Trump Announces Preznit Run! Will RN Hold Willis To Eating His Hat, Tie & Trousers? (Also, Trump Right On Trade Albeit Wrong On Everything Else)

Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States... ~ Donald Trump (dob 6/14/1946) an American business magnate, television personality and professional blowhard in a 6/16/2015 speech from Trump Tower in NYC.

During a discussion concerning The Donald "savaging" the current Republican POTUS hopefuls and the possibility of Trump himself declaring a run for the White House, the small "L" libertarian blogger Willis Hart made a promise to do something if Trump actually ran for president. And the Objectivist/Libertarian "fiscally conservative" blogger rAtional nAtion replied by stating that he'd make sure Willis followed through with his promise.

Willis Hart: I'll eat my hat (along with my tie and trousers) if this guy [Donald Trump] runs [for president]. (5/24/2015 AT 08:13:00 PM EDT). rAtional nAtion: I'll hold you to it Will. (5/24/2015 AT 10:35:00 PM EDT). Willis Hart: I thought that the odds of Palin running in 0-12 were zero and if I could come up with a lower number than that for Trump running this go around I would. This is all about publicity I am sure. (5/24/2015 AT 11:19:00 PM EDT).

OK, so The Donald, contrary to the prediction offered by Mr. Hart, is now running for preznit (a prediction that Willis also made on his blog with a 6/7/2015 commentary titled "On Why Donald Won't Run").

Real-estate mogul and television personality Donald Trump announced his 2016 presidential campaign Tuesday morning [6/16/2015]. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again!" Trump said. The Republican businessman made the announcement at the namesake Trump Tower in New York City. In his wide-ranging and, lasting about 45 minutes, lengthy speech... [insulting Obama as well as GOP POTUS hopefuls while letting everyone know how amazing he is] ...Trump flirted with previous campaigns for higher office without ultimately running... But Trump has taken numerous steps that suggest he could be much more serious this time around, including hiring staffers in key primary states, forming a political fundraising committee, and setting plans to release financial disclosure documents. (Donald Trump is running for president by Colin Campbell. Business Insider 6/16/2015.

So... will Mr. nAtion hold Mr. Hart to his promise to eat his hat tie and trousers now that the Trumpster said he's running? He may drop out fairly quickly, but now that there has been an announcement that he is indeed running, I seriously doubt zero running will follow. He will at least have to run for a shot period to not look like a total fool. So I say this qualifies as "running" and Willis now has to make good on his promise.

I suggest Willis film his eating of the articles of clothing he said he would and post the video on Youtube. Otherwise he can SAY he ate those clothing items while not actually doing so. Although I suspect nothing will be said and Willis will simply expect nobody will hold him to his promise.

Is rAtional prepared to fly to Willis' state in order to hold him to it? Otherwise I don't think Willis will follow though.

As for this Trump-tastic announcement, the previously quoted Business Insider article says "Democrats seemed amused by Trump's candidacy". I'd wager that many Independents and at least a few Republicans are amused as well (although I am NOT going to be eating any non-food items if anyone proves me wrong on this).

As for Trump's financially disclosing his net worth to be 9 billion, upon hearing this my reaction was one of disbelief. I Googled "Trump" and "9 Billion" and found an article from the Washington Post that says... probably not. This figure (they say) probably comes from taking the value of his properties, overestimating how much they are worth, and also not subtracting what he owes (a mind blowing 5 billion). His actual net worth is likely closer to 4 billion... which is still a hell of a lot of money.

(Which, by the way, illustrates why the real estate market is so heavily regulated. Because there is a lot of money to be made in it. Something Willis Hart apparently does not understand, as he attempts to push the discredited meme that it was OVER regulation that lead to the financial crisis in a recent blog post.

ThinkProgress notes that "The CRA has been in place since 1977, while subprime lending only skyrocketed in the 2000s" and that "Fannie and Freddie [did not purchase subprime loans] due to their fairly strict underwriting requirements [until they] lowered their standards in 2006 to buy riskier products [but] they were too late to the game to cause the subprime frenzy". Yet Willis is among the idiots who point to both the CRA and Fannie/Freddie specifically as strongly contributing to the crisis).

