-backed as a strategy for HER success!
I scratched my head: "HOW could this be? There are so many other good options like Rubio, Cruz, . . . "
Trump was a celebrity, with no "chops". . . of course, I was patently proved dead wrong on that one!
I did not vote for him in 2016(Cruz as a protest vote; I have in the last two elections though). I believe you hit the nail, that makes a lot of sense.
and I love it how you sum it all up with the Clintons' eating their words, frying in their own slow boiler of "elite-strategy"!
I'm glad it resonated!
Considering that "every accusation is a reveal," that perspective also brings out the supreme irony of the Russiagate scandal promoted by the Clintonists to take him down afterwards. Supposedly Putin conspired with Trump to "meddle" in American elections, when in fact it was Hillary herself who was conspiring, likely with Trump, to interfere in the internal politics of the rival party.