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If Donald Trump’s message of “our leaders are stupid, and I will hire the best people and figure it out when I get elected” is not reminiscent of Obama’s no-substance campaign of “hope and change” in 2008, you may not be paying close attention. In fact, with Obama, at least it was expected that his evasiveness and at times pandering was a mask for his extreme liberal beliefs and totalitarian approach of governing. With Trump, we have the same Obama style narcissist bully who will all but force his policies on every one else except that no one knows what those policies will be and what he really believes—other than he is willing to say anything to get elected.
Nothing exemplifies Trump’s version of “hope and change” more than his foreign policy. The same person who opposed the Iraq war in 2004, now has a “foolproof” plan to defeat ISIS. What is his plan? He told Greta Van Susteran of Fox News that his plan is a secret that he can’t share:
Similarly, when Trump, in a radio interview with a popular conservative radio host, failed to identify various Middle East players, he simply claimed that “first day in office, or before then, right at the day after the election, I’ll know more about it than you will ever know.” As Scott Walker aptly phrased in the last night GOP CNN debate, we already have an apprentice in the White House, we don’t need another one—even though Trump may really believe that he is really smart and will hire the best people and will figure it out. We need someone with a real vision, not someone who merely paints a picture of a fantasy—with no real solution path.
Even in the rare instance when Trump does offer a “solution” beyond merely disparaging everyone else and painting a fantasy land that he would make because he is “really smart,” his “solutions” appear nothing more than pandering for votes. And for that, we don’t need to go any further than his favorite topic of illegal immigration. Trump’s “plan” is a political one size fits all approach designed to pander to the entire spectrum: from those who oppose amnesty to those who think most illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay. For those who oppose amnesty and wish to deport all illegal immigrants, Trump’s plan provides the perfect fantasy solution: he will round up and deport eleven million illegal immigrants. But he also has a footnote designed to attract the other side of the spectrum: after he has somehow deported 11 million illegal immigrants, he will then bring back the “good ones” and leave out the criminals.
Now, beyond a design of pandering for votes, no one can seriously contend that Trump’s immigration plan—and we are using the term “plan” very loosely here—has any chance of a practical implementation. To begin with, for his entire four years in office, Trump would have to identify, arrest, rush through immigration courts, and then deport approximately 7,500 illegal immigrants each day. By comparison, the Obama administration, which has deported more illegal immigrants even compared to President Bush, is able to deport approximately 400,000 illegal immigrants each year. That is only 1/7th of what Trump would need to do each year, four years in a row. The fallacy of Trump’s plan does not end there. After he has somehow managed to deport 7,500 illegal immigrants each day for four years, he would then implement a process to identify the “good” ones and bring them back.
To be clear, instead of this convoluted plan that goes in circles to achieve a straight forward objective of just getting rid of criminal illegal immigrants and allowing the rest to stay, Trump could have easily proposed an immigration plan that would satisfy his objectives and would in fact be reasonably achievable: instead of deporting everyone and bringing back the “good” ones, a plan could identify the “good” illegal immigrants and deport the rest. The problem would be that such a plan would be a nakedly liberal approach that is even left of Obama’s immigration executive action. And that would not bring Trump the Republican votes that he needs in the primary.
Trump’s past is also of no guidance on his vision—to the extent he has any—on various issues. He has switched political parties multiple times in the past two decades, and in late 1990s, he even seriously considered running on a “Reform Party” ticket. In 2004, Trump told Wolf Blitzer of CNN that he “probably identifies more as a Democrat.” In 1999, he proposed a one time 14.5% tax on the wealthy to pay off the national debt. He has been on all sides of many other issues.
With then Senator Obama’s message of hope and change in 2008, at least one could make an educated guess as what to expect beyond lack of experience and incompetency. If nothing else, Obama was voted the most liberal member of the US Senate in 2007. If Obama lied about the cost and inner-workings of Obamacare, or if he presented no real fiscal policy, it was not because he had no vision. It was because his vision was so much to the left that it needed politically motivated adjustments, masks and misrepresentations. With Trump, we know that his version of “hope and change” is nothing but vote-pandering empty promises. The question is, do we know his core vision and beliefs? Does he, even?
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