Dear @MarcoRubio and @JohnKasich: If You Steal the Nomination in a Brokered Convention, I Will Not Support You

It’s hard for me to claim that I’m not a straight-ticket Republican considering that the last time I supported a Democrat was David Boren in the early 90s. However, there are a handful of occasions when I abstained from voting. If the GOP nominee comes as a result of a brokered convention that supersedes the will of the voters, I will be abstaining.

I’m a #NeverTrump guy, so there’s a chance I may abstain, anyway. However, as much as I do not want Trump to be the nominee, I would never support the nomination of someone who is propelled by anything other than the vote of the people. That seems to be the plan in the Republican Establishment’s camp as they decide which of their two remaining candidates have the best chance at the convention. It may come down to which one, if either, can pull out a victory in their home state.

Neither of you have a path to the nomination that doesn’t include a brokered convention or the strangely convenient deaths of the two frontrunners. If you’re not going to call for double homicides, then you’re pushing for a brokered (aka stolen) convention. That is not acceptable. It’s not American. It will do nothing but destroy the party and hurt the country. If you choose to go down this path, you will be directly responsible for willful acts of destruction to the Constitution and the GOP.

At this point, there seems to be only three possible motivations to stay in the race:

• A Stolen Convention: You will lose the general election and you will destroy the party in the process if you are able to scheme your way to the nomination. If that’s your motivation for staying in, then you do not believe in the right of the people to select our leaders in a Democratic fashion as guaranteed for this Republic by the Constitution.
• You Support Donald Trump: If you’ve cut a backroom deal with Trump to block Ted Cruz by staying in, then you’re even worse off ethically than had you pushed for the brokered convention.
• Working a Deal with Ted Cruz: This is the only acceptable motivation for not suspending at this point, not because I’m a Ted Cruz supporter but because it’s honorable. Parlaying your position in the race to earn a spot in a Cruz administration is an unfortunate part of politics but it’s a proper use of your positioning and something that is done all the time (looking at you, Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions). We’ll know within the next two weeks if this is reality.

In case anyone is wondering why working a deal with Trump is different from working a deal with Cruz, it’s because the Trump deal would be a smokescreen to divide the party by keeping the anti-Trump vote diluted while a Cruz deal would be an attempt at unifying the party to coalesce around conservatism. Helping Trump keep Cruz down is different than helping Cruz rise over Trump. One is divisive, the other is unifying.

Then, there’s also the fact that a Trump nomination would be almost as bad for the country as a brokered convention, but I digress.

Some will say that abstaining to vote, whether it’s for Trump or the brokered convention dynamic duo, is a vote for Hillary Clinton. As Americans, we are given the privilege of helping to decide our leaders. That privilege is tainted when it becomes a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Moreover, it comes down to two perspectives regarding this particular general election. First, I’m not convinced that a Trump Presidency really would be the “lesser” of evils compared to a Clinton Presidency. Under no circumstance would I want to see Clinton as President and under no circumstance would I want to see Trump as President. When seen through that perspective, abstaining is a righteous choice because it becomes a zero-sum game.

The second situation – not voting for someone who stole the nomination at the convention – is a matter of long-term principle for the country. I would support either Rubio or Kasich if they won the nomination outright, but stealing the nomination through convention is, in my opinion, equal to a Constitutional crime. We cannot as a country reward those who circumvented the system for personal gain. If Cruz was not a valid option to defeat Trump, then an argument can be made that Rubio and Kasich were acting out of patriotism against a force opposed to American values. With Cruz positioned to win the nomination if they drop out, it’s no longer a matter of helping the country but rather helping their egos. They can say what they want about their patriotic duty to stop Trump, but the argument doesn’t hold unless they also believe that Cruz is an existential threat… which he’s not.

At this point, Senator Rubio and Governor Kasich, you are obstructing and scheming. Stop lying to the American people by pretending that you can win the nomination. Admit that you were considering destroying the party through a brokered convention, then drop out. Otherwise, you’re traitors to the party and representatives of corruption.

