Stephen Lendman

Trusting politicians is imprudent. Notoriously they say one thing and do another. Judge them solely by their actions, not promises, most turning out empty.

Trump is a businessman with no public policy record - in contrast to Hillary Clinton’s deplorable one, showing she’s dangerous, untrustworthy, legally challenged, wicked and ruthless.

Will Trump differ if elected president in November? Or is he just another business as usual wannabe politician, a dirty rotten scoundrel like all the rest? Selecting Tea Party hardliner Mike Pence as his running mate isn’t reassuring - even though vice presidents are virtually powerless, little more than appendages of their bosses.

Consider Trump’s pluses and minuses despite no public policy record on which to judge him, just stump speech rhetoric.

Antipathy toward Latino and Muslim immigrants shows he’s racist. Is he hostile to all people of color?

His world is big money, power and privilege - far distant from the struggling to get by lives of ordinary people he doesn’t understand or likely care about.

His shoot-from-the-hip bombast reveals disturbing demagoguery. Sounding anti-establishment doesn’t make him so.

Who ever heard of a populist billionaire? What does it take to amass great wealth? He didn’t get super-rich by being a good guy. How many bodies did he roll over rising to the top of his world?

Will he govern like he operates privately if elected president? Will what remains of social justice end on his watch? Will people needs be discarded altogether? Will power politics and money-making alone matter?

Will permanent wars, corporate favoritism, and police state harshness remain firm policy? Will America become a wholly-owned Trump Enterprises subsidiary? Does self-interest alone, not public service, drive him?

Should world and national leadership be placed in the hands of a capitalist without scruples? Can he be trusted to govern with so much at stake?

Is his only redeeming quality not being Hillary Clinton, the lesser of two evils, or what Ralph Nader once called the evil of two lessers?

Consider possible pluses. Media war on him suggests he’s not all bad. Beating up on him relentlessly in contrast to supporting Killary’s outrageous public record raises red flags.

He opposes TPP, calling “(t)he Trans-Pacific Partnership…an attack on America’s business…a bad deal.”

On NATO, he says “(w)e certainly can’t afford to do this anymore. (It’s) costing us a fortune…we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money.”

He’s the first ever political candidate ever suggesting America withdraw from the alliance - or just use it to fight terrorism. Famed diplomat George Kennan once called expanding it a grave US geopolitical error, forcing Russia to respond appropriately.

Trump praised Vladimir Putin, calling him “a strong leader,” saying “I think it would be a positive thing if Russia and the United States actually got along,” adding relations will be good if he’s president - a huge positive if policy follows rhetoric.

He’s unopposed to Moscow’s involvement in Syria, saying “if Russia wants to get ISIS, let them” do it, a good thing.

He’s leery about ousting Assad because of the mess US policy made in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. “(I)t’s going to be the same thing” in Syria if he’s gone, a bad idea, he said.

He opposes East/West confrontation over stoking it - key to avoiding WW III in contrast to war goddess Killary risking it.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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