What if Donald Trump decides to fire himself?

What if Donald Trump decides to fire himself?

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Asheville Citizen-Times 

 August 26, 2016

What if Donald Trump’s most startling surprise of his candidacy is yet to come, and soon? What if he simply throws in the towel? What if he turns his role on “The Apprentice” upside down and fires himself? Ridiculous, you say. Will never happen. Impossible. Perhaps, but let’s think about what might evoke such a thunderbolt from Trump, and what the implications of it would be for the presidential election.

I’ve been intrigued with presidential elections since 1948. All of the 17 presidential elections since then have had something in common that is absent in this year’s contest. All of them presented the American people with a choice between one or two qualified nominees. Sadly, that is not the case this year. You don’t have to take my word for that depressing reality. Polling data makes it abundantly clear that an overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Most Americans don’t think Trump is adequately prepared to discharge the duties of the presidency and are deeply troubled that he demonstrates little interest in modifying his penchant for shooting from the hip or the lip. At the same time most Americans don’t trust Hillary Clinton. They see her as secretive, manipulative, and obsessed with her ambition to become president of the United States. Her persona disturbingly conjures up memories of Richard Nixon who, like Hillary Clinton, had impressive political credentials, experience, and moxie, but who also had disqualifying and fatal character flaws that led America to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

Now there’s no chance that Clinton will step aside, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s clear she’s on her way to an overwhelming victory on Nov. 8. But there’s a chance that same reality might lead Trump to declare political bankruptcy and bow out.

Let’s talk about bankruptcy, a redemptive tool that has benefited the nation in general and Donald Trump in particular. Bankruptcy laws in America date back to the 19th century. They allow businesses and individuals to put bad decisions behind them and make a fresh start.

Donald Trump knows this process and its benefits well. Over the past quarter century he has benefited from the bankruptcy process at least six times. Five of the six bankruptcies involved Trump properties in the hard-hit gaming industry, the other was the Plaza Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Bankruptcy is a way of cutting one’s losses, avoiding permanent stigma, and moving on.

Assume that over the Labor Day weekend Trump sits down with his trusted inner sanctum of advisers, meaning that he sits down with himself, and says, “How do I turn this campaign around and win in November”? And then assume his answer is that it can’t be done. It can’t be done because he’s got no chance of winning any of the normally Democratic states, no chance of winning any of the eight swing states like North Carolina, and is in real jeopardy of losing several traditionally Republican states such as Georgia, Arizona, and/or Utah. He’s on an irreversible trajectory to becoming the Alf Landon of the 21st century.

At that point there are only two options, suffer an historic and humiliating defeat or get out. Were he to get out, then what?

For openers, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence does not automatically become the GOP’s standard bearer. In fact the process of selecting another nominee is governed by Rule 9 of the Republican National Committee. Rule 9 provides that either of two alternatives exist for filling such a vacancy. Either another Republican National Convention would have to occur or the Republican National Committee itself could select a new nominee.

It’s obvious that time would not permit the convening of another National Convention. Thus, the RNC would select a new nominee with RNC members from each state being entitled to cast the same number of votes that their state cast at the GOP Convention last July. The winner must receive a majority of the votes cast.

That process, if triggered, will be a brawl among Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and John Kasich. Any of them, excepting Cruz, would give the GOP a chance for victory in November, and, more importantly, would give the American people an opportunity to vote for someone qualified to be president.

But you’re sure this is impossible, right? Weren’t you just as sure six months ago that Donald Trump’s bid for the nomination was certain to fail?

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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Electing a president-by-default

By LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

Times-News Online

Published: Sunday, August 21, 2016

Can you hear the fat lady singing? I can. It’s all 

over for The Donald.

Of course, I may be dead wrong. And, if so, I’ll have a lot of deserved egg on my face. But for what it’s worth, here’s my thinking on why I believe the race for the White House is over before it has been seriously engaged, before any debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton, and before the expenditure of north of a billion dollars on television advertising and the get-out-the-vote ground games by the two campaigns.

Remember, most Americans don’t usually begin to pay serious attention to the presidential election until after Labor Day. By then, the 2016 Olympics will be history, family vacations are over, and the kids are back in school.

The faceoff between Trump and Clinton breaks the mold in so many unprecedented ways that it renders conventional analysis almost useless. Let’s count the ways, saving the coup de grace for Trump’s ill-fated candidacy for last.

