{"id":22714,"date":"2017-06-28T15:13:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T15:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22714"},"modified":"2017-06-28T15:13:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T15:13:24","slug":"donald-j-trump-rino-or-real-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22714","title":{"rendered":"Donald J. Trump: RINO or real thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Republican In Name Only.<\/p>\n

That’s intended to be a pejorative term for politicians who portray themselves as Republicans but who in the eyes of the true believers aren’t the real thing.<\/p>\n

I bring it up as I ponder the relationship that Donald J. Trump has within the ranks of the Republican Party, under whose banner he was elected president of the United States.<\/p>\n

The president has embraced the Republican congressional leadership’s version of health care overhaul — that is, if you can figure precisely what it is about it that appeals to him.<\/p>\n

The true believers within the GOP might argue that Trump doesn’t believe in anything. In today’s world, the term “true believer” seems to apply only to those on the far right. They are the likes of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, tax reform activist Grover Norquist, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh … those types.<\/p>\n

The president doesn’t fit into that category of Republican, from what I can discern. He campaigned for his office promising to leave Medicaid alone and to provide health insurance for every American at a cost they can afford; he says he wants to spend $1 trillion-plus to rebuild the nation’s highways and airports; he formerly gave lots of money to Democrats and once considered Bill and Hillary Clinton to be his friends.<\/p>\n

I have many Republican friends who do not consider any of those examples to be of their liking.<\/p>\n

I’ll clear the air for a moment on one point. My own distaste for Trump as president lies simply in the notion that his lengthy and successful<\/em> business history didn’t translate into the kind of man I want to be president. His reputation and public persona are anathema — in my view — to the kind of person I want representing the country I love so deeply. Trump’s absolute ignorance of politics, public policy, and the mechanics of governance — and his seeming unwillingness to admit to what he doesn’t know — is frightening in the extreme. Then there’s his view of this nation as it relates to the rest of the world; enough said on that.<\/p>\n

Trump’s entire adult life has been focused on one thing only: personal enrichment. You can throw in self-aggrandizement, too, if you wish.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is a RINO according to what I believe is the definition of the term.<\/p>\n

That makes it so very hard for me to grasp what this guy intends to do with the nation — with my <\/em>nation\u00a0<\/em> — he took an oath to protect.<\/p>\n\n

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Republican In Name Only. That’s intended to be a pejorative term for politicians who portray themselves as Republicans but who in the eyes of the true believers aren’t the real thing. I bring it up as I ponder the relationship that Donald J. Trump has within the ranks of the Republican Party, under whose banner … Continue reading Donald J. Trump: RINO or real thing?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[1424,1941,5800,4537],"class_list":["post-22714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-rino","tag-ted-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22715,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22714\/revisions\/22715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}