by Dick Morris
Armageddon
Also by Dick Morris
Bum Rap on American Cities
Behind the Oval Office
The New Prince
vote.com
Power Plays
Also by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Off with Their Heads
Rewriting History
Because He Could
Condi v. Hillary
Outrage
Fleeced
Catastrophe
2010: Take Back America
Revolt
Screwed
Here Come the Black Helicopters
Power Grab
Armageddon
How Trump Can Beat Hillary
Dick Morris
Eileen McGann
Armageddon
Copyright © 2016 by Humanix Books
All rights reserved
Humanix Books, P.O. Box 20989, West Palm Beach, FL 33416, USA
www.humanixbooks.com | [email protected]
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morris, Dick, author. | McGann, Eileen, author.
Title: Armageddon : How Trump Can Beat Hillary / Dick Morris, Eileen McGann.
Description: West Palm Beach, FL : Humanix Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003143 (print) | LCCN 2016013325 (ebook) | ISBN 9781630060589 (hardback) | ISBN 9781630060596 (e-book) | ISBN 9781630060596 (E-Book)
Subjects: LCSH: Presidents—United States—Election, 2016. | Republican Party (U.S. : 1854– ) | United States—Politics and government—2009– | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / Government / Executive Branch. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Leadership.
Classification: LCC JK526 2016 .M67 2016 (print) | LCC JK526 2016 (ebook) | DDC 324.973/0932—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003143
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
Cover Photo: Visions of America, LLC / Alamy, FEE9ME, FEEBAG
Humanix Books is a division of Humanix Publishing, LLC. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Humanix” is registered in the Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
ISBN: 978-1-63006-058-9 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-63006-059-6 (E-book)
Contents
Preface
Introduction
So How Do We Stop Her?
The Democratic Party’s Civil War
Hillary Would be Obama’s Third Term
It’s Our Last Chance
1. A Dozen Reasons Hillary Clinton Should Not Be President
Reason One: She Demonstrated Her Inability to Be Commander in Chief at Benghazi
Reason Two: She Is a Compulsive, Pathological, and Serial Liar Who Cannot Be Trusted to Tell the Truth to the American People
Memories of Painful Discrimination in Middle School
Hillary’s Pandering Pretenses: What She Learned from Her Immigrant Grandparents Who Weren’t Immigrants
“Private Hillary” Tried to Join the Marines
She Was Named after Sir Edmund Hillary
She Was Instrumental in the Irish Peace Process
Hillary Landed under Sniper Fire in Bosnia
Reason Three: She Will Get Us into a War
Reason Four: Hillary and the Muslim Brotherhood Are Perfect Together
Reason Five: Which Hillary? She Flips, She Flops, and Then She Flips Again
Gay Marriage
Free Trade Agreements
Second Amendment
Illegal Immigrants
Reason Six: She Is Corrupt . . . Always Immersed in Scandal
Cattle Futures Insider Trading
The White House Travel Office Firings
Whitewater: Almost Indicted Again
The Clinton Foundation
E-mails
Reason Seven: Hillary Is Obsessively Secret and Paranoid
Reason Eight: Hillary Lives in a Bubble and Is Clueless About How People Live
Reason Nine: She Doesn’t Know Anything about Our Biggest Problem—the Economy, Stupid
Reason Ten: Hillary Is Governed by Gurus
Reason Eleven: She Is Rigid and Stubborn
Reason Twelve: Nepotism—the Clinton Family Money Grab
Chelsea Clinton Trades in on the Family Name
The Rodham and Clinton Brothers’ Constant Quest to Grab Big Bucks
2. How to Beat Hillary
Hillary: Teflon No More
The Key to Victory: Get Out Our Base Voters
Why Didn’t Whites Vote in 2012?
How to Get the Disappearing White Vote to Show Up
3. Use the Right Jab to Bring Out Our Base
The Key Issue? It’s Terrorism, Stupid
Hillary Let Terrorism Grow on Her Watch
Hillary’s Anti-Israel Policy
Obama and Hillary Are Letting Terrorists into America
Hillary Enables Iran
Defects of the Deal
Obamacare: The Bills Are Due
Obamacare: Dying on Its Own
The Uninsured Say No to Obamacare
Premiums Are Soaring . . .
. . . and Deductibles Are Too
Obamacare: Stupidity Reigns!
The Issue to Defeat Hillary
4. Throw the Left Hook!—Destroy the Obama/Hillary Base
Winning the White Working Class
Trade: Bring the Jobs Home
China Cheats
China Buys Our Politicians
It’s Not Just China . . . It’s Mexico Too
TPP: More Bad Trade Deals
Immigration
Illegal Immigrants Are Taking Our Jobs and Holding Down Our Wages
H-1B Visas: Unemployment for College Graduates
Go after Wall Street
How Wall Street Got Richer
Wall Street and the Clintons: A Long-Term Romance
Reinstate Glass–Steagall
Hillary’s Pathetic Wall Street “Reform” Plan
Turning Class Warfare against the Democrats
5. Peel Away Hillary’s Base Constituencies
Winning Women
Education: The Key to Women Voters
Scott Walker Showed the Way
Education Reform: Democrats and Unions vs. Parents and Kids
How Hillary Sold Out to the Unions
School Choice: A Winning Issue
Go for Hispanics
Go beyond Immigration
Young Voters Don’t Like Hillary
Go after the Black Vote: Hillary Is Not Obama
6. Can Donald Trump Win?
Can He Win the Popular Vote?
