Posted on Monday, February 15, 2016 - 04:22 pm:

Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.

Trump’s political opinions have wobbled all over the lot. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV star has supported abortion, gun control, single-payer health care à la Canada, and punitive taxes on the wealthy. (He and Bernie Sanders have shared more than funky outer-borough accents.) Since declaring his candidacy he has taken a more conservative line, yet there are great gaping holes in it.

Posted on Wednesday, February 17, 2016 - 09:27 pm:

1. After years of describing yourself as “pro-choice in every respect”—even supporting partial-birth abortion—you now say that you are pro-life. Your explanation for this change of position – that a baby who was nearly aborted ended up being a “superstar” – is confusing, particularly since you acknowledged that if the child had been “a loser,” your pro-abortion position probably wouldn’t have changed. Please explain this utilitarian view of the sanctity of human life. Do you consider life only worth protecting if it meets certain criteria, and, if so, what are those criteria?
2. How do you square your new position on life with your statements in 2015 supporting continued taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion seller?
3. The next president is expected to nominate two to four U.S. Supreme Court justices, beginning immediately with the vacancy caused by the passing of Justice Scalia. These nominations will likely decide critical issues such as abortion. You’ve recommended your sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, for the High Court. Yet, as a federal judge, she overturned the New Jersey Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, writing that it “burdened a woman's constitutional right to obtain an abortion.” How can we trust you to nominate judges who will respect the constitutional limits on judicial power and uphold the sanctity of human life?
4. You claim to support religious freedom, yet a leading gay-activist organization calls you “one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency” – particularly because of your “standout position” when it comes to legislation that forces Christian business owners – and others of faith – to either betray their conscience or lose their business. How do you reconcile these contradictory positions?
5. You have built your campaign on lifting the economic outlook of lower-income Americans, yet you built your fortune in part on gambling, which preys on those very people. How will you make America great when you’ve run businesses associated with increased crime, bankruptcies, broken marriages and suicides?
6. The first casino in the nation to add a strip club was Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, which boasts of “36,000 square feet of adult entertainment.” What would you say to young girls and women who are concerned about a president who is directly connected with the exploitation of women?
7. As someone who claims to be a fiscal conservative, how do you justify your statements in support of a huge tax increase and government bailouts. Regarding the bank bailouts, you even stated: “I do agree with what they're doing with the banks. Whether they fund them or nationalize them, it doesn't matter, but you have to keep the banks going.” Perhaps most concerning of all is your continued admiration for single-payer, government-run healthcare systems. Please explain how this is consistent with the party of limited government?
8. One of your favorite campaign themes is that you are going to “run America” if elected. Considering our system of checks and balances, and especially in light of the last seven years of government by fiat, how will you demonstrate your respect for the U.S. Constitution and the limited power the Founding Fathers intended for the federal government in general, and the executive branch in particular?