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Reason #144 to Vote Cruz: A Brokered Convention would Destroy the GOP and Damage the Country

There seems to be three camps making their cases for the Republican nomination. The first two are taking the standard approach; Ted Cruz and Donald Trump want to win enough delegates to become the GOP nominee for President. The third camp is the worst idea that has been floated by Republicans in modern history (yes, even worse than nominating Bob Dole). A brokered or contested convention is the end of Republican party and will propel the country towards disaster with at least four more years of a liberal in the White House.

It would never even be a consideration in any year that didn’t feature a frontrunner that was so unpopular with Republicans, but that’s what we have. Donald Trump seems to be appealing to many of the anti-Establishment Republicans, but he’s performing so well in states that have open primaries that some are calling his onslaught a case of sabotage by the Democrats. This will shift based upon his momentum as many ill-informed Republicans start to buy into the inevitability of a Trump nomination, but unexpected wins in Iowa, Oklahoma, Alaska, Kansas, and Maine – all closed primaries and caucuses – demonstrate that actual Republicans want to nominate Cruz.

For Marco Rubio and John Kasich, the only mathematical path to victory is for them to win their home states on March 15 and to prevent Trump and Cruz from getting enough delegates to win the nomination outright. In such a situation, the first ballot at the Republican convention would not yield a winner, leaving the second and subsequent ballots to be mostly open for their delegates to choose who they want. The idea is that Rubio or Kasich can appeal to the pragmatism of the delegates to select them instead of one of the anti-establishment candidates.

The very concept of a contested convention would hurt the Republican party in the general election. It will demonstrate a weakness within the fractured party and the Democrats would exploit it. That would hurt. What would actually splinter and destroy the Republican party is if Rubio or Kasich get their way. If the 3rd or 4th place finisher is propelled to the nomination, it’s over. It will be a bloodbath in the general election. Many Republicans will stay home. Many others will revolt. As much as they don’t want to see Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as President, polls will be so poor for the “fake” Republican nominee that a lot of Republicans will simply give up.

There’s another factor: Congress. While the Presidential race is definitely the most important individual prize, the idea of forcing a brokered nominee down the Republicans’ throat will keep them home and cost the party seats. We will end up with a very delicate lead in the House and we will lose the Senate. Any argument to the contrary is grasping at straws for Rubio’s and Kasich’s sake.

Ted Cruz can unite the party. He’s the most acceptable alternative for Trump supporters and he’s even starting to pull some Establishment support his way.

Lindsey Graham Warms Up to Ted Cruz https://t.co/WES5b40dvx Suddenly Cruz doesn't look so bad, does he, Lindsey?

— Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) March 6, 2016

Most importantly, he can win the general election. Compared to Trump, Cruz polls much stronger head-to-head against Hillary Clinton.

It’s time for the party to continue to coalesce around Ted Cruz. The other two alternatives – a Trump nomination or a brokered convention – will throw the party and the country into turmoil. As bad as a Trump nomination would be, the idea of a brokered convention may actually be worse.

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Ted Cruz on God’s Blessings for America

Ted Cruz has been one of the only candidates who has stood by his faith unabashedly throughout his adult life. He doesn’t just use religion as a campaign tool. Instead, he has a faithful belief in the role of God in our lives and for our country.

We’ve seen what can happen to the country after eight years of a President who does not hold a Biblical worldview. That’s not to say we need a theocracy; on the contrary, true believers know that the only theocracy that can work will happen after the Second Coming. However, a nation that elects leaders without faith becomes a nation against the faith. This is playing out very clearly around us today. We cannot make the same mistake again.

The visual nature of social media means that from time to time we will be sharing messages that should resonate for our audience. To see more of them, which are great for sharing on social media, simply click on the Messages category.

