A dealmaker trying to make a sale

Ace of Spades writes today,

My problem with Trump is that he is a dealmaker trying to make a sale. Right now he's trying to make a deal with conservatives -- so this is the very most conservative we'll ever see him.

If he gets the nomination, he now starts working on making the second part of the deal with the other party in the negotiations, the general public.

So this is the most conservative we'll ever see Trump -- this is the absolute most conservative he'll ever be -- and he's not conservative at all, except, possibly, on immigration. He combines liberal policy impulses with frankly authoritarian or even fascist ones, which he thinks are "what conservatives want," because, frankly, he conceives of us as ugly-minded, stupid dummies who get off on this shit.

...What does Trump actually know about conservatives? He seems to only know five things, which he repeats in such crude ways it's preposterously insulting. Apparently we "love Jesus," so he says he does too. He knows we love guns, so he's so in love with the Second Amendment he wants to make out with it.

...He knows we love babies and hate abortions, so he's reversed himself from being "very, very pro-choice" and even supporting partial birth abortion to being so against abortion you couldn't believe it.

He knows we love the military, so he proclaims himself, seriously, the most "militaristic" guy you've ever met. Then sometimes he talks about "bombing the shit" out of people to appease the hawks, and other times about a Ron Paul style isolationism, to appease his substantial Paulite wing.

...But while this guy has blundered across a couple of Big Truths, he is just dead wrong on too much, and entirely too emotional, unfocused, and reationary to be president.

So down with Trump, but long live parts of Trumpism.

We just need someone capable of coherent persuasion to adopt them.

Read more here.