I believe that if one wants to understand Donald J. Trump's candidacy, all one has to do is to read the first third of his book “The Art Of The Deal”. While Trump may indeed be sincere in his stated quest to restore what America has been, the deal he is negotiating with the American people is the biggest deal of his life, just as he may seek to build the tallest building in the world, build the biggest casino in the world, or buy the biggest hotel chain in the world for pennies on the dollar and make it the most profitable, most attractive hotel chain in the world. It's all there, how he sizes up competitors and those on the other side of the deal, the marketing of his campaign, uses the media he doesn't like to his advantage, his concept of fairness, how he runs an effective shoestring election campaign with little money - with only a handful or less of employees and little to no consultants, operating like he makes or walks away from a real estate deal or manages contractors working on his projects. And, if he closes the deal with the American people, what could be grander than negotiating and making deals on the world stage?
On the other hand, are all the disparate Tea Party groups loosely affiliated with the Tea Party movement gaga over Trump as a monolithic unit, still backing Cruz as their perceived “Tea Party favorite”, or, as one Tea Party group in the eastern Inland Empire area of southern California a couple cities over is still doing, promote Ben Carson now just the same as when he was a serious contender? Or are judgments passed and slander and vilification dispensed on the whole mass by judgment of a few in the Tea Party movement bolstered by the usual septic vitriol from left of center?
Trump doesn't just appeal to either a few or most within the Tea Party movement. I have spoken with some of the local under thirty crowd, who have never before been politically active or even politically aware, who woke up to the jihadi terrorist threat after the San Bernardino attack and they are talking up Trump – not Sanders, Clinton, Bush, Christie, Carson, Rubio nor Cruz. Maybe it's an isolated fluke, maybe not.
Concerning the Tea Party, I can only comment on what I see. The local group is nothing like the wild eyed, gun waving, racist extremists the left makes them out to be, nor the suicidal lemmings racing for the political cliff like how some on the right characterize the national movement. They discuss and pursue a wide spectrum of issues, and from what I recently read off them - even with various individual preferences within the group – I believe they will mostly accept someone who can win the general election because they understand the consequences of not winning the general election.
When the local group first started up, even after some years of slander and vilification of anything remotely associated with the words “Tea Party”, they were insistent on “Tea Party Patriots” as part of the group name, not to mention oblivious as to how a few years ago some troglodytes and megalomaniacs within the now defunct anti-illegal immigration movement managed to nationally distort the meaning of “Patriot” to something akin to “asshole”.
So, the local Chamber of Commerce, who's manager's political views are not wildly different than their collective own, refuses to grant them membership. The local paper buries their paid advertisements in the legal notice section and refuses to give them the freebie “what's happening” and “local organizations” courtesy blurbs they do for the local Democrat club. Some time ago, I was visiting friends when one began yelling hysterically (with all the usual pejoratives) about the paid Tea Party advertisement she saw in the paper she was flipping through. After she became winded, I asked her if she had ever talked to any Tea Partiers and through her – no exaggeration – purple face she wheezed “No! And I don't want to!”
Just as stereotypes of “They're just hard workers feeding their families” and “They're all criminals and welfare bums” aren't accurate descriptions of the whole mass of illegal immigrants, neither are all the negative characterizations of those associated under the banner of “Tea Party” fair, accurate and deserved descriptions of everyone within that grouping.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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