carlton

A few days ago when asked about the couragous stand of Kim Davis, Trump essentially came out in support of gay marriage. "Its the law of the land," he said. “I hate to see her being put in jail." Well, isn't that swell Trumpy, but he added “I understand what they’re doing. It would be certainly nice if she didn’t do it." Lets get this straight, while bold leaders like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee are coming out in support of Kim Davis and her religious stand of conscious, Trump is busy kowtowing to the gay mafia, turning an erroneous Supreme Court interpretation into the "law of the land". Of course this was brought to light immediately on FR. However, while there was some grumblings, most of those onboard the Trump train either glossed over the facts, became defensive and the usual (lack of) intelligent discussion took place.


When questioned about Obamacare at the first GOP debate August 6, Trump rambled and perplexingly came out in support of the single payer program they have in Canada and Scotland: "As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland." Yes Donald, single payer is working so well in Canada that they basically bustling over the border just to get the treatment they need here. Sure, Trump went on to check all the anti-Obamacare boxes in his response, yet it is the muddled up way he did so that ought to cause consternation. One has to wonder if it wasn't Obama himself who put the healthcare changes that are destroying the country forward, if it wouldn't be Trump himself who would do it. You see Donald, when offering a conservative critique of Obamacare, you don't start by praising the healthcare systems of Canada and Scotland. If he sought to make a conservative statement on the issue, he sounded more 'severely conservative' than anything else.


Now the big issue that propelled Trump (so far) is illegal immigration. To be sure, illegal immigration has been a giant problem for decades and kudos ought to be given to the man for bringing the discussion to the forefront of this presidential election. That said, his recent history on this topic is just as muddled as the other issues I have mentioned. Now, when bringing up Trump's liberal past, many Trumpians are quick to say 'that was years ago! The man has changed.' OK, sure I'll bite. However only three years ago, Trump hammered Romney for being to harsh on illegal immigrants, referring to Romney's stance on self-deportation for the illegals:


“He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal,” Trump told the conservative website NewsMax. “It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote. He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.” Trump went on to say, "The Democrats didn’t have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren’t mean-spirited about it,” Trump added. “They didn’t know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind.” Does this sound like the rhetoric of a conservative on illegal immigration? Mind you, no, this was not 10 years ago, this was as recent as the last election, when he had already had his Damascus moment and turned toward conservatism, supposedly.

Recently Trump has come on the populist side of things in regard to taxes, even Paul Krugman has come out in support of Trumps tax ideas... yes that Paul Krugman. In a Times op-ed, Krugman wrote that Trump is correct to embrace a tax hike on the rich and speak out in favor of universal healthcare. He added that conservatives — who are now slamming Trump’s proposals — were wrong to warn about the ill economic impacts of those policies ahead of the 2012 election. Keep in mind that Trump did once also propose the largest tax hike in U.S. history. Now Trump's tax hike idea isn't based on the wealthy carte blanche, but the small group of hedge fund managers who use a loophole to pay a lower tax rate on investment gains instead of income. However, his rhetoric is still jarring, "You've seen my statements. I do very well. I don't mind paying a little more in taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country," he said. The statement boils down basically, tax the rich, they can afford it. Very liberal sounding. A better idea would be to lower the income tax tax to mirror the rate of investment gains. Or here's a novel idea, a flat tax!


All these recent examples of Trump's murky brand of conservtism ought to put anyone who is truly on the right on edge. Delving further back into Trump's past raises even more questions: support for automatic gun ban, support for the bank bailouts, support for the auto industry bailouts, support for abortion (hell, even this year he came out supporting Planned Parenthood saying that abortion constitutes hardly a fraction of what they do), support for Hillary (calling her very capable in 2007, and donating hundreds of thousands to her controversy ridden charity), Barack Obama ("What he has done is amazing," "He's a champion") and the Democratic Party.


So the question for conservatives is when is enough enough? Will we sell out and cave in on our values just because we want to see a wall built? If that's the case, the true price of the wall cant be quantified in dollars and cents, but in the corruption of our conservative principles.