OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2016
Trump, the great betrayer
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Sheri Salber, a public health nurse, shows where vaccines are kept in
the Clatsop County Public Health Department office. The Health De-
partment offers immunizations for children, teens, and adults.
Bacteria evolves as
public health wanes
$1 spent on disease prevention
yields $5.60 in healthcare savings
he egregious shortage of funding for Clatsop County
Public Health reported Friday by Kyle Spurr is a gap
echoed around the state and region. It is a failure in public
policy that will come back to haunt residents who rarely give
public health a second thought.
As we reported, Clatsop far from defeated. According
County has three full-time to the biotech organization
nursing positions — split Aeras, around the world
among six individuals — “Each year, more than 9 mil-
to serve our 37,000-person lion people become sick with
community. Over the past TB and 1.5 million people
¿YH \HDUV WKH ORFDO KHDOWK die of the disease.”
agency has received nearly
$600,000 less than what was
latsop County Public
budgeted. Rising costs and
Health is tasked with
a need to pay more to staff plenty more than just staying
mean constant erosion of the on top of potentially deadly
agency’s purchasing power. disease outbreaks. It runs a
Among many genuine general clinic, makes home
advances in medicine and visits, helps with family
healthcare in the past century, planning and assists with
it’s likely nothing has made key aspects of the Women,
more of a difference in alle- Infant and Children (WIC)
viating suffering and extend- program.
ing lifespans than the system-
Public Health Director
atic efforts made by public Brian Mahoney notes a dis-
health services. In our area, tinct shortfall in existing
this work effectively ended services in the area of help-
an assortment of nasty germs ing confront and manage
that once spread among the chronic diseases, several of
population. It is easy to forget which are rife in the county.
that communicable diseases He cites heart disease, high
nearly wiped out our region’s blood pressure and diabetes,
Native American population. to which we would add sub-
Whites also contracted these stance addiction, as problems
illnesses. Despite somewhat the agency could play an
stronger immunity, many expanded role in addressing.
The agency is continuing to
died.
The age of communicable build collaborative relation-
disease ebbed for decades fol- ships with other key players,
lowing the advent of immu- including Providence Seaside
nizations, antibiotics, clean and Columbia Memorial hos-
water and other innovations. pitals, to achieve its complex
Authorities now fear a resur- set of missions.
But there ultimately is no
gence as bacteria evolve and
substitute for more money,
public awareness wanes.
One man with tuberculous made reliably available year
recently exposed more than after year. Public health is not
100 people in the county. DEDWWOH¿HOGRQZKLFKD¿QDO
3XEOLFKHDOWKVWDIIKDGWR¿QG victory can be claimed. It
where the person with TB requires constant and consis-
had been, how long he spent tent diligence, traits that are
in those places and who was at odds with current public
exposed. Every one of those ¿QDQFHVDQGDWWHQWLRQVSDQ
At least on the local level,
people had to be tested and
budget writers must bear in
some had to be treated.
TB is a scourge that U.S. mind that a dollar spent on
citizens have mostly for- disease prevention yields
gotten, but which once $5.60 in healthcare savings.
killed tens of thousands of 7KLV LV D FRVWEHQH¿W UDWLR
Americans each year. It is that warrants action.
T
C
ow, at long last, the big
guns are being brought to
N
bear.
Now, at long last, some major
Republicans like Mitt Romney are
speaking up to lay waste to Donald
Trump.
For months
Trump’s rivals
and other Repub-
licans have either
retreated
in
silence or tenta-
tively and ineptly
criticized him
for exactly those
traits that voters
like about him:
David
for being a slap-
Brooks
dash, politically
incorrect money-hungry bully.
%XW QRZ ¿QDOO\ ² DW ORQJ ODVW ²
major Republicans are raising their
heads and highlighting Trump’s actual
vulnerability: his inability to think for
an extended time about anybody but
himself.
+H VHGXFHV SHRSOH ZLWK KLV FRQ¿-
dence and his promises. People invest
time, love and money in him. But in
the end he cares only about himself. He
betrays those who trust him and leaves
them high and dry.
It’s unpleasant to have to play poli-
tics on this personal level. But this is a
message that can sway potential Trump
supporters, many of whom have only the
barest information on what Trump’s life
and career have actually been like.