For openers, Trump is no Republican. In a CNN interview in 2015, he said, “I probably identify more as a Democrat.” And Trump has put his money where his mouth has been. He has contributed between $100,000-$250,000 to the Clinton Foundation, and he contributed to Clinton’s political campaigns in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007. At that time, he described Clinton as a “terrific woman” and went on to say, “I think Hillary would do a good job.”

Nonetheless, over the course of the past year, Trump has hijacked the Republican Party and become its presidential nominee. Understanding how and why are vital. The GOP has come apart at the seams. Its elected leaders and apparatchiks in Washington are despised by millions of rank-and-file Republicans.

And for good reason. In their arrogance, they have deluded themselves with the notion that they can do as they please, while thumbing their noses at those who sent them to Washington. Trump presented the GOP rank and file with an opportunity to vent their anger at their leadership by voting for him. And that’s just what they did.

The best way to grasp the gravity of the crisis facing the GOP is to understand that if the Republican Party had nominated Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, John Kasich or Paul Ryan this year, they would have recaptured the White House this November. Any of those individuals would have painted an untrustworthy Clinton into a corner from which there would have been no escape.

Yet, had Trump not won the nomination, it is clear that the GOP would have nominated Ted Cruz. Against Clinton, he would have flamed out more spectacularly than will Trump. Let that bizarre reality sink it.

On the campaign trail, Trump has been nothing short of unhinged. Over the course of the past year, he has gone out of his way to deliberately and deeply offend women, Hispanics, Muslims and African-Americans. In addition to being morally reprehensible, such a strategy is politically suicidal.

The white vote in presidential elections has been declining since 1992. Then it was 87 percent. In 2012, it had plummeted to 72 percent, and this year it’s projected to be 70 percent. Moreover, the Hispanic population in America is growing rapidly because it is younger than the white population. The GOP can’t survive if it permanently alienates Hispanics, which is exactly what it is doing.

About two weeks ago, a group of 50 former national security officials who served Republican presidents co-signed an open letter saying Trump is unfit to have control of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. They stated that “we are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.” They also stated, “Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be president.” This from Republicans!

Since President Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952, six presidential elections have been blowouts: Adlai Stevenson was the sacrificial lamb in 1952 and 1956, Barry Goldwater in 1964, George McGovern in 1972, Walter Mondale in 1984, and Michael Dukakis in 1988. Each only received between 37 percent and 45 percent of the popular vote. The Electoral College results were even worse for all of them. And, unlike Trump, all of them were considered qualified to be president.

In a normal presidential election, each side attempts to demonize the other in the minds of the voters. This one’s not normal. It’s nuts. Trump has systematically demonized himself in the eyes of the voters. He’s half narcissist and half masochist. He will be demolished on Nov. 8.

And that will leave us with a president-by-default who in very different ways is also unfit to lead the nation. Hopefully, the fat lady will return for an encore performance in four years.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. He can be reached at:

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Who will be the biggest loser - Clinton, Trump, or us?

 Who will be the biggest loser - Clinton, Trump, or us?

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

July 29, 2016

Only an American TV reality show could make a success out of deeming the biggest loser to be the winner. But that’s the way it works on “The Biggest Loser,” the long-running NBC TV reality show that pits teams of morbidly obese individuals against one another to see which of them can lose the most weight. Although I have never seen a single episode of the show, I’m confident that its staying power has everything to do with the fact that it resonates with the three quarters of the American people who are overweight or obese. For them it’s vicarious weight loss. 

But this year the presidential election has become the political version of the The Biggest Loser. And this one’s not vicarious. All of us get to have a say in determining which of the two losers, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, wins. It’s a “Reality” show gone real.

Based upon what you hear on television and read in the newspapers and on the web, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in most polls and appears to be the likely winner on Nov. 8. For example, the Las Vegas betting line makes her the favorite, as does Nate Silver’s 538 statistical model.

But don’t get ahead of yourself. A year ago none of the political elites in either party took Trump’s quest for the GOP nomination seriously. Yet Trump has proven them all wrong.

Clinton’s greatest asset is the structural advantage that the Democrats have in the Electoral College. If you look at the last four presidential elections, the same basic pattern repeats itself. The Democrats can count on winning 19 states and the District of Columbia netting them 247 of the 270 electoral votes it takes to win the presidency. The GOP can count on winning 23 states but only 191 electoral votes.

