If you’ve listened to the Glenn Beck show over the past year, you’ll know that what you’ll get when you tune is 1) Trump Trump Trump (and usually discussed in a manner reserved for people like Hillary), 2) a paid product placement 3) commercials 4) some of that old time religious tent revival 5) more Trump bashing. OK, granted, my time listening is limited, usually only occurring on those days for brief periods when I go in to work at 11, so, at best, 3 hours a week. And I might flip over to a rock station or turn on the MP3 player. Because Glenn has seemed to lose his mind in his Trump Derangement Syndrome. Doesn’t mean he was wrong, but the apocalyptic discussion was a bit too much for me.
Anyhow, the other week Glenn was actively saying that it would be better for Hillary to win, because at least we know where she really stands, and that the GOP could just work to stop her. You know, because they’ve done such a bang-up job in stopping Obama, am I right? So, this must have give Beck extreme heartburn
(GlennBeck.com) Donald Trump has faced consistent pressure and scrutiny from Glenn, so his prediction Wednesday on The Glenn Beck Program came as a surprise.
“I’m going to make a prediction about Donald Trump,†Glenn said. “I could say he’s going to be the nominee of the Republican Party. But I think that’s obviously a foregone conclusion. Here’s my prediction, and I stand by it: Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States.â€
Glenn has said Hillary Clinton is such a flawed candidate that his shoe or a rock could beat her. But her flaws are not the only thing stopping her from reaching the Oval Office.
“The key to success here is star power. And somebody from the outside that is going to shake things up,†Glenn said.
One of the metrics Beck was looking at were the exit polls and the number of Democrats who say they will cross over to vote for Trump. And you couple that with the number of Dems who won’t vote for Hillary. Especially Bernie supporters.
Could it happen? Of course it could. Trump is making a play for the squishy Democrats, the Blue Dog Democrats, and even the Sanders Democrats. He’s actively wooing them.
Interestingly, he’s not attempting to woo conservatives, mainstream Republicans, libertarians, nor the #NeverTrump folks. It seems Trump isn’t interested in gaining their support. And then people wonder why many are #NeverTrump or are having a hard time deciding whether they’ll put on the gasmask to vote Trump in order to #NeverHillary.
Of course, national polls are relatively meaningless. It’s the state polls that will matter. Winning enough states to get him to 270 electoral college votes. We’ll have to see how his ground game goes, and what states he campaigns in.
I’ll throw this out there, from a conversation Wednesday: would Hillary actually be better than Trump? We know who Hillary is. She’s not as left as Obama. And she’d have Bill around to provide moderation and pragmatism. She’s certainly a, shall we say, scumbag, untrustworthy and shady, but, would she fight to look good or fight for ultra-far left policies? Probably the first. A GOP congress would only fight so hard to stop her. How hard would they fight to stop things Trump might do? We have really no idea how Trump would govern, only hints.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
As Stumpy becomes more of an establishment Republican (tax the poor; tax cuts for wealthy; deregulate corporations; slash Social Security and Medicare; slash spending but increase defense; NO minimum wage) he will lose some of his insurrectionist support. He’ll be another Mitt Romney, just more dickish. Stumpy’s only real hope is to keep fooling the folks with his carnival barker patter, diluting his contradictions and donfoolishness with a flood of jibberish.
Jon Stewart described Stumpy as a man-baby, with the physical countenance of a man, but the temperament and hands of a baby.
What is his plan to “Make America Great Again”?
Healthcare:
Repeal the ACA and replace with 1) selling insurance across state lines, 2) deduct premiums on taxes 3) HSAs 4) force doctors, hospitals, clinics to post prices 5)import cheap foreign drugs
Yeah, so he has no plan. 1 will have no impact, 2 is already allowed, 3 is already allowed, 4 is fascist according to cons, 5 violates every international patent and trade compact (but is the least bad of all his bad ideas)
Taxes:
The bottom 50% of households will pay no income tax (but will still pay payroll taxes ~ $3500 on $50,000 household income – and all state and local taxes).
Top marginal rate on wages dropped from 40% to 25%.
Rates on unearned income of 20% or lower.
All business incomes taxes at 15% or less.
Eliminate the Estate Tax.
Reduce or eliminate most deductions.
Repatriate overseas corporate taxes at 10% rate, and end deferred taxes on corporate overseas profits.
He claims this is all revenue neutral because of improved compliance, stimulus etc and blah blah blah.
The states and local communities still have service obligations to their citizens and meet these obligations with combinations of sales taxes, earnings taxes, property taxes, state taxes and, importantly (especially in red states), federal funds. Sales taxes are highly regressive and as the federal portion is slashed, regressive local taxes have to make up the deficit – or services, police, teachers, firemen, roads – get slashed. Just another way that cutting the federal rates transfers more fiscal responsibility onto the working classes (which is the Republican’s objective).
The regressive payroll taxes… about 6.2% Social Security on the first $110,000 of salary/wages, plus 1.45% Medicare on all wages/salaries (both are matched by the employer making the total 15.3%). The Social Security payments fund a trust fund that Mr. Reagan wisely let build a surplus (by raising taxes) to fund the baby boomer retirement. But what one hand gives, another takes away. That surplus was/is used to, at least on paper, offset the debt, enabling, you guessed it, more income tax cuts for the wealthy! It was just another way to transfer money from the working classes to the wealthy!
Jon Stewart? That’s where you get your political “information” from?
A supposed comedian?
All you have to do is look at the polls and realize the time for a dead heat is October.
If it’s 5 months earlier, the Democrat is getting ready to lose on a scale redolent of Mondale.
The thing is, Jeff, that Trump seems to be leaning more towards your side when it comes to taxation, SS, healthcare, and lots of other issues.
Teach,
I got Trump’s tax policy and healthcare from his website. Has he changed his positions?
I suspect he and Ryan will reach an agreement on Social Security that is closer to Ryan’s slashes than to some of Trump’s earlier voicing of protecting SS.
All conservatives and most moderates are out to slash entitlement spending.
I can live with Trumps tax policy. It seems fair. The thing is that at least you would not be paying taxes to a totally corrupt individual like Hillary. I feel comfortable with Trump, he likes business and would encourage the economy by promoting business, rather than the depression we are in now and Obama and Hillary don’t even recognize it, except by paying one trillion per year into the stock market to give the appearance of improvement. As to the ACA, no one in their right mind is going to encourage its continuation, Hillary is nuts, so she would. It took me a bit to see Trump as a savior from the horror of the last 8 years, but he looks good. Especially as the elite hate him. The other thing, most blacks I know in my area are fully behind him as well as many other minorities, and women in this area are promoting him.
Ruh roh.
Secretary Clinton is a crook because some of her donors were linked to the leaked Panama papers.
Now this:
This might explain, in part, why he is hiding his tax returns.
-the reading impaired little guy who exaggerates often and cockholder of Satan
Meanwhile Stevens, Smith, Doherty, and Woods still dead.
I think he’s hiding his tax returns because it will show his net worth to be far south of his claims.
Also, remember that Glenn Beck was saying just a few weeks ago that God was extending the primary season so that Ted Cruz could win.