After my most recent post about Trump being vulnerable because he constantly contradicts himself, and is generally unwell, I hope you’ll indulge me in further speculation as to what could be Trump’s…… for lack of a better word…. situation.

You’re going to think I’m nuts but I have to get this written down. And I completely admit up front that this is largely a visceral shot from the hip, and even wishful thinking (of sorts).

Back when he first announced he was running for President, I laughed and shook my head.
”He’s GOT to be kidding!” “Snowball’s chance in HELL!”

But then Trump started getting traction.

I’ll spare you all the internal gnashing of teeth, but eventually came to the question that – given the video that shows Trump being a rational, left-leaning businessman – is it POSSIBLE that Trump is a Trojan Horse?

I have to explore this concept here.

To borrow from Wikipedia:

Is it possible that Trump is really a closet liberal, and the only way he could be elected to office is embrace the Republican Right?
Don’t get me wrong, he seems to have done some bad, horrible and stupid things in his life.

Ugh! This is making me sick to do this, but if Trump had a plan to use Republicans to get INTO office and then advance liberal democrat policies, he’d have to do lots of things:

He would have to position himself as the anti-Clinton, anti-Obama. Republicans already hated both of them. How outrageous would he have to behave to court the low-information Right-Wing voter?


“Grab them by the pussy”

Did he really SAY that? Did he MEAN it? Did he say this as a joke, just messing around with Billy Bush? Or did he actually DO any grabbing?

Won’t submit taxes.

When is the deadline to submit taxes? Could he fix this by turning them over right before he takes the oath? It’s tradition that presidential candidates turn them over, it’s not required by law. Would it be acceptable to turn them over AFTER the inauguration?

Won’t divest businesses.
Similar questions here. When is the deadline to untangle himself from his far-flung financial empire?

Support Putin
OK. The only thing I have here is that Trump is lulling Putin into a false sense of security. It pains me to even consider that and frankly, Trump isn’t that far-sighted.

Kill Obamacare
As of last week, Republicans had ZERO plans to replace Obamacare with. Then, miraculously, Trump announces that ‘Everyone will have health insurance!” As I’ve posted before, the odds that he and his team came up with something original inside a week are exceedingly low. And the prevailing wind says that any new plan would be a very slight variation of Obamacare (which was originally a right-wing plan in the first place.) Here’s the question for you to consider: If Trump’s team came up with something just as good as Obamacare, and CALLED it Trumpcare, would you really even care if the only reason Republican’s went after ACA in the first place was to get credit for it?
Would you care?

Build a Wall
Building a wall was a non-starter from the get-go, but it allowed him to sound tough on Mexican immigrants, because Deplorable America needs an Us vs. Them scapegoat.

Prosecute Hillary Clinton
Again, allows him to sound tough to people who HATE HRC.

Settled “Trump University” lawsuit.
Well, the tiger can’t change his stripes. He’s been a businessman (of sorts) for a long time. Notice that he DID settle this rather rapidly after the election. Even if I could manage to support him, this was still a low-blow to the students who took out large student loans.

Have hookers pee on him
Is anyone surprised by this? Does anyone even care? It only matters insofar as the allegations make him vulnerable to blackmail.

Allegedly raped a young girl
Charges dropped. Is it possible Trump hired someone to sue him? Yes, I know that sounds utterly ridiculous, but considering that Trump thrives on the concept that ANY news about him is good news so long as it keeps his brand name in the headlines. The suit was dropped, which in Trump’s book is just as good as beating the rap. This behavior likely appeals to his fan base, making him appear more heroic to his base.

Submitted for Cabinet positions people that are either philosophically antithetical to running those agencies, unqualified to hold those positions… or both
OK. I’m having to stretch here…. Could Trump be installing people who he wants to humiliate? I’m mostly thinking about Betsy DeVos (for Secretary of Education), Ben Carson (Housing Urban Development), and Rick Perry (Energy)

These people have zero experience, and I dare say zero interest in doing the job. However, this is interesting, some of Trump’s cabinet picks are contradicting him in their Senate hearings.

Trump’s Cabinet Nominees Keep Contradicting Him

Could this be because he knew that his campaign promises were unfeasible, and he needed to have some people on his team that would block him from implementing certain campaign promise policies that were whack-a-doodle-vote-getters from the get-go?

Avoid Intelligence briefings
Can a President or President-Elect REALLY get out of those things? Where did the news come from that he was not taking those meetings? Could it have been leaked intentionally? Wingnut Nation, again, would likely eat up that confident lone-cowboy BS.

Reportedly underpaid his contractors
I suppose this behavior could appeal to business people and/or sycophants somehow.

Tough talk about nukes
This sounds like typical cowboy talk. He needs to come across as an unpredictable madman before taking office, and then allows his diplomatic corp to play diplomatic “Good Cop” to Trump’s “Bad Cop” role.

Too easy. Clearly playing to his fearful base.

Angry Tweets at actors and enemies
Again, coming across as a madman with little self-control

There isn’t any point in trying to argue the point in any of this. It’s complete madness to think that Trump could actually advocate for anyone’s interest but his own, and those of his friends.

If Trump is actually a liberal Democrat in Republican clothing… if he is pulling off the biggest con game of our lives… then his talk, and his behavior will need to continue as it has since he first started questioning Obama’s birth location. He will need to keep the ruse up for his entire Presidency to keep fellow Republicans believing he’s still on their side. When the con starts to go south, it’s important to maintain the con. (You should know this if you’ve watched enough con-man movies and TV.) And that means doubling-down on the lies and deceit.

The big moral question is this:

Would you — or more importantly, could you — support President Trump IF, despite his words and behaviors before he took his oath, his actions as President conformed to the liberal democratic worldview and platform? In other words, could you ignore what he says in service of something bigger?
Of course this appears to be a question that his faithful will never ask themselves.

I’m rather hopeful that for all who read this site the answer is NO. The ends shouldn’t justify the means. Even if Trump were to enact progressive legislation, he would still have to continue the con in order to mollify Republicans to make them believe he is still on their team. That would mean that he would still say crude and offensive things.
How is that leadership?
It’s not.

The only thing we can do is take “President Trump” at his word.
When he says he wants to do away with Obamacare, we must take him at his word.
He wants to block all Muslim immigrants and register them? We take him at his word.
When he says he wants to get tough with other countries by using nuclear weapons, we must take him at his word.


There is no point in believing right-wing apologists that say, “Oh, he didn’t really mean that?” because it’s not JUST Trump. It’s his administration, the Republican Party, the Republican-held congress, and those who voted him into office.

We liberal democrats didn’t take him seriously in the campaign. We thought he was a joke. Surely anyone with a brain wouldn’t vote for him.
Hopefully, we’ve learned the painful lesson that no one is coming to save us. We are going to have to do this ourselves and fight like our lives and the lives of our offspring, and friends, neighbors, allies, (even the people who voted for him) etc. depend on it.
Because they do.