Days of Change

Fame is Fleeting, Infamy is Forever

Ahead of the South Carolina primary, the Republicans have four viable candidates left.

1. Ted Cruz: Has the most conservative and small-government record of the four left, even though he supports immigration “reform,” he voted against the “gang of 8 path to citizenship that effectively meant amnesty. Reform essentially means any change to the terrible immigration policy we have now.
2. Marco Rubio: The highest polling establishment candidate. Instead of running for Jeb Bush’s VP, Rubio seems to have enough momentum and support from GOP stars to be their front runner.
3. Jeb: He is literally polling last in South Carolina among six candidates. He literally has hundreds of millions of dollars in PAC money and direct donations at his disposal. He is trying to buy this campaign, but with other people’s money.
4. Donald Trump: Has no record as a politician. He’s been involved with some famous bankruptcies that lost billions. His political support has been indiscriminate, opposing George W. Bush, praising Barack Obama and donating to Hillary Clinton. The key to his rise seems to be a sort of violent nationalism, where foreigners are kept out, enemy combatants are tortured and a giant wall is built to hide all of it.

Trump support seems to stem from the thrill of voting for a Republican who has disdain for all Republican. Try asking Trump if there is one single good Republican who supports one of the other presidential candidates. He even praised Ben Carson and Ted Cruz before they started taking voter support away from him. Trump is also famous for his stories of generosity toward the little guy. That’s boiler plate narcissism. As long as someone is beneath them, a narcissist will often bask in the joy of proving he’s better than other people.

Donald Trump is famous, but his face was everywhere for his infamy. He arranges financing for buildings that are edifices to himself. Trump is its own brand. Some of those projects go bankrupt, often leading to additional lines of credit from banks because Trump is too big to fail. When attacked, he responds privately by crowing to those men about his success at using women as sexual objects.

As a human being, Trump is flawed, but ultimately a strong economic force. As a politician, he seems to say a lot without a consistent history to back it up. As a potential president, he’s horrible. He’s so horrible that Barack Obama criticized him just to get more Republicans to support him. He may not be lying about his plans, but that’s only because he has no idea how big they would fail.