It's one thing for the republican establishment to throw up all over the candidacy of Donald Trump: frankly, the GOP has not been relevant as a political power ever since Boehner started folding like a lawn chair to Obama's every demand just around the time of the first US downgrade, and as such what the Republican party - torn apart and very much irrelevant as the best of the "establishment" GOP candidates demonstrate - thinks is largely irrelevant.
However, when such stalwart titans of financial establishmentarianism as the Council of Foreign Relations and "The Economist", who until now had been largely ignoring Trump's ascent in the political hierarchy finally unleash an all out assault and go after Trump on the very same day, you know that the flamboyant, hyperbolic billionaire has finally gotten on the nerves of some very high net worth individuals.
Below are excerpts from the panicked lamentations of the Economist as written down this weekend in "Time to fire Trump"
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The front-runner is unfit to lead a great political party, let alone America
IN A week’s time, the race for the Republican nomination could be all but over. Donald Trump has already won three of the first four contests. On March 1st, Super Tuesday, 12 more states will vote. Mr Trump has a polling lead in all but three of them. Were these polls to translate into results, as they have so far, Mr Trump would not quite be unbeatable. It would still be possible for another candidate to win enough delegates to overtake him. But that would require the front-runner to have a late, spectacular electoral collapse of a kind that has not been seen before. Right now the Republican nomination is his to lose.
When pollsters ask voters to choose in a face-off between Mr Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner wins by less than three percentage points. Mr Trump would have plenty of time to try to close that gap. An economy that falls back into recession or an indictment for Mrs Clinton might do it for him.
That is an appalling prospect. The things Mr Trump has said in this campaign make him unworthy of leading one of the world’s great political parties, let alone America. One way to judge politicians is by whether they appeal to our better natures: Mr Trump has prospered by inciting hatred and violence. He is so unpredictable that the thought of him anywhere near high office is terrifying. He must be stopped.
... just in case there was any confusion what The Economist thinks.
If the field remains split as it is now, it is possible for Mr Trump to win with just a plurality of votes. To prevent that, others must drop out. Although we are yet to be convinced by Mr Rubio, he stands a better chance of beating Mr Trump than anyone else. All the other candidates—including Mr Cruz, who wrongly sees himself as the likeliest challenger—should get out of his way. If they decline to do so, it could soon be too late to prevent the party of Abraham Lincoln from being led into a presidential election by Donald Trump.
And then there is the Council of Foreign Relations' Benn Steil with "Selling America Short" of which sections have been excerpted below:
The country would cease to be great under a President Trump
Following his primary victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, Donald Trump has established himself as the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has done so offering grandiose slogans — He'll Make America Great Again! He'll have us win so much we'll get bored with winning! — and precious little in specifics. He has said, for example, that he would repeal Obamacare, without saying a word about what would replace it — beyond promising that his health program would be "terrific" and "take care of everyone."
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If Trump were to order the U.S. military to act as he suggests, the likely result would be a crisis in civil-military relations. Many military personnel would refuse to carry out orders so blatantly at odds with the laws of war; soldiers know that they could face prosecution under a future administration. If soldiers were to do as President Trump ordered, moreover, terrorist organizations would have a new recruiting pitch with the world's Muslims — the need to counter American barbarism.
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The radical changes that Trump proposes are all the more dangerous because he is so singularly ill-equipped to manage the resulting turmoil. This is a candidate, after all, who doesn't know the difference between the Kurds and the Quds Force or have any idea what the "nuclear triad" is. Nor has Trump so far made good on his pledge to attract "top top people" to help him run things; he has still not unveiled a campaign foreign policy team in spite of months of pledges to do so. In any case, advisers cannot make up for a president's ignorance and prejudice; presidents always get conflicting advice, and it is their job, and their job alone, to make the most difficult judgment calls in the world.
Trump has already done considerable damage to America's reputation with his crude, bombastic, and often ugly rhetoric. American standing, as measured both in "soft power" and more traditional realpolitik terms, would suffer far more if he were to become commander in chief. A Trump presidency threatens the post-World War II liberal international order that American presidents of both parties have so laboriously built up — an order based on free trade and alliances with other democracies.
His policies would not make America "great." Just the opposite. A Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a great power.
So just whose nerves has Trump gotten on?
Here is a summary of the current and honorary directors of the CFR, who basically double down as a 'who is who' list of everyone relevant in modern finance:
- Carla A. Hills
- Robert E. Rubin
- David M. Rubenstein
- Richard N. Haass
- John P. Abizaid
- Zoë Baird
- Alan S. Blinder
- Mary Boies
- David G. Bradley
- Nicholas Burns
- Steven A. Denning
- Blair Effron
- Laurence D. Fink
- Stephen Friedman
- Ann M. Fudge
- Timothy F. Geithner
- Thomas H. Glocer
- Stephen J. Hadley
- Peter B. Henry
- J. Tomilson Hill
- Susan Hockfield
- Donna J. Hrinak
- Shirley Ann Jackson
- James Manyika
- Jami Miscik
- Eduardo J. Padrón
- John A. Paulson
- Richard L. Plepler
- Ruth Porat
- Colin L. Powell
- Richard E. Salomon
- James G. Stavridis
- Margaret Warner
- Vin Weber
- Christine Todd Whitman
- Daniel H. Yergin
- Madeleine K. Albright
- Martin S. Feldstein
- Leslie H. Gelb
- Maurice R. Greenberg
- Peter G. Peterson
- David Rockefeller
And here are the Trustees and the Board of The Economist:
- Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone PC, DL
- Tim Clark
- Lord O'Donnell CB, KCB, GCB
- Bryan Sanderson
- Rupert Pennant-Rea
- Chris Stibbs
- Sir David Bell
- John Elkann
- Brent Hoberman
- Suzanne Heywood
- Zanny Minton Beddoes
- Baroness Jowell
- Sir Simon Robertson
- Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild
It is the fact that practically every member of the ultra high net worth establishment and "0.01%" loathes Trump with a passion, that he may be just a few months from claiming the US presidency.