Donald Trump is not a Republican. He's a hypocrite and a con man.

A plea to my fellow conservatives

Is Donald Trump fooling everyone?
(Image credit: REUTERS/Scott Morgan)

Donald Trump is a con man perpetrating a fraud against Republican voters and the American public at large. Somehow, some way, Trump has convinced people that he is a right-wing Republican. He is lying. On issue after issue — from guns to taxes to immigration — Trump has consistently espoused views that reveal him to be, at best, a left-leaning narcissist whose ravenous hunger for fame is so overpowering that he is willing to forsake any core belief in order to obtain more of it. He cannot be trusted by anyone, especially movement conservatives.

Let's start with taxes and the economy. Real conservatives uncompromisingly oppose counterproductive and unfair taxes and understand that free trade is the only way to preserve America's status as the leader of the free world. Trump disagrees.He wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, impose tariffs that restrict free trade, and increase the tax burden on American corporations. As David McIntosh, the president of the viscerally anti-tax Club for Growth, has explained, Trump's ideas about taxes would "drive the economy into the ground and we'll see huge drops in GDP, and frankly I think it would lead to massive loss of jobs."

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Jeb Golinkin is an attorney from Houston, Texas. You can follow him on twitter @jgolinkin.