Letter from Neil Winton in America – expect dirty and ugly next.
NEW YORK, N.Y., – The next debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is going to be dirty and ugly, as much as the first one was formulaic and dull.
The Clinton campaign’s decision to make a big deal about Trump’s harmless remarks 20 odd years ago reminding some Hispanic beauty queen that she had to lose some weight, gives The Donald license to unload fully on Hillary and her cruel and unusual persecution of Bill’s bimbos.
It’s not the fact that Bill was unfaithful. That has been more or less forgotten and forgiven by the public. But it is the merciless blackening of character that Hillary pursued protecting her husband’s and her careers that is fair game for Trump. After all, when it comes to unfaithful mode, Trump is as guilty as Bill.
Hillary used her power, money and influence to ruin innocent and weak females who’d threatened to tell the truth about Bill’s rapes, exposures and sexual assaults and this makes a mockery of her other attempt to paint Trump as somehow anti-women.
Then, hopefully, the campaign will turn to substantive issues like the economy, tax and living standards, blunted by 8 years of Obama big government and over-spending on the unproductive public sector. Incomes have been stagnant. Job creation has been paltry. The Obama administration and the Clinton campaign make much of the fact that unemployment is still under 5%. But in the U.S. this hides the real story. Europeans might find it hard to believe but U.S. unemployment data only counts those in receipt of unemployment insurance and that expires after 6 months. So if you have been unemployed for 6 months and 1 day, you disappear from view. The important number is the Labor Participation Rate and at 62.8% in August is at its lowest since the late 1970s. Real joblessness is chronically high.
Hillary plans to build on the Obama “legacy” of high taxes and regulation with more of the same. That means taxing the “rich” even more, and hoping that the huge constituency of those demanding free stuff will outnumber the productive members of the electorate. Hillary is talking about “free” college education and “free” health care, but with the national debt at around $20 trillion and rising, this is just fantasy. And the watchword with these Democrats is always ignorance of unintended consequences.
Trump promises to cut tax and regulation, saying this will stimulate the economy in a rerun of the Reagan supply-side success story. He also says he will cut taxes on corporations so that big global operators like Apple will repatriate the kerzillions they have off-shore. It is being stored abroad to avoid unfair taxation at home. Bringing this back would give a massive spur to the U.S. economy.
Trump will also push his views on defence and foreign affairs, which will probably be more of critique of the Obama years and Hillary Clinton’s tenure of the State Department; more fertile ground for him. Trump is also not afraid to point out the truth about Muslims and terror, where Obama and Clinton have both seemed weak, apologetic and clueless. Trump is aware that much of what Muslims believe is incompatible with the U.S. constitution. The American public is often contemptible of Obamaites and Clintonistas denying the latest act of terror was terrorism, long after it was obviously just that.
Being in the U.S. you quickly pick up the feeling that, how come in a nation of 320 million people, the best two candidates to emerge were these two deeply flawed individuals. Both score highly in the hate and contempt stakes. But for me, it’s anyone but Hillary. If the economy is ever going to recover, and perform like an American economy of old with powerful growth of maybe 4%, it’s got to be Trump. Clinton will guarantee continuation of the schlerotic version. Trump has made big negative noises against free trade, but I’m hoping this is just campaign rhetoric. Surely as a successful businessman he understands how important free trade is? In foreign policy, again he has been bombastic and made serious foreign policy experts nervous, but I would suggest this also is all talk. In the White House he would listen to his advisers and do responsible, intelligent stuff. Let’s face it he can’t do worse then John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.
But the bottom line is this. In the next 4 years, not to mention the possibility of an 8-year presidency, there will be important additions to the Supreme Court. If the Democrats and Hillary get in, this most crucial of U.S. institutions will get a Liberal lefty majority, and that will mean the end of the U.S. as we have known it – a bastion of freedom and an example to the world that improving living standards for all its citizens, free speech and the open society are best served by adhering to the principles set down by the Founding Fathers.
The last time I looked the polls showed the race too close to call. The second debate between Trump and Clinton is October 9.
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