No, Donald Trump is not the only GOP candidate who’d be harsh on Hillary
I’m tired of a lot of things already in this campaign season.
But since Trump’s speech yesterday (the one I wrote approvingly about here), the one in which he gave Hillary a comprehensive what-for, I’ve seen remarks all around the blogosphere to the effect that Trump’s the only one of all the original GOP candidates who would have had the guts to rip Hillary like that.
No. He’s. Not.
Maybe it’s moot, because they’re out of the race now and he’s in. But it galls me to hear the charge, because I remember it a lot differently.
For example, dissing Hillary was Carly Fiorina’s thing. You might say it was her specialty right from the beginning of her campaign when I first saw her speak, back when Trump wasn’t going after Hillary all that much but was concentrating on destroying his opponents in the GOP (something that helped him become the frontrunner for the nomination, of course):
Rubio also wasn’t shy about saying Hillary was a liar:
There are also many clips of Cruz saying highly derogatory things about Clinton. In this one he says she embodies the corruption of Washington:
I am confident that any of them—had that person been nominated—would also have hit Hillary long and hard and repeatedly, as Trump did yesterday. That’s not to take away from what he did in that speech, by the way, which was excellent in that regard.
But again—no one, no one, was more verbally aggressive towards Hillary Clinton early on than Carly Fiorina. During her campaign she frequently made Hillary the focus of her very sharp attacks. To refresh your memory, get a load of this one (from back in January):
Neo: You and I were on the same page then. Carly was my first pick. Carly was by far, the quickest on her feet. I longed to see her debate Mrs Clinton.
I attended two Fiorina and 3 Cruz rallies, and both pulled no punches on hrc. IMO, Fiorina was better at attacking hrc because her skill set is well suited to the task. It seems we missed out on a dream team; Cruz/Fiorina.
The speech showed, once again, that Trump’s view on American foreign policy is conspicuously consistent with Russian propaganda on American foreign policy.
Cruz v Sanders. That would have been an election I could have gotten enthusiastic about. It would have been good for the country.
Fighting the last war.
van
And Trump is in the same war? If delegates vote their conscience and the war may change. Then what? Only Trump can win because he is so masterful? Right.
Cher OM,
You are wandering in dreamland if you think there’s going to be some sort of “delegates voting their conscience” at the convention. But if it gives you a little frisson of pleasure, dream away.
Vanderleun –
It’s important to talk about this stuff because history is being rewritten. It may not matter much *at the moment*, but it’s nonetheless important to note that Trump is not the only person who’s aggressively gone after HRC. I frequently see comments of, “If only other Republicans had been this aggressive against Hillary.” I don’t know whether it’s accidental (i.e. the usual problems that people have in remembering anything that happened further back than yesterday), or intentional (i.e. people knocking the other candidates to build up their own). But it’s worth remembering that there were others who were aggressively attacking HRC.
In fact, that was pretty much Fiorina’s *thing* back at the start of the campaign. She’d go to Hillary campaign events, and answer questions from the press (taking advantage of the fact that Hillary never fielded questions).
But nope. Trump’s the only one who’s ever aggressively attacked Hillary. Fiorina is a tool of the GoPe, and Cruz is a RINO squish just like Kasich.
I’m still disappointed that Carly got squashed. And Walker.
But vandy’s right; no point in fighting the last war.
We’ve got to do the best we can with what we now have to work with, no?
Van:
You like your box, others think outside it sometimes.
If you want to play delusional games, just keep assuming Trump will be competent and coherent for more than a day.
“You like your box, others think outside it sometimes.”
Oh, puhlease. Stop with the comedy.
I have to take issue with an aspect to the claim that other candidates spoke as harshly of Hillary or if nominated, would have attacked Hillary as harshly as Trump did and is doing.
Certainly, the others spoke more skillfully and articulately of Hillary’s flaws, deceit, corruption and incompetence.
But there’s a difference between repeatedly poking someone with a sharp needle and smashing them in the face with a baseball bat.
It’s far past the time when carefully calculated, politically nuanced comments and ‘position papers’ can arouse the kind of political momentum needed to throw back the left.
There is a place for a skilled, political ‘knife fighter’ at Trump’s side and that is his VP (problematic, I know) and the time for that knife fighter to slice and dice Hillary is after Trump has smashed her in the face.
My dream ticket would have been Cruz/Fiorina too and certainly Carly could have sliced and diced Hillary. And so too could have Cruz. But that’s my point, to use a boxing analogy, Cruz is a boxer not a brawler, he wins on ‘points’. But at this point, to beat the Left we need a brawler. One who sets up the knife fighter for the kill.
Van:
He’s yours. You own him, embrace the suckage. Savor the aroma, it’s not on your shoe sole.
“NEAT TRICK: Donald Trump FORGOT He Has The World’s Greatest Memory”
http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/06/23/neat-trick-donald-trump-forgot-worlds-greatest-memory/
Oh, okay, that was unfair. I apologize.
But puhlease don’t fool yourself into thinking you are somehow thinking “outside the box.” You’re just thinking the same sort of thoughts that many others are thinking inside the box that was built for you long ago. So long, in fact, that you can no longer perceive the sides of the box but think you are just blueskying along in perfect freedom of thought when, all the time, you are just a colonized mind.