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Debunking the LIE that Trump is Running a Self-Funded Campaign

Donald Trump has donated around $250,000 to his Presidential campaign. Instantly his supporters and even some of his detractors will scratch their head at the very least or call me a bald-faced liar at the worst, but it’s the absolute truth according to FEC filings.

His campaign has brought in over $8,000,000 in donations from individuals. This might also catch some people by surprise since many assume that he’s not even taking donations, but there’s a reason for having two prominent “Donate” buttons on every page of his website. He doesn’t need it, but your donations are the key to him being able to “self-fund” his campaign, as he likes to put it. How can this be? How can he take in donations but still consider his campaign self-funded? Because he knows the loopholes. He has LOANED nearly $20,000,000 to his campaign and in order to pay himself back, he needs to collect donations.

The Donald is smart. He’s also a liar because he is clearly attempting to mislead people. When this election is over, there’s a very good chance that he will be all paid back and the only money he truly “self-funded” is the $250,000 donation that he initially made. One does cannot bilk thousands of Americans out of millions of dollars through Trump University without knowing how to be at least a little scandalous and Trump is more than just a little.

There’s another piece to the puzzle, though not nearly as nefarious as many make it out to be. Around $3,000,000 of the campaign’s funds are paid directly back to his own companies. He pays for using his own jet or gatherings at one of his properties, for example. He uses campaign funds to pay his bodyguard who has been with him since before the campaign and will be within him when the campaign is over. If it says Trump and he uses it during the campaign, he pays himself back with campaign funds, often at premium rates.

This might seem scandalous, but surprisingly it’s not. It may be the most honorable thing he’s done during this campaign. To make certain that contributions cannot be made in the form of services or favors, the FEC requires that he pay for the use of anything commercial within his organization when it interacts in any way with the campaign. He’s not trying to rip off his supporters by paying himself every time he rides in his own jet. He has to pay himself for the use.

There’s also nothing wrong with loaning his campaign money to operate. However, calling it a “self-funded” campaign is a lie. If anything, it’s a self-financed campaign that is designed to be a safe risk assuming that donations, hat sales, and other inbound campaign revenues exceed what he loans the campaign and that’s all but certain at the rate he’s spending versus raising today. In fact, the loan didn’t need to be as high as it was, but it was important to him to be able to claim self-funding as part of his campaign sales pitch, so he loaned more than necessary to exceed donations. Whatever money is left over when the campaign is over will be used to pay down the debt to himself and knowing Trump, he’ll end up having spent nearly $0 of his own wealth.

Saying that he’s self-funded is completely misleading. His loans to the campaign will be paid back by average Americans. If he truly wanted to self-fund, he’d take down all of the “Donate” buttons on his website and give his campaign $50M to operate. If he’s worth over $9B like he claims, that’s like  someone making $50,000 per year giving $277 out of their pocket to run for President. He’s way too greedy to make such a personal commitment.

For reference, here’s his jet.

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Trump can win as long as Americans don’t do math

While every latest insult and tidbit of a slogan that Donald Trump says gets tons of publicity, while immigration policies get nitpicked and either attacked or endorsed, and while the cheers of the pro-Trump crowd attempt to drown out the calls for unity by the anti-Trump crowd, one thing is getting very lost in the details. Trump’s economic plan isn’t just bad. It’s mathematically impossible to accomplish anything other than the next great financial collapse.

That’s not hyperbole. It’s not even an opinion. It is a factual statement that Donald Trump’s proposals are indefensible whether it’s to raise expenses while cutting taxes, to charge tariffs and rip apart free trade agreements, or to balance the budget while missing a few zeroes at the end of his figures. The sad part is that in public polls, Trump is often credited as being the best to solve our financial woes. This is ludicrous. It simply doesn’t add up.

