The term — the phenomenon — (political) “flip-flopping” goes back as far as 1890 when the New York Times reported on a campaign speech by New York City candidate for district attorney John W. Goff, referring to a “flip-flop” by one of his opponents.
The “flip-flopper” accusation has been used in “modern times” against Jimmy Carter, Richard Gephardt and more (in)famously against John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election when Kerry tried to explain his vote for supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by saying, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.”
Of course there have been numerous other instances of political flip-flopping, but in this author’s opinion none have been so numerous, so gigantic, so acrobatic and so obvious as the circus somersaults “performed” over the years by this presidential elections’ most famous and agile — despite the risk of messing up his coiffe — Republican clown bus occupant, Donald Trump.
In Politico, Timothy Noah asks the “real Donald Trump [to] please stand up” and describes the backbreaking somersaults performed over the years by the most popular occupant of the clown bus.
Perhaps the most significant flip-flops are Trump’s drifting and changing political party affiliations.
Noah:
Over the past two decades he was a Republican, then an independent, then a Democrat, then a Republican. Now, registered as an independent, he leads the Republican 2016 presidential field.
But Trump also flirted with the Reform Party which he quit in 2001 when he registered as a Democrat and is now threatening to run as a third party — whatever he may call that party — candidate if not coddled by the GOP..
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/will-the-real-donald-trump-please-stand-up-120607.html#ixzz3h767R5U6
Read here how Trump once endorsed a massive surtax on the rich, but now wants the top income tax rate cut in half.
How he opposed the war in Iraq, but now says that he has a “foolproof but secret way to defeat ISIL, secret because he doesn’t want ISIL to know how he’ll do it.
How, although he opposed the Iraq War, Trump wrote in his 2011 book, “if any country in the Middle East won’t sell us their oil at fair market price — oil that we discovered, we pumped and we made profitable for the countries of the Middle East in the first place — we have every right to take it.”
It is not clear to this writer how Trump plans to do this is, but it certainly has to entail more than just giving away cell phone numbers.
Read also how Trump has praised single-payer health care in the past, even “proposed ‘health marts’ that sound suspiciously like today’s Obamacare exchanges” before “[loathing] Obamacare.”
How Trump “generally” opposed gun control, but supported the ban on assault weapons and “a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun,” before telling the Web site Ammoland earlier this month, “Gun-banners are unfortunately preoccupied with … magazine capacity, grips and other aesthetics, precisely because of its popularity. To the left every weapon is an assault weapon,” and also said: “I do not support expanding background checks. The current background checks do not work.”
However, Noah does give Trump credit for his consistency in his support for private sector unions, although Trump has “low regard for teacher’s unions” and “would also appear to share fellow GOP candidate Scott Walker’s disdain for public employee unions in general…”
Read more here.
In an earlier piece at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza quotes Fix’s Hunter Schwarz:
[Trump] loved Hillary Clinton; now he thinks she’s the worst. He was very much in favor of abortion rights before he opposed them. And he might be running as a Republican today, but he was once a registered Democrat who called for legalizing drugs, a massiveone-time 14.25 percent tax on the wealthy and staying out of wars that didn’t present a “direct threat” to the U.S. In many ways, he’s been to the left of Clinton and even Bernie Sanders on some issues.
The piece is accompanied by a video that “explains” in living color (including Trump’s coiffe) and in 113 seconds “The massive flip-floppery of Donald Trump”
Watch it here.
Lead image: www.shutterstock.com
Follow Dorian de Wind on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ddewind99
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.