Trumping Enemies at Home and Abroad

Donald Trump's aggression is just what America needs.

Unlike this magazine, the majority of the conservative press has been asserting that any one of Mr. Cruz, Mr. Rubio, or Mr. Paul would make a better President than Mr. Trump.  Their major arguments are that Mr. Trump has no government experience and that his plan to "bomb the sh--t" out of ISIS is over the top.

For all that there is much to like about Messieurs Cruz, Rubio, and Paul - we're not convinced.  As Dr. Carson pointed out, our senators and representatives have more than 3,000 years of experience between them.  All this experience has brought us a VA which kills veterans through neglect as well as many other expensive Big Government failures.

We certainly don't want somebody with no executive experience whatsoever - we tried that for the past 8 years, thank you very much - but the way our government operates shows clearly that political experience isn't all its cracked up to be.  Successful business experience can't be worse than Mr. Obama.

Experience aside, we offer two specific and substantive reasons why, all things considered, Mr. Trump is a better candidate than any of the others and would make a better President.

Beating Mainstream Media's Bias

The mainstream media are totally in Hillary's pocket, as they have been fora quarter century less a brief timeout for their Obama infatuation.  Relative to the ink they lavish on Hillary, they're ignoring Mr. Sanders even though he's winning the "search primary" and looks likely to win the first two real primaries as well.

We believe that Hillary has schmoozed the publishers enough that they want her to be even more powerful so they can continue to eat at her table.  They've spent so much ink telling us how wonderful she is that they must sincerely want her in the White House - surely she can't have blackmail evidence on all of them?

Even without a feminist goddess to worship, the MSM tries hard either to ignore whatever any Republican says or to lie about it.  The last Republican politician who had a halfway decent chance of going "over their heads" to make his views known to the American people was Ronald Reagan, two decades back in the last millennium.

Somehow, Mr. Trump blasts through their thick fog of obfuscation and deceit.  He throws the lies of the media and other leftists back in their faces, and does it in such a flamboyant way they can't help communicating his message.

The case study of this phenomenon is Trump's treatment of the usually untouchable Hillary Clinton.  When Hillary played the "war on women" card on him, unlike every other cowering Republican, he shot both barrels back at her loaded with home truths about Slick Willie's mistreatment of women and Hillary's aggressive coverups of his misdeeds.

This has, of course, been tried before, and it usually falls flat.  The media are so committed to helping the Clintons cover things up that they ignored the sordid tale of Monica Lewinsky's blue dress until a nobody named Matt Drudge broke the story to the world.  The Drudge Report is now reportedly the world's most popular news aggregator, in part because of its reputation for publishing important news the media won't.

Yet instead of following this reprehensible tradition and ignoring Trump's blast, the Washington Post published a handy list of all the women who'd had sexual encounters with Bill.  They divided it into those who'd had consensual affairs and those who'd been raped, including the woman whom he'd sent to the hospital.

Can anyone imagine the Post providing this useful public service at the behest of any other Republican?

The bottom line is that the media won't publicize Hillary's many disqualifiers unless Mr. Trump forces them to do so.  We don't believe that any other Republican can make them tell the truth.  Unlike many, Mr. Trump is willing and eager to bend them over his knee for a good hidin' - and unlike any other, he can actually get it done.

Being Feared By One's Enemies

All the Republican candidates realize that ISIS is a very dangerous enemy, but their proposed "measured response" reminds us of President Johnson's futile escalation of the Vietnam war.  If there's one thing ISIS has gone to great lengths to make crystal clear to the world, it's that their leaders are not reasonable.  They do not understand gradualism, they understand only total war.  They're at war while we're playing bean bag and whack-a-mole at great expense but to little effect.

Going to war isn't a gradual process; you're either "all in" or you're "all out."  We may not want to be at war with ISIS, but ISIS clearly wants to be at war with us.  We must either kill them or persuade them to stand down, and fixing "climate change" won't do it.

ISIS fighters hide among civilians where Mr. Obama won't let our forces bomb them.  As with Vietnam, this wimpy response will kill far more civilians than carpet bombing would because ISIS will last a lot longer.

Our forces killed 100,000 Japanese civilians with one air raid during WW II.  This helped convince many Japanese that the war had been lost, but they didn't say "Uncle" until we called the wrath of the Sun God down upon their heads.  What our MSM now call a "barbaric, unnecessary act" saved the lives of countless millions of Japanese and hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who'd otherwise have had to kill them one by one.  We have seen Iraqi and Kurdish forces take back cities one street at a time; is this really the way to go?

Our Fight Against Barbarism needn't go as far as carpet bombing, to say nothing of nukes: Syria and the rest of ISIS-land is a desert with no place vehicles can hide.  President Trump could easily establish a "no drive" zone around their capital city and destroy any vehicle within, say, 50 miles.  If nobody could get in or out except on foot or camel back, their rule would fade away and we wouldn't have to attack the city at all.

We don't need to take the city back; ISIS has nothing we want.  We merely need to make their turf uninhabitable for them, and soon enough, it'll be uninhabited by them.  Yes, some civilians will die - but far more will die, and far more gruesomely, if we don't eliminate ISIS quickly.

