I have a very hard time with Trump. I see few positives by my normal standards, but see quite a few relative to my other options.
Politician speak just gets old. It’s so obviously fake. Every message is workshopped and every word is from an approved-words list. It’s painfully insincere and robotic. Trump, though I am entirely put off by his gargantuan ego, is a respite from this. The best part of Dave Chappelle’s SNL intro was when he said Trump was an “honest liar”. He exaggerates and flat out lies with regularity (usually in service of his ego) but does not lie in the same way polished politicians lie. All of their lies are just building blocks for a much larger lie, which is intended to hide the very core of their motivations. And it’s even worse because they coordinate their lies to form party lies. They are painting a masterpiece of a lie while Trump is doodling. I like that the thought of Trump going off script keeps his own party up at night. Their discomfort is comforting to me.
If Trump wasn’t shackled by his massive ego, he might be unstoppable. I am sure many disagree, but this election stealing claim was inevitable if he lost. Trump cannot bear the idea of Trump losing anything. That would be too much of a hit to his ego so he was never going to concede that a half-senile moron beat him. I wish his built-in excuse would have been that had covid not hit, he would have mopped the floor with Biden. Which I believe is true. If he had chosen that path, this mid-term would have been a massive red wave and he could have set himself up to be the returning savior in 2024. But that ego just wouldn’t allow for anything less than total denial.
There have been a number of documented cases of voter fraud occuring in both local and national elections (see the book blackbox voting 2003).
An MIT scientist would also disagree with your analysis of 2020. Is that MIT scientist suffering from "massive ego" or is he looking at the data and drawing conclusions from the data? Could he be wrong? Sure. Does that mean he's an egotistical megalomaniac? If not, then why is Trump also egotistical for drawing the same conclusion?
For a judge to intervene the evidence would have to be overwhelming, and the evidence would need to be direct, not indirect, and so the bar is very high; but that doesn't mean that four swing states having problems in the middle of the night isn't suspsicious, or that Trump's claims are necessarily unfounded. I think the American people understand that the establishment doesn't like him, that there is an effort to "stop him" and that this hatred might lead to backroom deals with certain people who could swing and election. Now, I don't know if it was stolen or not, but when the carter center vehemently attacks mail-in ballots abroad, claiming they are a recipe for commiting voter fraud, and then suddenly the carter center is silent about domestic mail-in ballots one must conclude that this inconsistency is a red-flag. When people are permitted to vote without an ID, and you have circumstantial evidence that radical left NGO's are sending busses from NYC to vote in South Carolina elections, then this is a red-flag. When you have voting machines that have been banned abroad for "fractional voting" in places like Venezuela and Philippines, and yet those machines are permitted to operate within the U.S then this is a red-flag.
I'm not sure it makes sense to paint Trump as egotistical because he asks questions that many others are asking. Now if you want to call him egotistical because he loves to tell us how he rich is -- "like really rich" -- lol, then that's another matter.
- - “An MIT scientist would also disagree with your analysis of 2020. Is that MIT scientist suffering from "massive ego" or is he looking at the data and drawing conclusions from the data? Could he be wrong? Sure. Does that mean he's an egotistical megalomaniac? If not, then why is Trump also egotistical for drawing the same conclusion?”
This argument doesn’t make sense to me. Trumps ego could be involved because HE suffered the loss. The MIT scientists ego would never be involved because the loss had nothing to do with him personally. As for my opinion that Trumps ego was behind his denial, that was an opinion based on countless examples of his ego being his top priority. Something tells me Trump didn’t do an objective deep dive on the data before deciding the election was stolen.
We have audio of Trump claiming that there were hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in Georgia. Which is beyond what even the most dedicated supporters would claim. And that Ratffensperger needed to “find” him votes. That is not a man simply in search of truth, and willing to go wherever truth leads. That is a man who has made up his mind that he couldn’t have lost and isn’t even attempting to identify the votes that are fraudulent. He is attempting to change the count based on principle, not based on an accurate recount.
