Is America Really Ready For A Con Artist As President-- One As Blatant As Trump?

It's not like all of his Republican rivals haven't mentioned over the course of the primary campaign that Trump is a con man. They did. But now, whether tribally or opportunistically, most of them want to force that con man onto the country. Is it hard for you to imagine that the majority of Republican political leaders would put their party first and the country last? Marco Rubio may have said he would never stop exposing Trump as a dangerous con artist, but, apparently, "never" to a Florida Republican doesn't mean the same thing as it means to a normal person. He's now on the Trump-is-better-than-Hillary team. In fact, almost all the members of the House who are still in the #NeverTrump camp are also-- like Scott Rigell (R-VA), Richard Hanna (R-NY), and Reid Ribble (R-WI)-- retiring from Congress this year or fighting for reelection in blue districts like Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Robert Dold (R-IL).

Then you get a clown like Peter King, from a blue-leaning district that stretches along the South Shore of Long Island, and who wants it both ways. He's endorsed Trump, since they agree on almost everything, but says he won't campaign for him because Trump said Japan, Korea and other nations should develop their own nuclear weapons and stop depending on the U.S. for defense. King's Democratic opponent, DuWayne Gregory, presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, is making sure his constituents are aware of King's support for Trump. He told us that "King is trying to have it both ways. He said Trump was 'unfit to be President,' and now supports him, because he is the party nominee but will not campaign for him. Putting politics before the good of the country is irresponsible. It isn't want people who live in Nassau and Suffolk expect from their Representative."

Last week a poll from Morning Consult indicated that almost half of the general election voters say they are less likely to support candidates for office if those candidates say they back Trump.

If a candidate running for elected office said they support Trump, 38 percent of voters said they were “much less likely” to support them and 11 percent said they were “somewhat less likely.” Among those who identified as independents, roughly one-third (34 percent) said they were much less likely to support a Trump-backing candidate, while 40 percent said they were more likely to support a candidate who opposed him.

Twenty-nine percent of all voters said they were “much more likely” to support a candidate if they said they opposed Trump, and 20 percent said they were somewhat more likely.

Support for Trump’s candidacy is particularly troubling for women. Almost half of the 522 women polled (43 percent) said they would be much less likely to vote for a candidate who backs Trump, and 20 percent of Republican women said supporting Trump would also make them less likely to vote for a candidate.

This is even more pronounced in districts with large Hispanic populations where Republicans like David Valadao, who represents a California district that is 74% Hispanic, Jeff Denham, also a Californian with a heavily Latino (42%) district, Steve Knight, 38% Hispanic, also in California, and Cresent Hardy, a Nevada Republican with a 29% Republican district, are all likely to lose their seats. Except for incompetent-- and in some cases corrupt-- recruitment by the DCCC, the Democrats would be able to win back over half the 30 Republican-helf districts that have 25% of higher Latino populations. Unfortunately, the DCCC wrote off 22 of those 30 districts and are weak in most of the others.

Meanwhile-- going back to the con artist aspect of Trump-- Greg Ip, writing for the Wall Street Journal Friday wonders whether Republican voters even care that almost nothing that Trump says about economic matters adds up. Trump, he wrote, "would slash taxes by trillions of dollars, leave entitlements alone, boost spending on infrastructure and defense, and, claims an advisor, deliver a budget surplus of $4.5 trillion to $7 trillion. There is no credible way to reconcile these claims. Mr. Trump’s proposals will, if enacted, dramatically raise the debt, not decrease it, much less produce a surplus. Politically, though, it doesn’t appear to matter. As Mr. Trump understands well, voters care a lot less than wonks and journalists do about policy details." Ip then points out that Trump changes his positions virtually "at will to neutralize his rivals’ lines of attack. In others, this would be called flip-flopping or prevarication. To Mr. Trump’s supporters, it’s candor." He adds that "[a]ll politicians make conflicting promises on the campaign trail. The question is, once in office, which prevails? Mr. Trump is a populist, not a movement conservative. His instinct will be to give his political base what it wants, not what conservative wonks prescribe. That means lower taxes and no change to entitlements. And if that drives up debt? If it doesn’t bother voters, it probably won’t bother him."



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