Alas, neither Mr. Kerry, nor Hillary, nor Mr. Obama have any clue how to deal with ISIS.  The other candidates don't seem to get it either, though Ted Cruz is somewhere on the right track with calls to "carpet bomb" the enemy; Mr. Trump clearly does.  He also knows how to deal with the MSM; the other candidates are too nice on both counts.  They don't have his instinct for mortal combat, and only a mean street fighter can take down Hillary or ISIS.

But Mr. Trump has no military experience whatsoever!  True, but irrelevant: CNN reports that King Abdullah of Jordan, who lives close enough to ISIS to know what is going on, says that ISIS could be defeated "fairly quickly" and could be taken off the battlefield "soon" if only our leaders knew how to go about it.  If Mr. Trump needs hints, we are sure that His Majesty values his own skin enough to offer a few suggestions - and he has all the experience fighting militant Islam that anyone could ever hope for.

Mr.Trump's signature line is, "You're fired!"  We need that shouted all over the beltway for 4 years at least; 8 years would be better.  As far as ISIS is concerned, the second word is sufficient by itself.  Done properly, it wouldn't take even 4 months of repeating "Fire!" to finish them off.

Will Offensicht is a staff writer for Scragged.com and an internationally published author by a different name.  Read other Scragged.com articles by Will Offensicht or other articles on Partisanship.
Reader Comments

When you start the article saying that Donald Trump stated that he will carpet bomb ISIS, I knew you had no idea what you were talking about. It was Ted Cruz who stated that he would carpet bomb ISIS. Donald said that he would let Russia take them out.

January 19, 2016 8:17 PM

Wea culpa - we got our quotes mixed up. Thanks for pointing this out so we could fix it.

January 19, 2016 8:43 PM

Chuck, Mr. Trump actually said he'd "bomb the shit" out of them. Pretty close!

While i'd have preferred that Mr. Offensicht had used the correct metaphor, for you to say "I knew you had no idea what you were talking about" misses the mark by at least a country mile.

January 19, 2016 8:46 PM

Indeed, Mr. Trump's vitriol is well established. He's amply demonstrated his ability to insult and step on others (though quite thin-skinned when on the receiving end).

Likewise, his deal-making ability is quite good: how else do you escape bankruptcies and return to wealth numerous times?

I'm not sure how any of that equates to being a principled libertarian leader. I'm also not sure why conservatives think he will continue to champion their causes when he no longer needs their votes. At 67 years of age, he's demonstrated conservative values for maybe two of those years.

It's tricky being led by a deal-making megalomaniac. Perhaps the term "Stupid Party" has more than one meaning.

January 20, 2016 6:49 AM

If Trump spends 4 years lambasting politicians, the media, and foreign countries on an absolutely random basis - 90% of the time he'll hit a deserving target. And he's probably smart enough to hold fire against the handful of people actually on the side of good and right, at least much of the time.

January 20, 2016 7:26 AM

@Patience:

What a sad desperate strategy on the part of the right -- and a clear admission that the party, and whatever it believes, is over.

What you're defining is a new platform that is only concerned with throwing bombs at the media and DC establishment, and anyone who is deft at that becomes a friend and/or electable without consideration for where that may lead in future years.

Reminds me of what arming Afghani's (against Russia) led to in recent years... Picking bullies for friends gets tricky.

January 20, 2016 7:34 AM

@lfon:

You analysis of where the Right is, is unfortunately largely accurate. This was obvious four years ago:

http://www.scragged.com/articles/the-glorious-fury-of-gingrich

And the anger has only gotten stronger since then. There definitely are an increasing number of people who feel that a Samson-style ending is preferable to America just going gently into that good night, as it's been doing for 50 years.

As far as Trump is concerned - you **may** be correct about what will happen. There is a chance, though, that he'll actually fight for what he's been shouting from the housetops. With any of the rest save possibly Cruz, there's not even that chance.

If that means we're most likely doomed - well, yeah, it often does look that way. Which makes an all-out fight even more appropriate.

January 20, 2016 7:40 AM

On the other hand, Rm. Trump knows directly the HUGE costs of overdone regulation and might want to hack through that. Also, "You're fired!" is his signature line. We need that shouted the length and breadth of the beltway for at least 4 years, maybe 8.

January 20, 2016 2:21 PM

Nate, a few corrections.

Trump said "You're fired" ***on a TV show***. TV isn't real life - a secret that nobody has told the electorate apparently. Do we have any evidence he actually has fired, or supports the firing, of DC types other than what he's said in the last few months? Do we even have any evidence he's done that in the private sector (post-merger cleaning house, etc)? We know that his creditors lost some jobs.

Trump undoubtedly knows the costs of regulation, but what makes you think he dislikes it? Wealthy big businesses **like** expensive regulations precisely **because** there's a huge cost to it - a cost they gladly pay, knowing other smaller competitors cannot. Heck, most of the worst regulations in America were written by big businesses. Why do you think they pay huge fees to lobbyists? Not to remove regulation, but to have it written in their favor.

Which do you think Trump prefers:

(1) A lot of competitors in NYC competing for land/building contracts

(2) No competitors but a bunch of extra paperwork/fees that his team has to comply with?

January 20, 2016 8:25 PM
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