His supporters will point to his riches as examples of being a great business person. Let’s put aside that the economics behind managing corporations are not related to national and world economics. IF you believe that Donald Trump is such as amazing business mind, then thinking that this will translate into being a great President is like saying that Bill Belichek would be a great head coach in the NFL. Again, that’s IF you believe he’s some sort of business genius.

He’s rich. People look up to rich people. What’s somehow missed is that he was born into an empire worth more than the vast majority of Americans will make in their entire lives. His isn’t the tale of someone who worked hard and played it smart to become a billionaire. It’s the story of a many who took over his father’s real estate empire and managed to make a handful of really good moves that overcame the horrendous choices he made in other industries. If he were a CEO, he wouldn’t be able to get a job with any major company based upon his track record. It’s his personality and the perception that he’s a winner that have driven his alleged success.

Now, let’s look at the math of his “brilliant” economic plans. Fox News finally called him out on things that have been known for a while but that have never made the light of day in mainstream media. His economic plans are so clearly bad that one might believe the mainstream media is waiting until he becomes the nominee before letting people know during the general election that his numbers simply don’t add up.

Let’s look at how Fox News handled it during the debate.

As you can see, his math is off by a zero. He plans on saving hundreds of billions by cutting tens of billions. That won’t work. If this were translated to the scale of an average family, it’s like he’s saying that he’ll be able to pay a $5,000/month mortgage with a $50,000/year job by turning off the lights and rarely eating out. No matter how you slice it, you can’t spending over 83% of your pre-tax income on a mortgage and expect to be able to stay financially stable.

There are some good ideas in his economic plan when seen individually, but when multiple components are brought together the math becomes untenable. His big government proposals will increase the budget but he plans on cutting taxes. To make up for it, he says he’s going to cut frivolous expenditures. If he were to cut 32 such programs every day, seven days a week for the length of his first term, you’d be able to get to a balanced budget. Of course, it’s nearly impossible for him to cut 32 programs in his first year, let alone every day for four years, but again the math gets hazy when you’re dealing with millions, billions, and trillions. Americans are not programmed to do those types of calculations or to explore those issues. We rely on the media to do that for us. They’ve done the math. They’re ready to expose the ludicrous nature of Trump’s financial proposals. They’re going to wait (with the exception, apparently, of Fox News) until after he’s secured the nomination. They’ll use this to help Hillary Clinton win the election.

One does not have to be an economist to see how impossible Trump’s economic proposals are. Unfortunately, he was born rich and has been very good at real estate so obviously he can solve the country’s financial woes… at least that’s the argument by his supporters.

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After Trump Flip-Flops on Foreign Worker Visas, Has Jeff Sessions Lost All Credibility?

For years, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions has been one of the shining beacons in Congress for fighting the illegal immigration problem in America and for defending jobs that are being given to immigrants. One of his biggest fights has been to prevent the importation of “high-skilled immigration” for the sake of filling jobs in tech fields. Now, Donald Trump, the man Sessions endorsed for President, has flip-flopped completely, even going against what it says on his own website about immigration.

Nobody would believe that Sessions has changed the view he’s fought so hard to uphold in Washington DC, but will he lose credibility for being so easily fooled? More importantly, is it possible that Sessions has abandoned his fight for the sake of political expediency through an offer by Trump to be in his administration? It’s conspicuous that Sessions was named as Trump’s Chairman of National Security the day of the debate before Trump made his flip-flop official. Is Sessions in line to be Trump’s Secretary of Defense?

Can #Trump2016 lovers handle cognitive dissonance over Trump's admission he supports importing foreign tech workers? https://t.co/2VT4DM4FNO

— Eric Owens (@ericowensdc) March 4, 2016

Here’s the flip-flop itself:

At least Trump’s not trying to hide it. This puts Sessions in an uncomfortable position of fighting for something that his chosen Presidential candidate is squarely against. Ironically, his last three Tweets tell the story of what Sessions claims to want but that are the exact opposite of what Trump now supports.

