The first debate of three debates between Democratic nominee for U.S. president, Hilary Clinton, and the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, was held three days ago. So, the big question is, who won? Many political analysts have expressed to the media their take on it. And now polls are being taken of voters to learn what they think. Most analysts and at least the print media say Clinton won, but so far what I’ve seen is that the public thinks it was about a tie. Later polls will tell more. I thought Clinton clearly won.
If you follow my blog regularly, you know I’ve blogged about this presidential run more than a dozen times over the past year and that, to use Donald Trump’s vocabulary, I think if The Donald wins he’ll be “a disaster.” I’ve got many reasons, and if you follow this campaign you probably already know them. But I’ll only mention one here.
Donald Trump’s view of free speech makes him look like he’s un-American. He boasts about upholding the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution, which is about the right of individual U.S. citizens to own and/or bear firearms. He thereby courts the politically-powerful National Rifle Association that has a strong lobbying presence in our nation’s capitol. But Trump’s attitude toward free speech makes him look like he’d like to abolish the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights. It reads, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
One of Donald Trump’s biggest grievances he has lodged during his presidential campaign is against negative comments made about him in the press (which we now call the [political] media), especially media people themselves making such comments in newspapers, magazines, radio, or television. Some of the major newspapers in the country have opposed New York City citizen Donald Trump, starting with the New York Times. I regard it as the best newspaper in the world despite so many U.S. political conservatives and Evangelical Christians hating it. The Times does the best investigative journalism of any newspaper. I don’t care who owns that newspaper; I go by what I read in it and compare it to what I read in other newspapers.
For example, on February 22 this year, Donald Trump said publicly that if he becomes president, “We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.” Trump also then said of Jeff Bezos and his Amazon.com Inc., because Bezos now also owns The Washington Post that opposes Trump’s candidacy, “If I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.”
What a bunch of baloney. Who is “we”? Him as president? Oh, great! The president of the USA spending his precious time suing people who criticize him.
I think all this shows Donald Trump does not really believe in the First Amendment. It’s the way the Trumpster talks; he speaks in generalities, and thus often fails to say specifically, thus clearly, what he’s talking about. So often, you’re left guessing. And when he gets nailed about so many of his–I’m just going to call them what they are–stupid, childish, remarks, he dismissing them by claiming he was being sarcastic or joking or somehow didn’t mean what he said. He did that about making fun of the physically disabled journalist. Now he’s constantly obsessed since the debate with justifying his negative remarks about Miss Universe, Alicia Machado. This child-man is not presidential.
Thus, Trump gets obsessed with trivialities that have nothing to do with his presidential campaign. In doing so, he rattles his staff. This in itself shows he is not qualified to be our president. How would that go down as his practice in the White House? It looks like he would constantly be sending out such tweets on Twitter, as he does now. How lame! Would he tweet heads of state, telling them off. Some experts suggest Trump as president would do as John McCain said, “stir up the crazies,” and cause his fans to inflict bodily harm against members of the media. It could happen to lot more people than just them. America, send Donald Trump back to where he belongs–the reality entertainment business!
Besides, how is Donald Trump as president going to affect our libel laws? Presidents don’t have that authority. Libel laws are decided in the courts. To become president, Trump will have to swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech that is not defamatory. I think he’s talking about a lot more than libel. Maybe he can propose as the ninth judge (and others in the future) for the Supreme Court, now an empty seat, a conservative who would try to get libel laws changed. But that might seriously upset Congress. Besides, they have to approve of any such choice as justice.
What a bully–Donald Trump! I’m so glad the PGA Tour announced early this year that, after over fifty years of playing their Miami tournament at Doral–a venue the Tour players always loved and is now owned by Donald Trump–they are moving the tournament to Mexico City. Wow! Mexico–the country Trump says, if he is president, is going to pay for the fifty-some-feet-tall wall he is going to build on the Mexico-U.S. border, thus stretching nearly 2,000 miles, to keep out illegal immigrants. Oh yeah. How’s that for neighborliness.
Donald Trump is a bully who constantly threatens people. That in itself ought to disqualify him in the view of voters for being president of the USA. Some important, politically-conservative, U.S. newspapers recently have endorsed Clinton and denounced Trump. Some are newspapers that have endorsed a candidate for U.S. president during every election year and yet have never, or hardly ever, endorsed a Democrat in more than the past century. That is amazing! They include the Dallas Morning News (they were neutral about Johnson-Goldwater in 1964), the Houston Chronicle, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and The Arizona Republic. And not one major U.S. newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump yet. Folks, the media has it right–Donald Trump is a threat to free speech in this country.
Donald Trump has been involved in some 3,500 lawsuits. Of course, he’s been a successful businessman and contractor, so he’s going to have a lot more lawsuits. But a bunch of these are lawsuits he initiated as plaintiff against people for alleged defamation of The Donald’s character. He has admitted that in some of these cases, he did it merely to scare people, knowing he wouldn’t win. Defamation suits are hard to win. It’s just another example of Trump being such a bully because he is narcissistic and gets bent out of shape when someone criticizes him. That’s why he opposes this country’s most foundational principles–freedom of religion (he wants to bar Muslims from entering this country), speech, press, and assembly.
Walter Olson at the Cato Institute says, “I have been writing about the evils of litigation for something like 30 years, and following the litigious exploits of Donald Trump for very nearly that long. I think it very plausible to expect that if he were elected President, he would bring to the White House the same spirit of litigiousness he has so often shown as a public figure.”
If Donald Trump becomes president–Katy bar the door! We may have to speak softly behind closed doors if we criticize our president. God forbid. Surely, if it goes in that direction, this one of several character flaws will reveal a lot more about the man that may cause Congress to rise up and say to the bully Donald Trump, “You’re fired”!
(During my lifetime, I have never felt strongly opposed to any past Republican or Democratic nominee for U.S. president until now.)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In