Smoking Gun: Donald Trump’s Transformative Powers

How does one go from being widely recognized as a dangerous fraud who is unfit to hold office to a celebrated incumbent who deserves four more years?

How does one go from being widely recognized as a dangerous fraud who is unfit to hold office to a celebrated incumbent who deserves four more years? Donald Trump’s secret sauce in winning over other Republicans, apparently, is his record of lawlessness, raging self-interest, and gross incompetence, which have led to racial turmoil, 200,000 Americans killed by COVID-19, and the worst economy since the Great Depression. Hmm, any chance The Donald’s critics got it right the first time?

Nikki Haley (former governor of South Carolina, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations)

Then: “I have to tell you, Donald Trump is everything I taught my children not to do in kindergarten. I taught my two little ones, you don’t lie and make things up.”

Now (from coverage in The New York Times of her convention speech): “Though she had once distanced herself from Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley has become a fierce defender of him in recent months.”

Lindsey Graham (U.S. Senator from South Carolina)

Then: “He’s a race-baiting xenophobic bigot.” Also: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.”

Now (from an op-ed for Fox News): “I will be voting for Donald Trump in 2020. He has earned my vote, and I think he’s earned yours, too.”

Rand Paul (U.S. Senator from Kentucky)

Then: “Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be President.”

Now (from his convention speech): “I’m proud of the job Donald Trump has done as President.”

Scott Walker (former governor of Wisconsin)

Then: He dropped out of the 2016 presidential race to help “clear the field . . . so a positive, conservative message can rise to the top.”

Now: Walker praised Trump in June for tear-gassing peaceful protesters for a photo op, tweeting, “Hard to imagine any other @POTUS having the guts to walk out of the White House like this.”

Kellyanne Conway (former campaign manager and White House counselor)

Then: “He says he’s for the little guy, but he’s actually built a lot of his businesses on the backs of the little guy . . . . The little guys have suffered.”

Now (from her convention speech): “President Trump and Vice President Pence have lifted Americans, provided them with dignity, opportunity and results.”

Mike Pompeo (former Congressmember from Kansas, now Trump’s Secretary of State)

Then: He warned that then-candidate Trump—like Barack Obama—would be “an authoritarian President who ignored our Constitution.”

Now: He said in his convention speech his family’s freedoms are “more secure because President Trump has put his America First vision into action.”

Rick Perry (former Texas governor and former U.S. Energy Secretary)

Then: He called Trump a “cancer on conservatism” and “a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense.”

Now: He has compared the President to Old Testament kings, proclaiming him to be God’s “chosen one” to lead the nation.