That leaves the eight swing states with their total of 100 electoral votes. Clinton only needs to win 23 of those 100 swing state electoral votes. For example, were Clinton to win the swing state of Florida with its 29 electoral votes, she’s President. Trump, on the other hand, faces a much more formidable challenge. He’s got to win at least 79 of the 100 electoral votes in the eight swing states.

Clinton’s Campaign is built on the assumption that this year’s election will repeat this basic electoral pattern that advantages Democrats with their concentrations of non-white voters in populous states like California, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. It’s their ace in the hole.

But what if they’ve miscalculated?

The latest Rasmussen poll shows that only 21 percent of likely voters believe the nation is headed in the right direction. An astounding 72 percent believe we’re headed in the wrong direction. Clinton’s Campaign thumbs its nose at the national outcry for change. It proposes more of the same, in effect Obama’s third term, but with her at the helm. But she’s no Obama in at least one crucial respect.

The July NYT/CBS national poll of voters reveals that 67 percent do not believe Clinton is honest and trustworthy. Imbedded in that cohort are many Independents and Democrats. Thus, an untrustworthy Clinton is attempting to sell the same old, same old to an angry electorate. In sharp contrast, Trump has indicted the entirety of Washington’s political class. Hillary Clinton’s past quarter century in Washington makes her the perfect poster child and punching bag for his onslaught.

If 2016 turns out to be a change election, Hillary Clinton will lose. If so, expect significant changes in the “traditional” Electoral College map. If Trump wins, he will carry several normally Democratic states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. And that will negate the Democrat’s Electoral College ace in the hole.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve got no dog in this fight. If the election were held today, I would not vote for either Clinton or Trump.

The tragedy is that America is about to elect an individual who will be unwilling or unable to make and implement the tough decisions necessary to arrest national decline and heal national division. Clinton and Trump in their own unique ways are losers. Electing either of them makes us the biggest loser.

How much better it would be for all of us, if both of them were relegated to being the finalists on the TV reality show. For that they both have way more than enough of the right stuffing.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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Campus crybabies, cowards abound

                           

Campus crybabies, cowards abound

By LeRoy Goldman

Columnist
BlueRidgeNow

Published: Sunday, July 17, 2016 

I am old enough to remember when the opportunity to attend college was seen as the best and surest pathway for an individual to mature, learn and live a fuller life. But now political correctness has cast an ominous shadow over all that. 

Political correctness, as it is being practiced on university campuses all across America, is stifling freedom of expression through intimidation. It is the antithesis of what Thomas Jefferson said upon the founding of the University of Virginia in 1819: “This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead.”

Understanding the expanding assault on college life and teaching requires familiarity with three concepts that are not household terms: safe space, trigger warning and microaggression.

A safe space in educational institutions means the institution, its professors or its students will not tolerate anti-LGBT violence, harassment or hate speech. Trigger warnings explicitly state that the content of a text, video, course syllabus or lecture may upset or offend some people. Microaggressions are words that could be deemed violent, such as asking a Latino person, “Where were you born?”

The coercive use of these concepts on campus is not benign. It’s malignant.

In fact, the expanding assault on academic freedom and free speech, led by hysterical students and legions of university diversity police, is powerfully assisted by the federal government through its regulations that implement Title IX of the 1972 Education Act amendments. This assault on free speech by an unholy alliance of college-age crybabies, university diversity bureaucrats and federal regulators strikes at the heart of every university’s raison d’être.

Even worse is the silence of those who could most effectively combat this menace — the university’s faculty members. Their all-too-convenient silence makes them cowards and accomplices in this madness that will not stop until it turns academic freedom into higher education’s passion play.

Here’s a sampler of what university life has become. In The Washington Post several months ago, columnist George Will described how Colorado State University punished the alleged rapist of a woman who said she was not raped. The individuals in question had consensual sexual intercourse. The following day, a classmate of the woman in question noticed a hickey on her neck. She reported an alleged assault to school officials.

Based on inaccurate hearsay evidence, Colorado State University suspended the male who had been falsely accused.

Catherine Rampell, in a column in the Washington Post last March, described how two members of Bowdoin College’s student government will face impeachment proceedings because they attended a party where some attendees wore tiny sombreros. Students and administrators at Bowdoin “went ballistic” and an investigation into ethnic stereotyping was begun. Those who attended the party were reprimanded or placed on social probation.

