Trump Now the Presumptive Republican Nominee

Posted May 4, 2016, 1:02 p.m.

Real-estate mogul Donald Trump (R) is now the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee. Although Trump has yet to attain the necessary 1,237 delegates to the Republican National Convention, his last two opponents—Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Governor John Kasich (R-OH)—suspended their campaigns after Trump’s landslide win in Tuesday’s Indiana primary.

The meteoric rise of Trump—a brash, center-left outsider with virtually no connection the Republican Party machine—has baffled political observers in the United States and abroad. His campaign has successfully tapped into widespread popular frustration both within and outside of the Republican Party, particularly revolving around illegal immigration and the economy. He has received more primary votes than any Republican candidate in history, a statistic partly driven by his ability to draw new voters into the primary process. Many Trump supporters had never voted in a presidential primary before.

Trump is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization, a ninety-three year old conglomerate with interests in—among other things—real estate, investing, and property management. It is composed of more than five hundred subsidiaries, the majority of which are named for Trump. The Trump Organization is based in New York City and employs about 22,000 people. It is owned entirely by the Trump family. Forbes Magazine estimates that Trump’s net worth is about $4.5 billion.

The Trump Organization also owns a television production company that produces The Apprentice for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Trump himself starred in the show from 2004 to 2015. It now stars former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA).

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and difficult as that.

It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record.

Digitalization dehumanizes a conversation. This usually happens in a hidden, insidious way, but sometimes it can also be felt very sharply.

But, as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies . . . that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before.

Make no mistake about it, however: you age as you drift, just as rapidly as you age as you strive.

We tend to think that humans distinguish themselves from animals by greater knowledge and awareness, but the most typical difference is that, unlike animals, we are almost constantly tormented by a lack of knowledge.

I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of its conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity.

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.

Property rights create self-monitoring, which tends to be both more effective and less costly than third-party monitoring.

The science of religion is one science within philosophy; indeed it is the final one.

It appeared to me that there were two paths to truth, [science and faith,] and I decided to follow both of them.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is perverse in his ways.

There is one God, and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded by the voice of the Lord on the rock. . . . Whoever gathers elsewhere scatters.

It is my belief that there are ‘absolutes’ in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be ‘absolutes.’

Every truth—if it really is truth—presents itself as universal, even if it is not the whole truth. If something is true, then it must be true for all people and at all times.

If you buy the story that everything terrible just happened on its own, with no personal responsibility on the part of the victim, you deny that person all agency. . . . In this manner, you strip him or her of all power.

Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners!