Donald Trump has worn many hats. From real estate magnate and beauty pageant promoter to casino boss and reality TV star, his has been a very public career.
That Trump's presidential candidate rhetoric reveals an unscalable, high hypocrisy seems a natural fit.
Nearly every American knows about the despicable things Trump had to say about Mexicans while many immigrants were hard at work at the construction site of his Washington, D.C. hotel.
And voters are very familiar with the insults he leveled at John McCain regarding the Senator's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, despite Trump's own draft deferments.
I'm here to shed some more light on yet another Trump bluster bomb.
Fun fact: Donald Trump said "China" twenty-one times during his rambling campaign announcement speech. But while his thoughts were all over the place, among them was this observation about his fellow Republican candidates:
I hear their speeches. And they don't talk jobs. They don't talk China. When was the last time you heard 'China's killing us?' They're devaluing their currency to a level that you wouldn't believe. It makes it impossible for our companies to compete.
Never mind that candidates like Sen. Lindsey Graham, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee do talk about China; Trump doesn't care to notice. The kernel in that quip is that he thinks China is cheating, that the Chinese have taken our manufacturing jobs, and that no one else in the field will do anything about it. And while a Donald Trump stump speech often avoids policy specifics, he went on to say this:
I will be the greatest jobs president god ever created, I tell you that. I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.
And here's where the hypocrite charge comes in.
It took almost no time at all -- somewhere between minutes and hours -- for folks on the internet to check the labels on various Trump paraphernalia, and as you would suspect, none of that stuff is made here. A heck of a lot of it, in fact, is made in China and Mexico.
Color no one surprised that Donald Trump is bemoaning the loss of manufacturing jobs to America's international competitors while the detritus he hawks at his many gift shops (and used to hawk at Macy's) is all made overseas. In fact, he'll be very forthright about the issue if you ask him; he told a CNN interviewer that it's a strictly business decision to have his own goods made in China. You can't turn a profit, he argues, manufacturing in America.
Maybe, on second thought, Donald Trump isn't a gross hypocrite for buying all of that Trump stuff from China; just grossly cynical, and not a candidate who will lead by example. Still, it's not a good look, and it's one of the million reasons he doesn't look very presidential.
Now, on the eve of a nationally televised candidates' debate in Cleveland, Donald Trump leads the field he insults on a nearly daily basis. I don't expect Donald Trump to show any shame over his hypocrisy. But I'll fault him for this: For a guy who fashions himself as America's most imaginative and successful entrepreneur, he never quite figured out a way to make his products in America, while many other folks have, even with the deck stacked against them.
So, on behalf of them, it's my turn to insult Donald Trump: You, sir, are a Made in America loser. The millions of factory workers still at work all over America deserve a whole lot better than your bluster. I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is and make it American-made.