In a column in The Washington Post in May, Charles Lane reported how Harvard University, in response to gender inequity, is transforming campus culture. Harvard has decided to sanction organizations that only admit men or women. Starting this fall, Harvard will prohibit members of single-gender organizations from holding “leadership positions” in any university-recognized undergraduate organization. In addition, Harvard also will prohibit such people from applying for Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.

In The Washington Post last fall, columnist Kathleen Parker wrote that, based on a survey of 1,100 colleges and universities, only 18 percent require American history or government, where an understanding of free speech and the First Amendment would be taught.

Earlier this month, professor Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches at NYU, stated that most efforts at the diversity challenge faced by universities have been a failure. Unbelievably, he said, “There’s no strong evidence that these costly efforts have changed anything.”

Thus, he proposes a radical fix. He wants universities to stop allowing freshmen to choose their own roommate. Instead, he wants universities to “generate multicultural roommate pairings.” Call it the next logical step for the diversity empire’s stormtroopers!

Professor Charles Lipson of the University of Chicago has spoken powerfully against this spreading menace in a column for Real Clear Politics last month. He has proposed steps that universities should undertake to protect campus free speech. Failing that he argues, “they will fail in their basic mission of promoting the exchange of ideas, real learning and innovative research.”

He’s right. But until he’s joined by his professorial colleagues, he is a voice in the academic wilderness.

The parents of the crybabies would be better served by diverting their daughter’s/son’s tuition payments to a psychotherapist for services rendered to their enfant terrible. No apologies here to those who just perceived a microaggression.

And the spineless professors should be required to write and rewrite Thomas Jefferson’s UVA mission statement on their whiteboards until they can demonstrate they comprehend its meaning.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:  

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Yet another half president

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

June 25, 2016

And then there were two, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Regardless of which one of them you support, there is no doubt that the vast majority of the American people have already cast a vote of no confidence in both. Put another way, most of us are appalled that in a nation of 320 million citizens Clinton and Trump are the best we can do. Not only are they not the best, both are destined to fail. What gnaws at all of us is the sickeningly obvious answer to a simple question. Are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump the best America has to offer?

Understanding why neither of them has a prayer of reversing the nation’s downward spiral, is essential, not impossible to comprehend, and yet so combustible that it’s rarely articulated. It comes down to this: To be effective, president of the United States must mean president of all the United States, not president of half of the United States.

America is in the process of losing what is at the center of our national experiment in democracy. Simply put it’s the one nation, under God, indivisible notion, and the “a nation divided cannot stand” notion.

There’s a relatively easy way to understand the reality of the danger we face. We all know about the existence of Red America and Blue America. We all know which one we support. We all know who’s right. We are. And we know who’s wrong. They are. Some of us also know how the Red/Blue straitjacket has divided us today in ways that are reminiscent of the divisions that plunged the nation into Civil War about150 years ago.

What is less well understood are the forces that propel and breathe life into what has become the clear sorting out of the American people into two separate nations that no longer trust each other. They are the forces of political correctness that manifest themselves as identity politics. Like an undiagnosed and untreated malignancy, they have taken control of our political life and paralyzed our national government.

Red America is made up overwhelmingly of white men, their wives and Protestants. Blue America consists of most single and divorced women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Muslims and LGBTs.

Pandering to those two increasingly intolerant coalitions by career politicians in Washington has reduced civil political discourse to a gender and racial stalemate. Two examples drive home the point.

In 2014 the Supreme Court voted 6-2 in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action to uphold the state of Michigan’s voter’s 58 percent approval of a referendum that prohibited the state’s public colleges and universities from granting preferential admission based upon race. In a blistering 58 page dissent, Justice Sotomayor eleven times thundered, “race matters”.

Her illogic was that the court should have overturned the will of Michigan’s voters because in her opinion their vote showed that the election outcome was influenced by racism. Let that sink in. Her reasoning would have had the Supreme Court invalidate the vote of the people in Michigan because in her view it constituted racism.

In fact, her repeated bombast that race matters was not what she really meant. Everyone agrees race matters. What she was really saying was that for African-Americans race must matter more. Think of her dissent as a precursor to the Black Lives Matter movement, which does not mean Black Lives Matter, which, of course, they do. It really means black lives matter more than white lives. This extreme version of political correctness has become so ingrained and so pernicious that, If one has the temerity to challenge such a view, the response is assured and lethal. You’re a racist.