This is a message that can work in a
sour and cynical time among voters who
already feel betrayed. This is a message
that can work because it’s a personal-
ity type everyone understands. This is a
time when it is not in fact too late, when
it may still be possible to prevent his
nomination.
The campaign against Trump has
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clear examples, rolled out day upon day
with the same message. Donald Trump
betrays.
It can start with Trump University,
where Trump betrayed schoolteachers
and others who dreamed of building a
better life for themselves.
Trump billed his university as a
place people could go to learn every-
thing necessary about real estate invest-
LQJ$FFRUGLQJ WR D ODZVXLW ¿OHG
by New York’s attorney general, Eric
Schneiderman, more than 5,000 peo-
ple paid $40 million, a quarter of which
went to Trump himself.
Internal Trump University docu-
Carlos Osorio/AP Photo
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves as he arrives
at a rally at Macomb Community College, Friday, in Warren, Mich.
ments suggest that the university wasn’t
Jennifer McGovern had trusted
really oriented around teaching, but Trump and went to work for him. But
rather around luring customers into buy- she got stiffed in the end. In 2008 a
ing more and more courses.
New York state Supreme Court judge
According to the New York lawsuit, ordered Trump Mortgage to pay her the
LQVWUXFWRUV¿OOHGRXWFRXUVHHYDOXDWLRQV $298,274 she was owed. The bill wasn’t
WKHPVHOYHV RU KDG VWXGHQWV ¿OO RXW WKH paid.
non-anonymous forms in front of them,
“The company was set up in a way
pressuring them into giving positive that we could never recover what we
reviews. During breaks
were owed,” she told
students were told to call
The Washington Post.
The
their credit card compa-
The stories can go
nies to increase their
on and on. The betrayal
campaign of investors when his
credit limits. They were
given a script encour-
casino businesses went
against
aging them to exagger-
bankrupt. The betrayal
ate their incomes. The
RI KLV ¿UVW ZLIH ZLWK
Trump
Better Business Bureau
KLVÀDJUDQWSXEOLFDIIDLU
has to be with Marla Maples.
gave the school a D- rat-
ing in 2010.
betrayal of Amer-
specific and The
“They lure you in
ican workers when he
with false promises,”
relentless: decided to hire illegals.
one student, Patricia
The people left in the
Donald
Murphy, told The Times
wake of other deba-
in 2011. Murphy said
cles: Trump Air, Trump
Trump
she had spent about
Vodka, Trump Finan-
$12,000 on Trump Uni-
cial, etc.
betrays.
versity classes, much
These weren’t just
of it racked up on her
risks that went bad.
credit cards. “I was scammed,” she said. They were shams, built like his cam-
The barrage can continue with paign around empty promises and
Trump Mortgage. On the campaign trail, on Trump’s fragile and overweening
Trump tells people he saw the mortgage pride.
crisis coming. “I told a lot of people,” he
The burden of responsibility now
has said, “and I was right. You know, I’m IDOOV RQ 5HSXEOLFDQ RI¿FLDOV HOHFWHG
pretty good at that stuff.”
and nonelected, at all levels. For years
Trump’s biggest lies are the ones he they have built relationships in their
tells himself. The reality is that Trump communities, earned the right to be
opened his mortgage company in 2006. heard. If they now feel that Donald
Others smelled a bubble, but not Trump. Trump would be a reckless and danger-
“I think it’s a great time to start a mort- ous president, then they have a respon-
gage company,” he told CNBC. “The sibility to their country to tell those peo-
real estate market is going to be very ple the truth, to rally all their energies
strong for a long time to come.”
against this man.
Part of the operation was a boiler
Since the start of his campaign
room where people cold-called clients, Trump has had more energy and more
sometimes pushing subprime loans and courage than his opponents. Maybe
offering easy approval.
that’s now changing.
Clash of Republican con artists
he ever heard of Nixon’s
lishment wants to preserve
“Southern strategy”; of
the façade, which will
Ronald Reagan’s invoca-
be hard if the nominee is
someone who refuses to
o Republicans are going tions of welfare queens and
“strapping young bucks”
play his part.
to nominate a candidate using food stamps; of Wil-
By the way, I pre-
dict that even if Trump is
who talks complete nonsense lie Horton?