If Sessions has any honor, he’ll abandon Trump’s commitment to supplant American workers by importing “high-skilled immigrants” who are taking their jobs. America cannot continue the Trump/Clinton plan to bring in immigrants when so many American citizens need those jobs.

The post After Trump Flip-Flops on Foreign Worker Visas, Has Jeff Sessions Lost All Credibility? appeared first on Conservative Haven.

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Why Fox News Hates Ted Cruz: ‘It’s the Establishment, Stupid.’

Rupert Murdoch. Roger Ailes. Bill O’Reilly. Karl Rove. When we think of the power brokers in the foreground and behind the scenes at Fox News, we think of the people who make the news about… the news. Outwardly, Fox News (and their sister outlets like the Wall Street Journal) seems to be the closest to an ally of the Republican party as any mainstream media outlet. Inwardly, they’re almost worse than liberal media. At least with liberal media, you know what you’re getting.

Be warned: we’re about to dive into a perspective that you won’t find on mainstream media or even conservative media. It gets weird from here.

Fox News as an entity hates Ted Cruz. They’ve always hated anyone who proposes ideas that run too far to the right. Keep in mind that it has absolutely nothing to do with some conservative scale litmus test or any individual policy despite rumors from both sides. The forces driving Fox News hate Ted Cruz and have reluctantly embraced Donald Trump for one reason.

Before we look at that reason, let’s first dispel some of the myths about their motivations and goals as a corporate entity:

• “Fox News hates Donald Trump” – False. They don’t hate Trump and they never have. Until recently, they felt that he was too controversial to be able to beat the Democrats, but they’ve reversed course now that they realize their golden candidate, Marco Rubio, has no path to victory.
• “News anchors and show personalities manage their own perspectives” – Mostly false. While the hosts have their independent views and based upon their stature they have the right to voice their views, there are certain underlying policy mandates made by Ailes that can be spun any way the hosts like as long as it’s spun in the proper direction. We’ve never seen it more clearly displayed than the recent 180 degree shift away from Rubio.
• “The channel and its shows are generally conservative.” – Mostly true. There’s a caveat, though. They’re conservative on the issues that they would use in order to push forward their agenda. Amnesty is an example of one of those issues where they indoctrinate Republicans towards a populist view. When it comes to the religious right, they are lukewarm at best. They don’t blatantly abandon conservative Christian perspectives like the rest of mainstream media, but they do everything they can to keep it all as secular as possible.
• “They hate Democrats and only use token liberals to pretend to be fair and balanced.” – Mostly false. They take shots at the Democrats because that’s what it takes for them to be successful. It’s easier to keep a viewership through anger rather than progress, so attacking President Obama and his cronies is mostly for show. They control the message on both ends of the spectrum with their hosts, commentators, and guests, which means that their Republicans and Democrats are all mostly leaning towards the middle.
• “Theirs is a media agenda, not a political or business one.” – False. Their interests and the very reason for the existence of Fox News is for political and business purposes only. If they can turn a profit and keep pushing their agenda, that’s great. If they stopped turning a profit, they would make adjustments to programming, focus, advertising styles, expanded mediums, acquisitions, and anything else they could do to move the needle on their profitability, but at the end of the day the political and business agendas are the most important component for them as well as every single mainstream media outlet in the country. Nobody goes into television news or talk shows to make money. They do it to shifts the hearts and minds towards an agenda.

With the myths out of the way, let’s explore the real driving force for Fox News. There’s a nebulous organization known as the Republican Establishment that Fox News is allegedly squarely a part of in a leadership role. This is partially true, but the deeper truth is more nefarious. The Republican Establishment works with the other power broker organizations such as the Democratic Establishment, Hollywood, K-Street, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and even the darlings of the conspiracy theory world like the Bilderberg Group to maintain one perspective alive: the enhanced status quo.