And now the nation is attempting to grapple with the carnage in Orlando. Trump and Red America blame Obama and Clinton for complicity and not being willing to call Omar Mateen a “radical Islamic terrorist”. Clinton, Obama, and Blue America have deemed Mateen’s rampage homegrown terrorism, a hate crime against LGBTs, and are calling for the passage of stricter gun control legislation. In the Senate these mutually opposing points of view play out in only one destructive manner that has as its principal purpose the staging of Senate votes designed to protect the backsides of vulnerable senators seeking re-election this November.

Unless and until this nation puts an end to the cancer of political correctness, we are assured more half presidents as far as the eye can see.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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 Drain Washington’s Great Dismal Swamp

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

June 3, 2016

The Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina and Virginia is a national treasure and sanctuary. The one in Washington D.C. is a vermin ridden pest hole. Let’s drain it.

America is on the verge of what will be the filthiest and most expensive presidential campaign in the nation’s history. By Election Day it’s a virtual certainty that the two presumptive nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will have spent (wasted) upwards of $2 billion in efforts to demonize each other. What’s coming is: Hillary, the crooked and trigger happy, versus Donald, the Mexican-hating, Muslim-hating misogynist.

Most of you are too busy and too sensible to spend much of your time reading the blizzard of political columns in the newspapers or listening to the nonstop rants by the biased bobble heads on Fox or MSNBC. But, if you did, you would have learned that either Hillary Clinton will win in a breeze, or that the election will be very close. How helpful is that? It’s not.

But, if this election turns out to be close, as is likely, then here are four reforms that would play a decisive role in determining who wins, what sort of mandate the President-elect will have, and who controls the Senate and the House of Representatives when the 115th Congress convenes next January.

Abolish the Electoral College

We say we believe in majority rule and one person, one vote. We don’t. The Electoral College is an undemocratic anachronism. It makes irrelevant the votes of Democrats for the presidency in many states such as Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas. Similarly, it makes irrelevant the votes of Republicans in many other states like California, Illinois, and Maryland. In 2000 it led to election of a president who lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. Abolish it by constitutional amendment.

Abolish House Rules Committee

Republican and Democratic Speakers of the House use the House Rules Committee to strangle the legislative process. At their direction the Rules Committee routinely issues “closed” rules that circumscribe debate on the House floor for virtually all major legislation. The Closed Rule precludes the Minority party from offering amendments to the legislation. It’s the mechanism that currently enables the radical House Republican Freedom Caucus to subvert the legislative process. Abolishing the Rules Committee would open the legislative process and restore compromise and comity in the House.

Abolish the Senate filibuster

Originally intended to be used rarely and only under extraordinary circumstances, the Senate filibuster has become the weapon of choice for both Democrats and Republicans to paralyze the Senate when they are in the minority. Its automatic use by the Senate Minority makes a mockery of Senate procedure. Its repeated use needlessly fosters enmity between Democrats and Republicans. The beginning of the 115th Congress next January offers the opportunity for the Senate to change its rules and abolish the egregious abuse of the filibuster.

Reform the federal bureaucracy

Like the secret, all-powerful, and corrupt Vatican bureaucracy that does not answer to the Pope, the federal bureaucracy does not answer to the president, regardless of whether he is a Democrat or a Republican. Worse, it’s accountable to no one. And that means it can and does do whatever it wishes.

That’s how you get an IRS that abuses its authority to attack political organizations it opposes. It’s how you get a VA that is willing to murder sick veterans in order to protect its reputation, its leadership and their annual bonuses. It’s how you get the rollout of the Obamacare website that doesn’t work. It how you get a CDC that botches the response to the Ebola outbreak. Its how you get children with elevated blood-lead levels in Flint, Michigan thanks to the incompetence and irresponsibility of the EPA. The next president must have a plan to bring the federal bureaucracy to heel, rather than be its willing patsy.

Don’t underestimate the significance that advocacy for these reforms would have in determining who wins the White House. While they may seem esoteric and prosaic, the candidate who can convince the electorate that he/she is serious about ending the stalemate in Washington and knows how to do it, will win. Advocacy for these reforms will focus voter anger like a laser.

Do you know which candidate is more likely to propose these reforms? Here’s a hint. One of them has lived in and prospered from Washington’s Dismal Swamp for the past quarter century. The other has not.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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