- -“I’m not sure it makes sense to paint Trump as egotistical because he asks questions that many others are asking.”
Trump is not “asking questions”. He is saying “I clearly won the election in a landslide and they stole it from me!!!!” It’s comical when people recast Trump as measured and reasonable.
The fact is that we adjudicated this the only way we know how, which is the courts. If you are convinced the other side has ill-intent then circumstantial evidence will abound. You will find things that are fishy and things that just don’t feel right. And I would bet my life that only goes one way. Trump supporters scour the Internet for clues that he is right. If it was the other way around and Biden was making the claim, they would accept the courts ruling and ridicule those on he left citing that one MIT scientist who agrees with them.
Edit - when I stated "that only goes one way". I meant Trump supporters don't search for evidence to support weak claims made by the left. I did not mean that the left doesn't do the same thing. They absolutely do. Russiagate was a fine example
And yes, I think there is something beautiful about a person of action. We all have a role; John and Glenn have a role in society, but society wouldn't function if everyone had their head in a book. Innovations require application (i.e, doing something); building houses, running businesses, driving trucks and repairing tires requires real tangible skills that go beyond musings and ponderings. Many of these people, once respected for fufilling their role, are now attacked as "idiots, racists, xenophobes", etc, etc by intellectual apparatchiks and their busybodies.
Someone whose willing to stand on that threshold and admit their imperfect (or at least not a give a damn) and say hey folks say this is me: the good, the bad and the ugly; I might be course and unsavoury, and you know I've got a lot of baggage; but man oh man do I love life and liberty and I'll do anything to preserve it, deserves a degree of respect and admiration.
In some ways Trump is the kryptonite to the intolerant puritan intellectuals who seek total compliance and collective obedience to their perfecly ordered -- and therefore extremely mundane -- manufactured politically correct dystopia (utopia for them).
FWIW, I think you wrote a good apologia for Trump. Thanks for taking the time!
In the article, Glenn pointed out that many people who support Trump do so because they believe he represents them.
In fact, as someone fighting for them against "the Establishment", many seem to see his crudeness and anti-intellectualism as desirable traits.
I have a very hard time with Trump. I see few positives by my normal standards, but see quite a few relative to my other options.
Politician speak just gets old. It’s so obviously fake. Every message is workshopped and every word is from an approved-words list. It’s painfully insincere and robotic. Trump, though I am entirely put off by his gargantuan ego, is a respite from this. The best part of Dave Chappelle’s SNL intro was when he said Trump was an “honest liar”. He exaggerates and flat out lies with regularity (usually in service of his ego) but does not lie in the same way polished politicians lie. All of their lies are just building blocks for a much larger lie, which is intended to hide the very core of their motivations. And it’s even worse because they coordinate their lies to form party lies. They are painting a masterpiece of a lie while Trump is doodling. I like that the thought of Trump going off script keeps his own party up at night. Their discomfort is comforting to me.
If Trump wasn’t shackled by his massive ego, he might be unstoppable. I am sure many disagree, but this election stealing claim was inevitable if he lost. Trump cannot bear the idea of Trump losing anything. That would be too much of a hit to his ego so he was never going to concede that a half-senile moron beat him. I wish his built-in excuse would have been that had covid not hit, he would have mopped the floor with Biden. Which I believe is true. If he had chosen that path, this mid-term would have been a massive red wave and he could have set himself up to be the returning savior in 2024. But that ego just wouldn’t allow for anything less than total denial.
There have been a number of documented cases of voter fraud occuring in both local and national elections (see the book blackbox voting 2003).
An MIT scientist would also disagree with your analysis of 2020. Is that MIT scientist suffering from "massive ego" or is he looking at the data and drawing conclusions from the data? Could he be wrong? Sure. Does that mean he's an egotistical megalomaniac? If not, then why is Trump also egotistical for drawing the same conclusion?