You’re like the fellow on my list at Facebook who cannot write “Trump” but is compelled to write “Pig Trump.” He probably thinks that clever little quirk signals “Right-Thinking Conservative”but it really only signals obsessive-compulsive conservative.
Vanderleun –
In fairness, while what your friend is doing is juvenile, it’s also the exact same kind of thing that Trump does. “Lyin’ Ted Cruz”, etc…
Van:
Look up the word “think” it isn’t what you spout about. Sort of like the word “inconceivable.”
Who built your box? Oh great “thinker?”
Look up “condescension” your picture will be right there in the little box beside those things called words.
In their effort to emulate progressive rhetoric, Trump supporters/alt-right have also adopted their flawed logic. You CONSTANTLY see them use tu quoque, and the false dichotomy in online comments.
I find most Trump supporters online to be only slightly shy of loathsome.
Pick your own beef with DC. There are lots of them. Between a good half of the population, DC–at least their individual beef–is so broken that sending what one writer referred to as “a human wrecking ball” to DC is a gratifying prospect. Will lthe IRS office need a train load of Depends? Will we need a new supermax for VA employees? Will the EPA have to self-immolate to avoid a worse fate?
Whatever ruination results is worth it, some say, presuming as Wretchard doesn’t say, we have sufficient design margin to repair things.
Not sure about the design margin, but I am pessimistic about changing things otherwise. So it’s catastrophe or business as usual.
We knew we exceeded the design margin on January 23, 2009, when Obama’s answer to Eric Cantor’s suggestion about working together on a tax overhaul was “I won.”
By the way, the war I’m fighting here isn’t actually about Trump vs. the other candidates.
It’s about truth vs. propaganda. I am sick and tired of revisionist history.
Geoffrey Britain:
You write, “there’s a difference between repeatedly poking someone with a sharp needle and smashing them in the face with a baseball bat.”
Until now, Trump was barely poking with a sharp needle. He was attacking Hillary less than Fiorina was, and Fiorina was the one with the baseball bat. Did you watch that last video? And that was a long time ago. Her focus on Hillary was relentless, and it was very very aggressive.
Only lately has Trump started swinging his bat with any force at Hillary. It’s about time, and I think it’s a good idea. Carly was doing it long ago. Don’t you think that, had she won the nomination, she would have hit even more relentlessly and harder than before? I think she made it crystal clear that it is exactly what she would have done.
I’ll have to get some cheap port and dream of Cruz/Fiorina.
neo,
I confess, I did not watch the videos and they are very impressive. She is a superb knife fighter, she went for the juggler and repeatedly and factually skewered Hillary, even better in my opinion than Cruz.
But she’s not a brawler and didn’t wield a baseball bat. Baseball bats are brutal, direct and ‘brief’. “Build a wall”, “make Mexico pay for it” and “Ban Muslim migration” are verbal baseball bats. Brief, take no prisoners, let the chips fall where they may… statements are verbal baseball bats. They seize the attention of those unwilling to listen and evaluate Carly’s highly intelligent, astute analysis.
Verbal baseball bats are verbal rallying cries, “Remember the Alamo”, “Give me Liberty or Death”, “Deus hoc vult!” (“God wills it!”) They are calls to battle. And the time for battle with the left, rather than ‘civilized’ debate is critical to keeping the nation from falling to the left.
GB:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
Verbal baseball bats get walked back, often within days, to be “suggestions”, when they are found to be dubious or worse.
More like wiffle ball bats.
Don’t bring an AirSoft gun to a knife fight and expect to survive.
Donald knows how to push the hot buttons and then walk back or spin what he said or what he meant, and people continue to fall for it.
Geoffrey Britain:
Why on earth would you try to comment on this post in order to characterize what the other candidates did or did not do without watching the videos, in particular the video I placed up there saying “get a load of this”? The videos are the illustrations of what I was referring to, and memory can’t suffice because it can play tricks on us.
Your distinctions between knife and bat don’t make sense to me, either, because I was not comparing Trump’s propensity for rallying slogans like “Make America Great” to the propensity of the other candidates to do that or not do that. I was saying that he was not the only one who would have attacked Hillary strongly.
Plus, Carly would have ramped it up as presumptive nominee. Trump hardly focused on Hillary previous to this, compared to Carly’s focus on her.
Verbal baseball bats are verbal rallying cries
Trump’s rallying cries are on twitter and social media, produced almost entirely by the Alternative Right, one of his 3 pillars.
It’s not a personal difference between him and Fiorina. If the Alt Right wanted to support Fiorina with the same assets, they would have, and the result would have been the same as for Trump.
Trump hardly focused on Hillary previous to this
That’s because Trump had a deal with Hillary/Clintons.
Why on earth would you try to comment on this post in order to characterize what the other candidates did or did not do without watching the videos, in particular the video I placed up there saying “get a load of this”?
Perhaps because humans are weak and they will fall for temptation. When given a choice between obeying the truth or hedging things a bit in order to help propaganda pull a win for their political leader, weakness makes them choose the latter.
War means that the victor writes the history books. And that’s the context of what “fighting the last war” can mean as, that people are fighting a war, like Vietnam, that the Left already won or lost. Thus the losers don’t get to talk about the truth, because the victory, because Might Makes Right, is the one who determines the truth.
That is sometimes true as well, but often times false too. Because there’s always a choice or vote in war, the enemy can vote too.