Top Ten Reasons To NOT Vote For Trump

This may be an obvious concern, and this may be repeated on a thousand other political blogs over the next six months, and this may upset David Letterman's lawyers to where I'll get a cease-and-desist, but dammit attention must be paid.

TOP TEN REASONS TO NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP

10) Trump is the first official nominee of a major political party lacking public office experience of any kind.

This is really a key component we need in a President: experience or understanding of how the Public Sector - not just how a government works but also the Responsibility to the Civic Trust - operates.

We are talking about experience with elected, nominated, or civil service offices. It's not only nominees that won elected office to the House or Senate or a Governorship, but also those who only served in the Cabinet - Hoover - or in the military - Taylor, Grant, Eisenhower (Washington served in the Virginia colonial Assembly, that counts as a legislative role) - or in the judiciary - Taft, who was an appellate judge before called into the Executive branch as a Cabinet Secretary - or in the civil service - Arthur, as Port-master of New York. And these are the ones who actually served as President.

There are very few - losing - candidates for the White House I can find in the history books who lacked experience in the public sector this way. Wendell Willkie comes close, but he had years of political activism - with far greater understanding than Trump has shown - that made him a major player in political circles. Horace Greeley, whom I remembered primarily as a newspaper editor, had served a term of office as a House Representative, so he had elective experience. Nearly every other person who's run on a party platform for President has experience in the public sector. Trump's the only one who does not.

Just on this point alone, we should not be voting for Trump as President. If this were for a lesser office, it wouldn't be an issue. But the Presidency of the United States is the highest office in the land, one that demands exacting awareness of the mechanisms of public administration. Experience may not be a Constitutional requirement, but it's one the voters should require of their choices for the most powerful office in the land.

9) Trump fails to understand how government budgets work.

Although this is a shared failing among other Republicans, whose budget proposals since 2001 fall along the lines of "wishful thinking" that involves clapping your hands for the Tax Cut Fairy to grant us budget surpluses instead of the massive deficits they really incur. Trump's budget plan falls into the same trap of slashing taxes on the rich, slashing spending for the poor, and slashing regulations that are supposed to keep all of us healthy and breathing.

8) Trump fails to understand how government debt works.

Trump thinks he can get the creditors holding our nation's enormous public debt to take "discounts" as though this were all in yet another Bankruptcy Court where deals like this could get made. Never mind the shock to the global economy that would cause, for interest rates to go up for all the wrong reasons, and other calamities. The immediate comparison I've seen online has been Argentina. Just multiply that by the size of the U.S. economy and you might get a clue how BAD this idea is.

The whole concept of "full faith and credit" seems to elude him.

7) Trump fails to understand, period.

There's a phrase I remember describing George W. Bush as "incurious". It came up often during 2005 and 2006 when the failures of his administration were more obvious by the day. What got out, was commonly understood among observers, was that Bush the Lesser was unconcerned or unwilling to comprehend events that unfolded under his watch: That the importance of policy decisions he had to make as President slipped past him without thought.

Trump gets the same comparisons: that when it comes to policy, Trump doesn't really care. He'll care enough to make public statements, some half-assed one-liner that will get him in front of cameras, but that will be it. He will bluff his way through talk about "the issues" and all he will do is claim that he'll "be great at" fixing that issue. And the issues he has given specific thoughts - immigration, trade - the answers he's given are rooted in insane policy positions - Building a wall! Deporting millions of people! Boycott and Bully China! - that fail to comprehend the sheer size of the problem he's going to create.

This may fall under the "Presidential Inexperience" criticism, but this is something that seems to cover nearly every issue out there, every aspect of social and religious and cultural and technical concepts that requires at least a modicum of understanding. If you think it was hard to picture Bush the Elder marveling at a grocery store barcode scanner back in the 1990s - which was a relatively new tech at the time and something Bush hadn't dealt with in-person for years - that's nothing compared to the level of ignorance Trump is going to bring to the office.

Shorter answer: If it's something that doesn't personally benefit himself, Trump won't care.

6) Trump's bankruptcies.

How many ways are we supposed to buy this swill that Trump is a successful businessman when he's in Bankruptcy court more times than we've had hot dinners?

And this is so open a flaw that it's one of the first things people attack Trump with. It's not ranked as high because it's become almost blase, we're desensitized to the horror of this outright failure at business claiming his great successes...

