JVLV: DONALD’S ONLY PATH TO THE PRESIDENCY -- “A TEAM OF RIVALS,” By Jiri & Leni Friedman Valenta, 4-26-2016

                             Unafraid, Bi-partisan, Uphold U.S. and Freedom

On July 4^th, 2015 we penned an “Open Letter to Donald Trump,” recognizing before almost anybody else that this much-underestimated novice in presidential politics possessed the instincts, judgment, energy and resources to become the Republican Party’s nominee.  Now as the June 2016 Republican Party convention is approaching, only two rivals of the originally sixteen remain in the race and we still believe we were right. 

The state of the union is critical; our country, threatened by narco-terrorists and Islamo- fascists reaching our homeland from immigrant-deluged Europe through our unprotected borders.  Our economic insolvency is catastrophic, the result of both Bush’s and Obama’s policies of expanding social programs while fighting costly Middle East Wars.  Both concluded trade treaties injurious to our workers.  We are entering an age coined by Robert Kaplan as comparative anarchy, as on the eves of two world wars.  Only one thing is certain, besides death and taxes; extraordinary challenges require extraordinary leaders.

But does real estate mogul Donald really show signs he can meet the Sisyphean challenges he faces?  And will his own Party give him the chance?

Doris Kearns Goodwyn recalls a one term congressman who rose to the presidency after losing two bids for the senate. Unlike Trump, he had no administrative experience whatsoever. His candidacy was ridiculed and met with disbelief.  Democratic Party newspapers had a field day …  declaiming that “The conduct of the republican party in this nomination is a remarkable indication of a small intellect growing smaller.”   His competitors, unlike him, were well educated senators with experience in state governance.  Meanwhile, he was “a fourth rate lecturer” whose “illiterate compositions,” were “interlayered with coarse language and clumsy jokes.”  Remind you of anyone?

Abraham Lincoln!   Clearly, the nomenclature of his time were as unable, as they are in our time, to understand what Trump’s supporters have apprehended.   We realize it is presently blasphemous to compare Trump to iconic Lincoln. Even an admission by Republican party activists that they support Trump is being met by their bosses with overt threats to stymie their future careers. Trump rallies are hindered by state and labor union officials.  But let’s look at the record thus far.

Part of Trump’s mojo is certainly that he is unscripted, authentic – and above all, politically incorrect. His supporters have come to admire his bipartisan critiques of our leaders’ great follies.  He not only criticized Barack Obama for early withdrawal from Iraq, but also “W” Bush and Condi Rice for not protecting us against 9/11 and unleashing the catastrophic 2003 Iraq war.

While most are unaware that the spiritual illness of PC originated in communist Russia, they perceive how it has transferred itself to American academia and now threatens our whole society.  From the attacks on our founding fathers and great presidents as pure slave owners, through the supposed battery of a reporters in a jostling crowd, to a ridiculous debate over trans genders using lady’s bathrooms, this is not the America we knew.

Sadly, the media, along with mendacious rivals as well as Trump’s own, unbridled exuberance, has opened him to false accusations of misogyny and xenophobia (Mexicans and Muslims). A former liberal Democrat like Reagan, Trump is none of the above. 

Trump’s exceptionality is that, parallel with Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, he has become a messenger of peaceful revolutionary change.    Sanders seeks it through democratic socialism, while Trump aims at sparking the engines of a more democratic capitalism.

Both, have similarly challenged the buying of candidates by hi roller donors and business interests.  They have also attacked, the hegemons of our politics, the super PACs.  Both have also vowed to preserve social security and defend America against unequal foreign trade treaties.  While both have found ways to fund their own campaigns, Hillary has funded herself with the corporate world’s humungous speaker’s fees and unsavory donations from foreign governments.

Until Donald, moreover, Americans have been largely unaware of the archaic rules of their own political parties.  Is it “a rigged system” as Trump claims?  What else can you call it when delegates can be selected, wooed and bribed at the expense of disenfranchised voters? On the Democratic Party side are the super delegates -- much reminding us of Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Red Barons, appointed --by his nomenclature rather than elected by the people.

As Goodwin has also pointed out, great American presidents have emerged in large part because of great historical challenges.  For Lincoln it was slavery; for FDR the threat of world domination by Nazi fascism; For Reagan, the “evil empire’s” ambition to make the world safe for Leninism.  Trump, earlier than others, has recognized the challenge of his time, metastasizing Islamic fascism and its threat to Western civilization.  He was also the first, despite initial public opprobrium, call our attention to the danger of mass immigration through our open, unprotected, southern borders.  Presently, it’s conduit for narco and Islamic terrorists.    

The efforts to derail Trump began today in earnest as Ted Cruz and John Kasich forged an anti-Trump alliance.  True the Republicans face a national contest with their Democratic rival, former first lady-turned senator-turned secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.  She is brilliantly playing the gender and ethnic cards. Yet some skeletons are rattling in her closet, and the threat to her nomination is no longer Bernie but FBI Director James Comey.  

There is only one path for Trump to victory, to follow the least known of Lincoln’s brilliant tactics. While winning the nomination, Lincoln worked on his colleagues, William Seward, Salmon Chase and Edward Bates as Trump must on Cruz, Kasich and Rubio. Wisely he took the unusual step of turning his rivals into his future cabinet.   Trump must do the same, but with one variation.  He must do it as the nominee, not the president, and forge the deal at the nominating convention.

Kasich, an experienced congressional budget-maker and popular governor of crucial state, Ohio, would make an excellent VP.  Like Lincoln’s principle competitor, William Steward, Ted Cruz, could be secretary of state, also adding the Tea Party to the coalition.   Chris Christie would make a strong Chief Justice; Ben Carson, the tsar of education or Surgeon General.   Knowledgeable consumer of intelligence, Marco Rubio, with his appeal to Hispanics, could direct the CIA, while John McCain would make an outstanding Secretary of Defense.  Carly Fiorina?  Secretary of Commerce, and if unleashed, awesome critic of Hillary.

“We needed the strongest men (and we say today women) of the Party in the cabinet,” explained Lincoln wisely to his puzzled colleagues.  “We needed to hold our own people together.  I had looked the party over and concluded that if these were the very strongest men, then I had no right to deprive the country of their services.”

Often undisciplined and emotional Donald, must always remember another Lincoln saying of the man who sought to “make better angels” of his nature.  In Lincoln’s words, “I am, as you know, only the servant of the people.”