When Donald Trump decided to skip one of the debates among the Republican candidates for the presidency of the United States, he announced a charity event designed to raise money for military veterans' organizations. Trump's first accounting of the event was that he had raised $6 million and in January 2016 he announced that he had personally contributed $1 million. Trump didn't provided any accounting of where the money had gone. When reporters began to dig around to find to which organizations the money may have gone, Trump began to hedge about how much money had been raised. Eventually, the total raised settled into the $4.5 million to $4.7 million range.
When reporters could not find any recipients of the money raised, not even Trump's claim of a $1 million contribution, Donald Trump wrote a $1 million check to a veteran's charity. Not much fuss was raised in the media about Trump lying about having contributed the money months ago.
Following the financial meltdown that hit full-tilt shortly before the general election in November 2008, Donald Trump was recorded as saying that the millions of underwater homeowners presented a good opportunity for business persons, who could buy the homes at a depressed price and then sell them for a higher price. This revelation has produced outrage in many quarters, because Trump was viewed as a financial predator, celebrating the opportunity to prey upon the misery of legions of those who were holders of severely depressed assets. Trump has weathered the storm thus far by claiming that he was just expressing a simple truth: that these underwater homes were going to be a good profit opportunity for others.
Regarding veterans, there is a more recent story about Donald Trump's interaction with them. He was present when "Rolling Thunder," a motorcycle grouping, composed mostly of military veterans, converged in Washington, DC. I have heard two comments from the assembled bikers: one criticized Trump for politicizing a patriotic occasion and the other said that he liked Trump because he "speaks his mind." I was amused by this second comment, because Trump must be the only human on the planet who has more than one mind. Trump frequently changes his position on issues, such as saying that no one can live on a wage of $7.25 an hour and then more recently proposing to leave the minimum wage up to the states; also saying that his proposed ban on Muslims was only a "suggestion." Trump also once held diametrically opposed positions on such matters as abortion, gun control and Bill Clinton, whom he once praised to the skies and now regularly denigrates.
The epitome of how Donald Trump can be of two minds in one sentence occurred when he said he opposed guns in school classrooms and in the same sentence said that guns were O.K. in some classrooms. So when a biker said he likes Trump because "he speaks his mind," the biker should specify which mind he has in mind.
ADDENDUM:
What Americans Believe. It is difficult to know what Donald Trump really believes but Americans can surprise us when polled about their beliefs.
*When polled in January 2011, eight in ten Americans believed that "All men are created equal" is in the Constitution.
*A poll taken in April 2009 revealed that a greater proportion of U.S. citizens believe in the literal truth of the Bible than is found in all other Western democracies.
*In another poll taken in April 2009, 57% wanted to bomb North Korean nuclear facilities; 15% opposed.
*There were 58 million monthly U.S. visitors to adult sites in a February 2006 survey. Annual global video views on Pornhub, the adult video-sharing site: 22.3 million in 2009; 87.8 billion in 2015. 46% of men and 16% of women, ages 18 to 39 intentionally view pornography in any given week; 11-13 is the average age of porn viewing by boys; 12 million hours a day are spent viewing porn globally on the adult video-sharing site, Pornhub. 20% of men and 35% of women believe that pornography should be illegal for everyone.
*A poll taken in April 2016 found 73% of Americans favored the U.S. establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba; also, 72% favored ending the trade embargo against Cuba.
*For the first time since 1994, when Gallup started asking the question if Americans oppose nuclear energy, 54% opposed it (April 2016), up from 43% a year ago. The 44% who favor using it is down from 51% a year ago.
*According to the story (Lily Rothman, "Is God Dead?" Time, April 18, 2016) 97% of Americans polled in 1965 believed in God. In 2014, Pew found that only 63% of respondents were absolutely certain about it.
*In a May 2016 poll conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics, only 19% of Americans aged 18 to 29 identified themselves as "capitalists." In the richest and most market-oriented country in the world, only 42% of that group said they "supported capitalism." The number was higher among older people; still only 26% considered themselves to be capitalists. A little over half supported the system as a whole.
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