Put it this way: There’s
the nominee, pundits and
on domestic policy; who a reason
whites in the Deep
others who claim to be
believes that foreign policy South vote something like
thoughtful conservatives
90
percent
Republican,
and
will stroke their chins and
can be conducted via bully-
Paul
it’s not their philosophical
declare, after a great show
Krugman
ing and belligerence; who attachment to libertarian
of careful deliberation, that
he’s the better choice given
cynically exploits racial and principles.
Then there’s foreign policy, where +LOODU\¶V FKDUDFWHU ÀDZV RU VRPH-
ethnic hatred for political Trump is, if anything, more rea- thing. And self-proclaimed centrists
gain.
sonable — or more accurately, less ZLOOVWLOO¿QGDZD\WRFODLPWKDWWKH
But that was always going to hap- unreasonable — than his rivals. He’s sides are equally bad. But both acts
pen, however the primary season ¿QHZLWKWRUWXUHEXWZKRRQWKDWVLGH will look especially strained.
of the aisle isn’t? He’s belligerent, but
Equally important, the Trump phe-
turned out.
unlike Rubio, he isn’t the favorite of nomenon threatens the con the GOP
The only news is that the candi- the neoconservatives, aka the people establishment has been playing on its
date in question is probably going responsible for the Iraq debacle. He’s own base. I’m talking about the bait
to be Donald Trump. Establishment even said what everyone knows but and switch in which white voters are
Republicans denounce
nobody on the right is induced to hate big government by
Trump as a fraud, which
supposed to admit, that dog whistles about Those People, but
Yes,
he is. But is he more
the Bush administra- actual policies are all about rewarding
fraudulent than the
tion deliberately misled the donor class.
establishment trying to Trump’s a America into that disas-
What Donald Trump has done is
stop him? Not really.
trous
war.
tell
the base that it doesn’t have to
con man,
Actually, when you
Oh, and it’s Ted accept the whole package. He prom-
look at the people mak-
Cruz, not Trump, who ises to make America white again
but he
ing those denunciations,
seems eager to “carpet — surely everyone knows that’s the
is also
you have to wonder: Can
bomb” people, without real slogan, right? — while simulta-
they really be that lack-
to know what neously promising to protect Social
acting as appearing
ing in self-awareness?
that means.
Security and Medicare, and hinting
Donald Trump is a a whistle-
In fact, you have to at (though not actually proposing)
“con artist,” says Marco
wonder why, exactly, higher taxes on the rich. Outraged
Rubio — who has prom-
the Republican estab- establishment Republicans splutter
blower
ised to enact giant tax
lishment is really so that he’s not a real conservative, but
on other KRUUL¿HGE\7UXPS<HV neither, it turns out, are many of their
cuts, undertake a huge
military buildup and bal-
a con man, but they own voters.
people’s he’s
ance the budget without
all are. So why is this
-XVWWREHFOHDU,¿QGWKHSURVSHFW
DQ\ FXWV LQ EHQH¿WV WR
con
job
different
from
of
a
Trump administration terrifying,
cons.
Americans over 55.
any other?
and so should you. But you should
“There can be no
The answer, I’d sug- DOVREHWHUUL¿HGE\WKHSURVSHFWRID
evasion and no games,” thunders Paul gest, is that the establishment’s prob- President Rubio, sitting in the White
Ryan, the speaker of the House — lem with Trump isn’t the con he House with his circle of warmongers,
whose much-hyped budgets are com- brings; it’s the cons he disrupts.
or a President Cruz, whom one sus-
pletely reliant on “mystery meat,”
First, there’s the con Republicans pects would love to bring back the
that is, it claims trillions of dollars usually manage to pull off in national Spanish Inquisition.
in revenue can be collected by clos- elections — the one where they pose
As I see it, then, we should actu-
LQJXQVSHFL¿HGWD[ORRSKROHVDQGWULO- as a serious, grown-up party hon- ally welcome Trump’s ascent. Yes,
OLRQVPRUHVDYHGWKURXJKXQVSHFL¿HG estly trying to grapple with America’s he’s a con man, but he is also effec-
spending cuts.
problems. The truth is, that party died tively acting as a whistle-blower on
Ryan also declares that the “party a long time ago, that these days it’s other people’s cons. That is, believe it
of Lincoln” must “reject any group voodoo economics and neocon fanta- or not, a step forward in these weird,
or cause that is built on bigotry.” Has sies all the way down. But the estab- troubled times.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
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