September 4, 2015

In Shocker, Media Learns That Donald Trump Doesn’t Know Anything

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Color me surprised. I read Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Donald Trump yesterday and commented on it, but it didn’t even occur to me to say anything about the substance of Trump’s replies. I mentioned as an aside that Trump, as usual, was “comically ignorant” of pretty much everything, and thought no more about it. That’s just standard Trump.

But today’s headlines are all about Trump’s “struggles,” “stumbles,” and “gaffes.” That’s all totally fair, but why did it take this interview to suddenly wake everyone up? Trump has been responding to questions this way for the entire campaign. Ask him about China, and he says he’ll send Carl Icahn over. Ask him how he’ll get Mexico to pay for a wall, and he says “management.” Ask him about taxes and he says he’ll be great for the middle class. Ask him for his favorite Bible verse and he claims that’s too personal to share.

This has been his MO all along. His ignorance—and his shameless lack of interest in fixing it—has always been obvious. He doesn’t even try to hide it. He’ll hire good people. He’ll delegate. He’ll learn it when he needs to. He’s entirely up front about not knowing squat, and it’s barely even caused a ripple. Until now. Suddenly everyone is shocked to learn that Trump doesn’t know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah.

I guess it was bound to happen sometime. Perhaps the Trump show was just too entertaining to ruin with this kind of pedantry back in August. What would we all have written about without him?

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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