So Trump is a very wealthy man and he (as a result) has an extremely big ego. Which might explain how he's deluded himself into thinking he has any chance at all of being elected preznit. Or maybe he's just doing it for the attention and he'll place the blame elsewhere when he inevitably has to drop out (others made a huge mistake in not getting behind/supporting The Donald).

Although, while I disagree with most of The Donald's ideas on what policies would lead to increased economic activity for all, I must say that when it comes to free trade... The Donald is on the right track.

...in order to create more American jobs; mandate a 15% tax for outsourcing jobs and a 20% tax for importing goods... I'm for free and fair trade... But look at... the trade imbalance... [the trade deals Obama is making] will further erode American manufacturing and kill more American jobs [as NAFTA did and the TPP will]. I'm sick of always reading about outsourcing. Why aren't we talking about "onshoring"? We need to bring manufacturing jobs back home where they belong. Onshoring, or "repatriation", is a way for us to take back the jobs China is stealing. We know that China's wages are increasing. Also, China lacks certain natural resources that we have in abundance. If we exploit those two key facts, we can begin making the case to companies that they should bring their manufacturing facilities home to America. You only have to look at our trade deficit to see that we are being taken to the cleaners by our trading partners. We need tougher negotiations... We need to ensure that foreign markets are as open to our products as our country is to theirs. Our long-term interests require that we cut better deals with our world trading partners. (Donald Trump on Free Trade 2000 Reform Primary Challenger for President).

Note that this information is from 2000, but I think Trump still hold the same positions on trade, given his recent slamming of the TPP as a "disaster" and he (correctly) noted that "They're not addressing the number one cause of the unfairness which is the currency manipulation". So... Trump is right on trade, even if he is wrong in his other economic prescriptions which include traditional Conservative plans to "kill the death tax, lower the tax rates on capital gains & dividends, [and] eliminate corporate taxes".

Here Trump is in agreement with the other bad plutocrat-enriching ideas every other Republican endorses. Including the idea that the Affordable Care Act needs to go, because as Trump says in his announcement, "Obamacare really kicks in in 2016. Really bigley".

"Bigley"?

Anyway, these other positions are why I would never vote for him (if, by some miracle, he were to win the GOP nomination). But he might get quite a bit of support from blue and white collar Republican voters based on his stance on trade, which is that we should bring back American jobs destroyed by bad free trade agreements championed by both Republicans and Democrats.

Remember that Ross Perot ran on opposing the outsourcing of American jobs and (as Wikipedia notes) "was the natural beneficiary of populist resentment toward establishment politicians". Due to the establishment politicians' support for job killing free trade agreements. As a result of his stand on this ONE issue "in the 1992 election, he received 18.9% of the popular vote, approximately 19,741,065 votes, making him the most successful third-party presidential candidate in terms of the popular vote since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election".

A feat that NO Libertarian candidate for president has EVER come close to matching (Gary Johnson received 0.99% of the popular vote in 2012, amounting to 1.27 million votes). I'd eat MY hat if Gary Johnson declared he was running again, entered the race as a Libertarian, and ended up winning as many votes as Perot did in 1992.

I make this bet ONLY because I am one hundred percent positive there is zero percent chance of this happening. Also, I do not own a hat. But I'd eat Willis' hat if Gary were miraculously able to accomplish what Ross did, given the fact that Gary is FOR destroying American jobs (Johnson supports free trade and opposes tariffs, "period").

Frankly, I'd bet that The Donald could get more votes than Gary if he ran 3rd party (nobody would take the bet if he ran as a Republican, if he somehow managed to win the GOP nomination, because OF COURSE he'd get more votes under that unlikely scenario). I would not promise to eat a hat, however, as I only think it likely that he'd get more votes (due to his stance on free trade). I'm not as sure about that as I am about Gary not ever receiving as many votes as Perot did (I'd never make a bet concerning eating a hat unless it was a sure thing).

Which Willis apparently thought not Trump entering the race was (a sure thing). Now we know he was wrong. And now we await the eating by him of his hat. In addition to his tie and trousers. Or rAtional nAtion (if he is a man of his word) and I await this eating of clothing by Willis (who I suspect is not a man of his word).

Update 7/20/2015: Some report that Trump said "big league", not "bigley". I'm not sure. Sounded like "bigley" to me.

SWTD #291, wDel #76.