As I’ve said several times, this is a strange election season. Earlier today I posted on an op-ed by Tavis Smiley in which he admits that black Americans may be moving to Donald Trump. In his essay he makes this statement:
Finally, it’s mind-numbing to some of us that a reckless member of the billionaire class has somehow convinced hardworking, everyday people that he is their savior.
Never have truer words been spoken.
Donald Trump’s career is replete with the chronic abuse of people who don’t have the financial means to resist him. The widow in Atlantic City was lucky to have people come to her aid. The illegal immigrants who worked on his buildings, in unsafe conditions, who were simply not paid, the small vendors who took a haircut when his Atlantic City casino went belly up and the mortgage brokers working for Trump Mortgage who were never paid their commissions, and the students who enrolled in Trump University were not so lucky.
Now we have another case. While Trump is wholeheartedly against the H1B visa program
It is an understatement to say that Trump is against the H1B visa. He positively loathes it, and has withering criticism for Marco Rubio, whom he considers a lackey to Silicon Valley and Mark Zuckerberg in particular, calling him the Facebook founder’s “personal senator”. What really gets his goat about Rubio is the Florida Senator’s past plan to triple H1Bs, which he says would “decimate women and minorities”.
…
Trump has special ire reserved for Disney, who shipped in H1B workers from India to replace 400-odd American techies at their Florida offices. To add to the ignominy of their being summarily fired, the Americans were forced to train their replacements over a period of a month or so lest they lose their severance payments. Trump insists that Disney hire back each worker let go. “If I am president, I will not issue any H1B visas to companies that replace American workers and my Department of Justice will pursue action against them,” he told a news outfit.
It appears though that Trump’s real objection is to immigrants, because though he doesn’t want them coming here to take your job, he really has no issue with off-shoring your job. That, to the newly unemployed man or woman, is pretty much a distinction without a difference.
Back in the days of Trump’s blog on the website of his now-defunct Trump University website, however, he wrote a post in defense of outsourcing titled, “Outsourcing Creates Jobs in the Long Run.”
“We hear terrible things about outsourcing jobs — how sending work outside of our companies is contributing to the demise of American businesses,” wrote Trump. “But in this instance I have to take the unpopular stance that it is not always a terrible thing.”
“I understand that outsourcing means that employees lose jobs,” continued Trump. “Because work is often outsourced to other countries, it means Americans lose jobs. In other cases, nonunion employees get the work. Losing jobs is never a good thing, but we have to look at the bigger picture.”
Trump turned to a study by Lawrence Klein, a former economic adviser to Jimmy Carter, who said outsourcing jobs increased wages and created jobs in the IT sector.
“Last year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Dr. Lawrence R. Klein, the founder of Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, co-authored a study that showed how global outsourcing actually creates more jobs and increases wages, at least for IT workers,” wrote Trump. “The study found that outsourcing helped companies be more competitive and more productive. That means they make more money, which means they funnel more into the economy, thereby, creating more jobs
.
“I know that doesn’t make it any easier for people whose jobs have been outsourced overseas, but if a company’s only means of survival is by farming jobs outside its walls, then sometimes it’s a necessary step,” he continued. “The other option might be to close its doors for good.”
This lack of core beliefs is what animates the Trump campaign (having said that, I find his lack of any beliefs to be much less problematic than what I know Hillary Clinton believes in to center of her soul… if she had one). His policies remind you of a used car salesman asking a mark customer, “what would it take for me to be able to put you in this beauty?” That is his schtick, his con. And, as the evidence indicates, he is very good at what he does. It is also a sign that absolutely no one, anywhere, even Trump himself, has the faintest notion about what his policies would be were he elected president.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member