An NPR outlet claims that tRump's opposition is looking for any reason to trash The Donald and his current feud with the Club for Growth means that libertarians' selective memes within the GOP about the misuse of state power are coming forward. Going back to the 1990s they're citing Trump's use of the state of NJ to acquire land for a casino limo lot in Atlantic City NJ. Much grasping for strawmen in a libertarian view of a utopian minimal state that would allow lawyers to work but never cop to how the state uses laws as instruments of power deployed for individual (corporate) gain as much as it might protect individual property rights. The selective use of property rights is a feature of conservative discourse usually depending on the strength of legal challenges to property rights much like other examples in terms of corporate standing or control of the airwaves.
The legal process by which states acquire private property for public use, eminent domain is generally far from a big campaign issue. But with other GOP attacks on Trump's record having done little to blunt the real estate mogul's rise in the race, conservative operatives have launched an ad campaign criticizing Trump's past support for eminent domain."Trump supports eminent domain abuse," screams an attack ad paid for by the Club for Growth that started airing last week in the early-caucus state of Iowa. "He can make millions," the ad continues, "while we lose our property rights."...
The Club for Growth's ad refers to a controversial 2005 Supreme Court decision on eminent domain that allowed New London, Conn., to force the sale of private homes to facilitate a large-scale private redevelopment project that included housing, hotels and a pharmaceutical research center. Most Republicans blasted that ruling as an assault on property rights.
Donald Trump, not so much. "I happen to agree with it 100 percent," Trump told Fox News in 2005....
"This guy's a bully," says David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. "Using the power of government to take a widow's property is pretty much the definition of a bully."...
"If you really do believe that Donald Trump is a guy who believes in small government and free enterprise and the Constitution," Boaz said, "then this ought to shake your understanding in that way."
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