White Voters
Black Voters
Young Voters
And in the Electoral College?
Conclusion
Notes
Preface
Armageddon:
a: the site or time of a final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil
b: the battle taking place at Armageddon
c: a vast decisive conflict or confrontation
The ultimate battle to save America lies straight ahead of us: it’s an American Armageddon, the final crusade to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump is the Republican warrior who will lead the charge. Trump is a fearless and formidable candidate whose brash, straight-talking anti-Washington message resonated with voters and catapulted him to the Republican nomination.
And he can go all the way to the White House. He can beat Hillary Clinton. He can triumph at Armageddon and save America.
T
rump is a natural, the polar opposite of the ultimate insider and highly choreographed Hillary Clinton. Relying on his own impeccable instincts, he never needed political consultants to tell him what to do or what to say. He never needed to poll test issues or talking points to figure out where he should stand. He is the master of his own style and his own message. And that message is that America can be great again—in so many ways. It worked because he fervently believed it and so did the voters. A Pew Foundation survey in mid April 2016 found that 57% of America want “America First” and support solving our own problems before helping other countries. Trump tapped into that growing national feeling and championed what Americans believe in.
There has been a dramatic shift in American politics that was manifested in 2016. The debates and the primaries in both parties demonstrated vividly that the major fault line in our politics is not that which separates the Right from Left, but that which divides insiders from outsiders. The assumptions, outlook, policies, and proposals that emanate from Washington, DC, are routinely suspect and are almost totally at variance with those that animate the rest of the country. This sweeping unity against the establishment created the perfect storm for the Trump candidacy. Voters are in wholesale rebellion against Washington, DC, and the leaders of both parties. They don’t trust them, they don’t like them, and they want them out.
This phenomenon was seen in smaller Armageddons in the primaries of both parties. Along with Trump, insurgents Sanders, and Cruz challenged the dynastic establishment candidates, Clinton and Bush. The Republican voters actually succeeded in upending their ruling class and embraced change by choosing Trump. But not the Democrats. When the voices of change within the Democratic Party implored it to adopt new directions and turn away from a corrupt recycling of the past, the Empire would not permit it, smashing the insurgency beneath the bludgeons of money and power—and, instead, choosing the ultimate tired establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. The Democrats opted for same old, same old Washington retread.
But Donald Trump embodied the change that voters have demanded and heralded a new age in our politics. In a field of immensely talented candidates, he surged to the top. Rather than take advantage of his enormous wealth and widespread contacts throughout the business and corporate worlds, he financed his own campaign and actually spent less than his rivals by capitalizing on the unique power of his message to win. Its never been done before.
Trump intuitively grasped that Americans were tired of ideological debates. They demanded a change from Obama’s radical policies, but had no wish to go back to the purely conservative agendas of either George W. Bush or even Ronald Reagan.
Often criticized by his opponents for straying from a strictly conservative viewpoint, Trump realized that voters wanted an American message—a candidate who would put America first and who would see to it that America won. And that’s what he did.
On trade, immigration, jobs, the economy and a host of issues, Trump carved out a platform that embraced nationalism as it transcended ideology.
If Donald Trump has a precedent in our politics, it is not Ronald Reagan—it is Dwight Eisenhower. Building on a brilliant record of success outside the political system, Ike overturned the choice of the ideologues in his own party—who had favored Senator Bob Taft of Ohio—and then consigned to history the liberal Democratic programs of FDR and Truman. He staked out a different set of priorities—job growth, American economic dominance, reluctance to get involved in foreign wars, a balanced budget, and an emphasis on rebuilding America’s infrastructure to make way for decades of economic growth.
Sound familiar? Those are the exact priorities of Donald Trump. His pragmatic, get-it-done approach will sharply contrast with the straitjacketed liberal dogma of Hillary Clinton and will appeal to Americans of every ideological stripe. Eisenhower was a historic commander and Donald Trump is an innovative CEO. Both had clear visions for America and refused to be mired in endless process, committees, or commissions.
Unlike Hillary, and like Ike, Trump escapes distracting details and focuses on objectives—the big picture—using talented people around him to map out the path to achieving them. He will get things done.
While Hillary will try to govern by achieving consensus among the special interest groups who have bought and paid for her and her party. Trump will barge forward, ignoring their self-interested pleadings, and act for the best interest of the country.
