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News / Opinion / Columns

Ambrose: Trump may lead us to socialism yet

By Jay Ambrose
Published: February 26, 2017, 6:01am

One day, President Donald Trump is at a prayer meeting talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger being lousy on TV, and on another, he is naming the brilliant Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser. I will hereby be an unsolicited national hope adviser. Do the second kind of thing much more and wholly eradicate the first kind of thing, Mr. President, and save us from a grave public enemy.

That would be the kind of socialistically inspired future represented by Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate.

President Barack Obama was also a champ at all of this, and while the public mostly liked him, many did not like what he was doing. Thus, after his eight years in office, Democrats had lost a net of 62 seats in the House, nine seats in the Senate, 12 governorships, more than 900 state legislature seats and the presidency, according to a Fox News report. Republicans took charge, and there is now an extraordinary opportunity to reverse a big-government trend threatening to encapsulate us for eons.

The thing is, we may be cheated out of that chance if Trump does not give up on his stupidities and instead provides his enemies the wherewithal to stymie the best in him and turn the country back over to their contrary dreams. If he loves America, therefore, he should please, please quit obnoxious tweeting for starters. It is absurd and makes him look like a misbehaving child with a misused toy.

And more advice

Then he should quit holding zany press conferences in which he overstates everything, insults everyone and further institutes enmity. He should in fact avoid ad-libbing as much as possible. He is a nonlinear, now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t speaker who treats us to unconnected, unexplained phrases that can mean just about anything and are advantageously interpreted by critics as saying he favors hell over heaven.

Still more advice. He should quit substituting glances at a TV set for actual study. He should quit having reckless phone calls with heads of state. He should quit putting together policy plots with minimal trustworthy advice. He should quit the small-mindedness that puts claims of crowd size above real issues.

Yes, it is absolutely the case that his critics are often far worse than he is. Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Sen. Chuck Schumer? There is nothing polite to say.

There is lots of good in Trump, as seen in his executive orders on pipelines and absolutely smothering regulations, his choice for the Supreme Court, most of his Cabinet picks and, as mentioned earlier, his choice of McMaster as a top adviser.

Some of his tax ideas are excellent, if not the one on imports, and we should replace Obamacare with something better, although prudence is needed.

But if Trump does not cut out the bad, there are those waiting in the bushes with a ruinous future in mind.


Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for McClatchy-Tribune. Readers may send him email at speaktojay@aol.com.

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