5) Trump's open hostility to those not like himself.

When it comes to women, when it comes to Hispanics, when it comes to Blacks, when it comes to Asians, when it comes to people who aren't in the business community, you are not welcome to Trump's World.

4) Trump's lying is at a level we haven't seen since the heady days of Tricky Dick.

It is a partisan reaction to accuse those opposite your viewpoints of being liars, but in Trump's case there's documented evidence. Tons of it, going back decades.

PolitiFact is a website that tracks public officials' statements and grades them according to research and factual data. "Pants on Fire" is for the outlandish comments crashing against every factual point that can be argued. Trump already has two pages worth of "Pants on Fire" with about a year of campaigning (Obama by comparison has one page... out of eight-plus years of public statements). In terms of lies and half-truths and misstatements, Trump leads the pack.

3) Trump's foreign policy agenda is a toxic mix of isolationism and interventionism that can alienate our allies, embolden our adversaries, and weaken international relationships into utter chaos.

No exaggeration. As Vox's Zack Beauchamp notes:

But it's not just ethos — it's also what he proposes to do to many countries, particularly American allies. Trump's actual foreign policy vision represents a fundamental break with decades of American foreign policy. Given that a lot of American allies depend on those very decades-old policies for their own security, Trump's rise is more than just cartoonish.

For them, it's legitimately terrifying.

2) Trump killed an entire sports league.

This isn't even funny. He bought ownership of a team in the USFL league, a fledgling rival to the National Football League in the 1980s that showed potential as a spring-time football program, and promptly talked most of the other USFL owners into a suicidal schedule shift to the fall as well as filing a massive anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL. Word has it Trump was hoping the lawsuit would force the larger league to merge like they did with the AFL back in the 1960s, and allow him to become part of one of the most exclusive rich people's clubs in the nation.

The jury came back with a finding that while the NFL was a monopoly when it came to television deals and market control, they also found that the USFL's problems were more to their own mismanagement and suicidal move to that fall schedule. Trump's own game-plan wounded their court case, and the jury found at the lowest value they could issue: $1.00 which was tripled under anti-trust rules to $3.00. After a round of appeals, the value of the win was appraised up to $3.76. The check - kept in the property of Steve Ehrhart the last USFL officer standing - has never been cashed (ironically it is worth millions as a collectible: Ehrhart hopes someday for the Football Hall of Fame to display it).

It is telling that for all of the supposed billions of dollars in Trump's finances,  NONE of the major sports leagues - football, baseball, basketball, hockey - want anything to do with Trump. There have been New York/New Jersey teams up for sale over the decades, and Trump has been blocked from every one...

For all the points I list here, this is the most personal. I am a Tampa Bay Bandits fan who will never forget nor forgive.

1) Trump is a Narcissist.

In short: This is all about him.

Let's go to the experts at the Mayo Clinic, who refer to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V) to classify the signs of having a Narcissistic disorder (this was all edited into Mayo's website in 2014):

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

I added links to each sign of that personality to give context and background. Dear God. Trump fits this description to a T (which stands for TRUMP).

Why is having a Narcissist in the White House a terribly bad idea, and deserving of the top reason to NEVER vote Trump?

After all, we've had ego-driven men become President before: it takes large ambition to fill a large role.

But we've never had anyone as self-absorbed to this scale over success and superiority get this close to the Oval Office. And we're talking about a list that includes self-absorbed bullying egomaniacs like Nixon - who obsessed over his failings and need to prove himself against adversity - and Lyndon B. Johnson - who obsessed over his failings and need to win at deals - and Andrew Jackson - who obsessed over every slight and insult and need to dominate his opponents.

It's a personality trait that is toxic for a job title that is supposed to represent the entire United States. The President is more than just one man (or woman): The President is supposed to stand for every American citizen of every age and every gender and every skin color. The President speaks FOR us as much as speaks to us. On the world stage, the President is our proxy.

Trump won't care about that. He's made it clear on numerous occasions that he only views the population as his consumer market, his fawning lackeys, his useful stooges. He's shown open disdain for his own voters, and open contempt for everyone else.

He's made it perfectly clear that if he ever gets into the Oval Office, Trump is only there to serve himself.

On any one of these issues, it'd be enough to do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the White House and away from the office of the President of the United States.

For the Love of God. I am not being funny or flippant. Don't Vote Trump.