Trump keeps busy by evolving on issues
“He is so smooth and so effective a performer that he completely won over the American people.”
Donald Trump, in his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal” about Ronald Reagan
The ever-evolving Mr. Trump Back in the 1980s, Donald Trump openly questioned the sincerity of President Ronald Reagan.
By 1987 Trump wrote, “Only now, nearly seven years later, are people beginning to question whether there’s anything beneath that smile.”
He now takes every opportunity to cast himself in Reagan’s image.
That, like much of what Trump now espouses is Grade A balderdash!
His newfound affection for Reagan is simply part of, what seems to be, a convenient, ever-evolving political philosophy.
He’d registered as a Republican in 1987. He decided to switch to the Reform Party in 1999. In 2001, he became a Democrat. During 2011 and 2012, he was, reportedly, a registered Independent. Since 2012 he’s been a Republican.
So it comes as no surprise that he questioned Reagan’s authenticity while he was president, but he’s a Reagan devotee today.
“The Donald” is hardly the first person seeking high-office who has “evolved” on the issues.
President Obama freely admitted he changed his mind about gay marriage.
“I am not in favor of gay marriage,” Sen. Obama repeatedly indicated between 2004 and 2008.
He’d only been in favor of civil unions for gay couples until he appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America in May of 2012 and he announced, “I’ve been going through an evolution on this issue.”
If Republicans could, as they did, attack Obama for changing his mind over eight years, you have to wonder how they feel about “The Donald” changing his mind a couple of times within a matter of days.
Back in 1999, when he considered running as a Reform Party presidential candidate, Trump told reporters, “I want to see the abortion issue removed from politics. I believe it is a personal decision that should be left to the woman and their doctors.”
In February of 2011, when there was talk about Trump mounting a presidential run in 2012, he told a correspondent from the Christian Broadcasting Network, “I’m a very honorable guy. I’m pro-life, but I changed my view a number of years ago.”
That’s fine. Obama, then, I guess, could consider himself an “honorable guy,” for admitting he changed over time, too.
Nowadays, though, Trump is taking a much-harder line about abortions, and, more specifically, against Planned Parenthood, which is under fire after some questionably obtained video tapes have been made public.
When he was asked on Aug. 3 about the possibility that Republicans in Congress could defund Planned Parenthood, or shut down the government if they couldn’t, Trump was enthusiastic about the notion.
“I think they have to in this case also. Yes,” he told a radio talk show host.
But only a few days later, he tempered his desires to have the plug pulled on Planned Parenthood.
He said he’d take a more measured approach.
“I would look at the individual things that they do. I would look at the good aspects of it. We have to take care of women. I am for the exceptions. For the health and life of the mother, and for rape and incest,” he said on CNN a week later.
So, in one week Trump “evolved” from stripping Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer dollars, to sifting through its functions to defund the ones he doesn’t like?
Hum.
The response to Trump’s latest philosophical “evolution,” was swift – and from the unlikeliest of places – Planned Parenthood.
“Donald Trump seems to have realized that banning all abortions, shutting down the government, and defunding Planned Parenthood are extreme positions that are way too far outside the mainstream for even him to take,” Planned Parenthood’s spokesman said in a statement.
Imagine that.
The one organization that nearly every Republican presidential candidate considers to be an easy target, is one of Donald Trump’s biggest fans.
Of course, Trump could say, as he once did, “Ronald Reagan evolved on many issues.”
Yeah, but Reagan never twisted himself into a political pretzel.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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