What a start to the first week. After a post-convention, post-Wikileaks hack dump, Hillary still shifted to second gear, waving to Donald, honking the horn and pointing and laughing. As much as I'm enjoying the GOP scrambling for the lifeboats, the joy ebbs back to the realization that we're going to be saying "President Clinton" again. But hey, let's laugh as the water floods in.
Trump's biggest asset is his ability to get people to believe his lie that he's rich and successful so they'll give him money. He's rich compared to most people, of course, but they'd be rich too if Fred Trump left them what he left Donald and Donald's siblings. People think Trump is "really" rich because he has a serious face, used to own casinos, and has been around since the 1980s. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence he's nowhere near as rich as he lies about, and certainly, has zero evidence of business success.
The Hillary camp decided to cut his lie off at the knees. She gets real, actual successful billionaires Mark Cuban, Mike Bloomberg, and Warren Buffett to speak and endorse her while ridiculing Donald. My favorite was from Buffett, saying "Donald is the only businessman I know who brags about his bankruptcies:
They got back less than a dime. And you know the history of his enterprises where he was borrowing money where one time after another, he went into bankruptcy. I’ve really never known another businessman that brags about his bankruptcies. I mean, and it – to tell you the truth, why not? I mean, it’s his claim to stardom. I don’t know anybody else that’s had six bankruptcies, but there he is.
What made it really funny is Trump is very sensitive about his bankruptcies. Buffett has spoken about Donald's failures in the past:
“The big problem with Donald Trump was he never went right. He basically overpaid for properties, but he got people to lend him the money. He was terrific at borrowing money. If you look at his assets, and what he paid for them, and what he borrowed to get them, there was never any real equity there. He owes, perhaps, $3.5 billion now, and, if you had to pick a figure as to the value of the assets, it might be more like $2.5 billion. He’s a billion in the hole, which is a lot better than being $100 in the hole because if you’re $100 in the hole, they come and take the TV set. If you’re a billion in the hole, they say ‘hang in there Donald.’
I'm no fan of Cuban, Bloomberg, or Buffett. I've had a theory for years that some very rich people like that get to a point where they get scared and feel like they have to cozy up to the globalist Marxists. I think they've lost touch in many ways. Nevertheless, there is zero debate that they are very smart and very successful. Who is a better investor than Buffett? Bloomberg's Bloomberg Terminal was genius. Cuban actively seeds and grows small startups and really is the grandaddy of internet media broadcasting. These are brilliant business minds.
Trump couldn't get Trump Steaks off the ground and collects bankruptcies like I collect parking tickets.
Since Trump doesn't have the firepower to go after successful business people, he goes after the father of a slain soldier who happens to be Muslim. Trump also referenced the wife, implying her Muslim faith prevented her from speaking:
“His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say,” he said. “You tell me, but plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet and it looked like she had nothing to say.”
It's as if Hillary knew Trump couldn't resist taking a shot at the family and just set a trap for him, using it to drive a wedge between the "adults" of the GOP supporting Trump and Donald himself. Pence had to go on defense about it, take a credibility hit defending Trump when another military mother asked him a question about Donald's remarks. The Trump crowd during that Pence event made the Trumpers look lower class than they were. Guliani and some others had to walk a tightrope between supporting Donald but not his comments. Ryan, McConnell, Gingrich, and other pro-Trump Marxists had to tap dance.
I love it. Watching "Republicans" support a draft dodger who says he sacrifices like fallen soldiers makes me laugh hard. To round it out, Hillary is trouncing Donald in fundraising, took a 9-point lead in the polling, and the Koch brothers rejected Trump.
Welcome to week 1. We'll be remembering this election and laughing about it while we're all standing in the bread line.