By enhanced, I mean that the status quo is usually considered static while an enhanced status quo progresses at a pace based upon the carefully planned agendas of the power brokers. It’s important to understand that this is not a claim to an Illuminati New World Order conspiracy theory but rather the very clear truth that the end goal of maintaining the status quo unites all of these groups. The differences they have are in the details and the path to achieving their goal. They can disagree about whether or not raising taxes for revenue is better than lowering taxes for economic growth, but the one thing they do not want to change is the size and influence of government. Conservative, liberal, whatever – they want big government with big spending to rule.

This is why they don’t dislike Donald Trump. He may be a wildcard and he may have challenges winning in the general election, but he’s malleable enough that they believe they can control him just as they’ve controlled every President to some degree since John F. Kennedy. Even Ronald Reagan was under a certain level of control when it came to concepts like amnesty and worldwide foreign relations. Reagan was an incredible statesman who brought about the takedown of the USSR and the Berlin Wall and who made the formation of the European Union possible, but he did so in a controlled fashion based upon direct influence or subtle manipulation by the power brokers in the Establishment.

All of this brings us to…

Why They Hate Ted Cruz

The Establishment (which we’ll use to describe the disparate pieces of the whole) wants moderates in office. Before you jump in and say, “But Obama isn’t a moderate,” it’s important to keep in mind the things that are important to them versus the things that are tools to achieve their ultimate goals. The moderates that are loved by the Establishment are those who keep the money, war, and oversight by the government intact. Obama may have been extreme on topics like gay marriage, immigration, and healthcare reform, but when we dig deeper we’ll see that his actions all lined up with the Establishment’s goal of enhanced status quo.

Gay marriage isn’t the status quo, but it’s a social issue that doesn’t really concern them. If anything, it’s an enhancement. Immigration is an area that they all lean left, including Fox News, so Obama’s actions have not been out of line with them. As far as healthcare reform, they were able to butcher Obama’s original ideas about Obamcare in ways that made it little more than another reason to need big government without drastically affecting industries of interest such as pharmaceuticals.

Ted Cruz is a radical from their perspective. Bernie Sanders is as well which is why the Democratic Establishment is doing their part to eliminate him. Neither candidate can be allowed to be President from the Establishment’s perspective, which is why we started seeing the Michael Bloomberg rumors popping up. He was going to be unleashed under one circumstance and one circumstance only: a Sanders vs Cruz general election. Since that’s nearly impossible at this point, Bloomberg’s out.

Ted Cruz will shake things up in Washington DC. He’s not the paper tiger that Donald Trump is or the puppet that Marco Rubio would be. Cruz is an ideologue. The Establishment wanted an inspirational status quo maintenance man like Rubio but they’ll accept the malleable demagoguery of Trump.

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Oklahoma is the Only State So Far to Vote Against Corruption on Both Sides

Super Tuesday ended very close to the way most expected. Donald Trump underperformed by missing three states when he was expected by many to sweep, but he still had a good night. Hillary Clinton’s night was also dominant, but both we surprised to fail in the one state that voted against the two most corrupt candidates in the race. Oklahoma chose Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders.

There’s really not much to the story. Oklahoma is a right-leaning state but one that has a history of fighting corrupt politicians even if they match ideologies. Democrats in the state have been very critical of President Obama which may be one of the reasons that didn’t take Clinton’s continuation plan as well as most states have. Republicans are mostly conservative with the state in the perennial top 10 furthest to the right, but they aren’t as easily fooled by the Trump sales pitch as others.

As an Okie at heart, even 10 years since leaving there for California, I am proud that my state selected the two most principled candidates. I support Cruz and even though I think Sanders is a socialist mad man, I believe he’s a principled socialist mad man.

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Being angry is not a license for voters to be stupid

You’re sick of broken campaign promises. So am I. You can’t stand what politicians have been doing to this country for years. Neither can I. You want someone to get in there, shake things up, and make some real changes that will put politicians in both parties on notice. I couldn’t agree more. You’re voting for Donald Trump. I have to shake my head in disgust.