For a judge to intervene the evidence would have to be overwhelming, and the evidence would need to be direct, not indirect, and so the bar is very high; but that doesn't mean that four swing states having problems in the middle of the night isn't suspsicious, or that Trump's claims are necessarily unfounded. I think the American people understand that the establishment doesn't like him, that there is an effort to "stop him" and that this hatred might lead to backroom deals with certain people who could swing and election. Now, I don't know if it was stolen or not, but when the carter center vehemently attacks mail-in ballots abroad, claiming they are a recipe for commiting voter fraud, and then suddenly the carter center is silent about domestic mail-in ballots one must conclude that this inconsistency is a red-flag. When people are permitted to vote without an ID, and you have circumstantial evidence that radical left NGO's are sending busses from NYC to vote in South Carolina elections, then this is a red-flag. When you have voting machines that have been banned abroad for "fractional voting" in places like Venezuela and Philippines, and yet those machines are permitted to operate within the U.S then this is a red-flag.
I'm not sure it makes sense to paint Trump as egotistical because he asks questions that many others are asking. Now if you want to call him egotistical because he loves to tell us how he rich is -- "like really rich" -- lol, then that's another matter.
- - “An MIT scientist would also disagree with your analysis of 2020. Is that MIT scientist suffering from "massive ego" or is he looking at the data and drawing conclusions from the data? Could he be wrong? Sure. Does that mean he's an egotistical megalomaniac? If not, then why is Trump also egotistical for drawing the same conclusion?”
This argument doesn’t make sense to me. Trumps ego could be involved because HE suffered the loss. The MIT scientists ego would never be involved because the loss had nothing to do with him personally. As for my opinion that Trumps ego was behind his denial, that was an opinion based on countless examples of his ego being his top priority. Something tells me Trump didn’t do an objective deep dive on the data before deciding the election was stolen.
We have audio of Trump claiming that there were hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in Georgia. Which is beyond what even the most dedicated supporters would claim. And that Ratffensperger needed to “find” him votes. That is not a man simply in search of truth, and willing to go wherever truth leads. That is a man who has made up his mind that he couldn’t have lost and isn’t even attempting to identify the votes that are fraudulent. He is attempting to change the count based on principle, not based on an accurate recount.
- -“I’m not sure it makes sense to paint Trump as egotistical because he asks questions that many others are asking.”
Trump is not “asking questions”. He is saying “I clearly won the election in a landslide and they stole it from me!!!!” It’s comical when people recast Trump as measured and reasonable.
The fact is that we adjudicated this the only way we know how, which is the courts. If you are convinced the other side has ill-intent then circumstantial evidence will abound. You will find things that are fishy and things that just don’t feel right. And I would bet my life that only goes one way. Trump supporters scour the Internet for clues that he is right. If it was the other way around and Biden was making the claim, they would accept the courts ruling and ridicule those on he left citing that one MIT scientist who agrees with them.
Edit - when I stated "that only goes one way". I meant Trump supporters don't search for evidence to support weak claims made by the left. I did not mean that the left doesn't do the same thing. They absolutely do. Russiagate was a fine example
Thank you for your comments.
And yes, I think there is something beautiful about a person of action. We all have a role; John and Glenn have a role in society, but society wouldn't function if everyone had their head in a book. Innovations require application (i.e, doing something); building houses, running businesses, driving trucks and repairing tires requires real tangible skills that go beyond musings and ponderings. Many of these people, once respected for fufilling their role, are now attacked as "idiots, racists, xenophobes", etc, etc by intellectual apparatchiks and their busybodies.
Someone whose willing to stand on that threshold and admit their imperfect (or at least not a give a damn) and say hey folks say this is me: the good, the bad and the ugly; I might be course and unsavoury, and you know I've got a lot of baggage; but man oh man do I love life and liberty and I'll do anything to preserve it, deserves a degree of respect and admiration.
In some ways Trump is the kryptonite to the intolerant puritan intellectuals who seek total compliance and collective obedience to their perfecly ordered -- and therefore extremely mundane -- manufactured politically correct dystopia (utopia for them).