If he wins, Trump will be the first candidate in modern political history who takes office without being beholden to any major donors or corporate puppeteers. The Washington insiders do not understand him, cannot control him, and fear his advent. And because of that, they attack him.
Some say Trump is ill-informed. He’s not. We’ve spent many hours with him, discussing a range of complex issues. His knowledge is uncanny, particularly for someone who has never served in government. He has a laser-like ability to distill complicated issues into a profound message. But he sees things differently—and more clearly—than those promoting the status quo. That’s his strength.
Since his campaign began last June, he’s repeatedly confounded the insular political and media establishment as he coalesced voters in every state—without a campaign apparatus, without a PAC, without campaign fundraising, and without the backing of the Republican elite.
The mainstream media refused to take him seriously and sometimes even ridiculed him, but the voters didn’t. He inspired them. They quickly understood what the chattering class—those journalists and political consultants who consider themselves to be the self-appointed arbiters of who should be elected—could not comprehend. Those near-sighted insiders eagerly awaited Trump’s implosion. They were still waiting when it was all over.
In fact, it wasn’t until the very moment that Trump clinched the nomination after winning Indiana, The New York Times, for example, refused to credit the possibility that Trump would be the eventual nominee. But after eleven months of churning out anti-Trump stories that belittled his ability to succeed and discounted the dramatic inroads he was making, the Times looked in the rear view mirror and finally noticed that they had missed the signals all along that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination.
In August 2015, Nate Silver, the numbers guru, had assessed Trump’s chances of winning the nomination at only 0–20%. But on the day after Trump triumphed in Indiana, Silver suddenly saw the light and wrote: “We basically got the Republican race wrong.”
They sure did.
And so did the rest of the political establishment. They didn’t recognize the allure of Donald Trump and his no-nonsense message that emotionally connected him to grassroots voters who were sick of career politicians. Why didn’t they get it? Because he wasn’t one of the insider regulars who they feel so comfortable supporting. And so they didn’t notice that he was changing the very nature of political campaigns in America.
Trump debunked the Washington consensus, taking it apart, piece by piece. The conventional wisdom had assured us that trade deals were good for America. Free trade was just what Adam Smith had in mind. The danger was protectionism and isolationism. Bill Clinton sold us trade deals with China and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Republicans lined up for free trade deals with Peru, Chile, and Colombia, and then Obama brought in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), to continue the consensus.
But Donald Trump ripped them all apart as bad deals negotiated by “political hacks” and “losers.”
“We don’t have our best and our brightest negotiating for us,” he thundered. “China is killing us. Mexico is killing us. Japan is is killing us. Everybody is beating us.”1 Voters found it refreshing to hear this unparalleled and irreverent critique that mirrored their own thinking.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders was also shattering the establishment’s consensus. Even as Trump attacked trade deals as bad for the American worker, Sanders ripped them as corporate welfare and hit hard at companies that outsource their
manufacturing. From the Left and from the Right, a common agenda emerged: Against one-sided trade deals, opposed to Wall Street bailouts, and in favor of limits on the surveillance powers of the National Security Agency (NSA).
The two primaries will leave in their wake a new set of issues, a new consensus for change in American politics. In Trump, we have a candidate committed to these new ideas that are struggling to emerge in opposition to the old establishment wisdom and its epitome, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Trump has sounded a new call in our politics: To put America first. He sweeps aside a politics based on ideology and demands that our programs and policies be rooted in advancing and improving the lives of our citizens. Like Voltaire’s Candide, we are so fed up with ideology that we have all concluded that we must cultivate our garden first and foremost.
This book explores how to use this new issue consensus to defeat Hillary and elect an apostle of change.
And Trump can do it.
Is he a flawless candidate? Of course not. There is no such thing, His candor and rhetoric have definitely caused problems. When he called for building a wall on the Mexican border and halting Muslim immigration he outraged people inside and outside the U.S. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox—a former client of Dick’s—used coarse and vulgar language to describe Trump’s proposal for the Mexicans paying for his fence. Trump tweeted a demand for an apology. Months later, on the day after Trump became the nominee, Fox apologized and invited him to come to Mexico and discuss the problems. Most likely, Trump will meet with Fox and other Mexican leaders and come up with an acceptable plan. That’s how he operates.
He’s insulted his opponents. But, once they’re no longer a threat, he speaks highly of many of them.
Trump’s aggressive, bare knuckle style is something new to Washington insiders. But to put it in context, think about this story about the difference between Washington and New York told to us by Bob Crandall when he was President and Chairman of American Airlines.
“New York is tough but it’s not mean,” he said. “Washington is mean but it’s not tough.” Bob explained: “In New York, they’ll fight you for every dime, insult you, disparage your motives. But, afterwards, once the deal is done, they’ll go out to dinner with you and expect to have a pleasant evening. In Washington, they won’t be tough negotiators. They’ll give you whatever you want to your face and then, as you leave, shoot you in the back—just because it is so much fun to see you die.”