Those things that you’re feeling – anger, disenchantment, and a desire for change – are all righteous feelings coming from an electorate that has been screwed over time and time again, particularly over the last two decades. The problem is that Donald Trump represents a continuation of those practices. Donald Trump is one of the reasons we’ve had corruption, massive spending, and ineffective solutions since 1989. Donald Trump is not a change agent. Donald Trump is the status quo in every area that actually makes a difference.

He’s going to build a wall and halt Muslims from entering the country. That’s fine. Two ideas that are unlikely to ever happen do not make for a good President. We need real changes in Washington DC, the types of changes that have meaningful impact. We don’t need to replace Obamacare with a different variation of government-supplied universal healthcare. We need it removed altogether and handed back to the private sector with changes made to enable the poorest to be properly treated. We don’t need “fair trade” and tariffs that will raise prices on most products and reduce revenue for the majority of businesses that serve an international audience. We need better free trade enabling policies that encourage businesses to keep jobs in America rather than punish those who cannot. We need a plan of action to take on the Islamic State, not bravado during stump speeches and kowtowing to the Russians.

We need someone who will stand by Israel unashamedly, not someone who views the Palestinians on equal ground with our strongest Democratic ally in the Middle East. We need someone who will grow the economy through flat taxation and reduction of government spending, not a progressive tax plan that is somehow supposed to keep the country funded while also increasing expenditures greatly. We need someone who will fight Planned Parenthood, not make excuses for them.

There are many really bad ideas coming from Trump’s mouth lately that greatly outweigh his good proposal on immigration. The President of the United States is arguably the most important job in the world. The next President must be able to immediately address extremely pressing issues on day one, not someone who needs major on-the-job training just so he can understand the three legs of the nuclear triad. He has one good selling point. Everything else is either ludicrous or unattainable. We need someone with more than one or two good traits. Nominating Trump is like hiring an NFL head coach because he has a couple of trick plays that he wants to run. Everything that Trump proposes other than immigration would be disastrous for this nation.

Voters are making a statement that they want change, but they’re falling for a different variation of the same sales pitch we’ve heard for the last two elections. Outside of immigration, Donald Trump’s policies are more aligned with Barack Obama’s than with Ronald Reagan’s. He’s a failure in the making and we have nothing to blame but our own gullibility.

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To Be Clear, Clever Trump STILL Hasn’t Disavowed the KKK Itself

Multiple times, Donald Trump has officially disavowed David Duke. He’s done it in interviews, on Twitter, on Facebook, and with anyone who has asked him. However, every time he’s asked to disavow the KKK or white supremacists, he simply repeats that he disavowed David Duke.

Check the record. Listen to the interviews. Look at his social media. He never mentions them.

Some see this as semantics. In reality, this is significant and it’s disappointing that nobody in the mainstream media is pointing it out. He is conspicuously wording every response extremely carefully. Now, he’s dismissing the questions as something that has already been answered, but are we ever going to hear him disavow the actual hate groups? Is that too risky to his base support? Is there something even more nefarious that nobody would ever mention?

Any other candidate in this situation would declare unequivocally in a fashion similar to Ronald Reagan that they do not approve of the ideologies of the hate groups in question. Trump is extremely careful about such language. He’s kept it to two words, “I disavow,” and only in reference to Duke himself. It’s the type of activity of a candidate who really wants to keep those voters in his pocket. After all, he knows they were the first to jump on his bandwagon. They’ve been his most faithful supporters. They are also aware that his presence in the mainstream means that he has to keep his approval of their support hidden. His response to Jake Tapper was designed as a “wink, wink,” moment prior to being forced to say anything about them. Thanks to the inept mainstream media, he’s never had to say anything about them.

Why has he gone out of his way to disavow a single man but has never even mentioned the name of the organization that is at the center of the hoopla? Why won’t he disavow the Ku Klux Klan?

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