Trump is the tip of a populist republican movement that sees establishment republicans as no better than democrats. They believe that all establishment politicians are corrupt egotistical narcissists and so they don't care when the press or others decry these characteristics in Trump. They applaud when Trump openly belittles these elites and refuses to "play along" with the façade of Washington politics. They understand that "polite society" demonizes Trump and demands that we denounce him and pretend that establishment politicians are these highly moral, caring individuals that only want what is "best" for the American people. Each day more and more Americans push back against this farce. Some, like Glenn, do it simply by saying "I would never tell you if I voted for Trump", something that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.
I definitely think Trump is a narcissistic asshole. I’m a classical liberal. (But free-thinker.) I have my critiques of Biden, too. I LOATHE woke identity politics. Wokeism is not liberalism. The ‘polite society’ elite trust-fund moral purity tests are asinine. Here’s another point: Even though I think Trump’s an asshole, I DO understand why half the country voted for him. This is the biggest blind-spot for Dems: They simply cannot see their part in this. Ask not why so many millions voted for Trump; ask instead why so many DIDN’T vote for Hillary. Then you’ll get into the territory of critical thinking and empathy. Ask also why non-white voters (especially Hispanics) are shifting more and more to the Republican side. What are the Dems doing wrong? (A lot.)
Yeah sure but Trump has a unique history. Look at his past. Ya know? Is Biden perfect? Absolutely not. But that seems like a weak comparison lifestyle wise. Trump has always been solely into Trump.
One thing that Trump showed is that the game is fixed. Say what you want, but you know most media, all academia and all 3 letter government agencies have their finger on the scale of justice.
When Ed Koch was fumbling and bumbling, and babbling and prattling, it was Trump who built the ice rink in NYC.
When Trump's father begged him not to invest in Manhattan real estate because their family wasn't part of the elite, he did it anyway and built some of the nations most iconic skyscrapers and golf courses.
Real Estate development is not a profession for dummies. His grandfather was a saloon operator in the wild west. His grandmother invested in properties in queens and his father expanded on that business; his Uncle taught at MIT, and his children are well behaved and thoughtful which resembles good parenting. This doesn't sound like a family of dummies and degenerates. On the other hand, smoking crack cocaine and sleeping with prostitutes might say something about someone's character.
Trump is guilty of being uneducated about politics, law and philosophy; in this way he resembles the average citizen. He's not interested in intellectual pursuits; he could care less about art and music and the refined sensibilities of "polite society." He is probably more like his wild west grandfather than his MIT uncle; he is a rough around the edges; but that has nothing to do with innate intelligence; McWhorter doesn't know anything about building skyscrapers. He couldn't organize it; he couldn't even build a house. He wouldn't know where to begin.
How many successful businesses does McWhorter own?
I like John, but let's get a grip with reality. Knowledge in a particular area doesn't equate to innate intelligence. Unintelligent people cannot show up to a rally, unprepared, with no idea what they're going to talk about, then speak for three hours -- mostly coherently, with the occassional blunder throw in, and in the process convince millions of people to vote for them.
Indeed, you might consider him authentic which in a world of inauthenticity is attractive. How would Obama fair if he wasn't reading from a prompter where every word was carefuly chosen by a political scientist.
People who vote for him are well aware of his weaknesses, but they hope that his strengths and his authenticity and his toughness can help bring common sense solutions to political problems, or at the very least shed some light on a very corrupt political establishment class. Not to mention, his policy positions, for the most part are pretty good.
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).
Absolutely spot on, Liam! And incidentally, as much as we all respect him for his intellect, John McWhorter couldn’t change a fucking tire much less build a skyscraper!
The "Trump test" is the embodiment of what goes wrong when playing the man instead of the ball. Who, other than the most rabid partisan, would say that things have improved under Biden? Playing the man is an intellectually cheap way of fixating on Trump's personal flaws, as if he is the first and only human to have them, while ignoring results under him vs. results under his successor.
The fallacy is the pretense that his election, Trump morphed into something that he had never been. That's nonsense. People knew exactly what they were getting. He's always been loud, vulgar, and unable to walk away from a real or perceived slight. Those people tuned in weekly to hear him tell some poor sap, "you're fired." The same media obsessed with Trump could not interview him often enough when he was a citizen. The larger point is that his election was not about him; it was about a segment of the population that was being ignored and marginalized by the political class. In Trump, these people saw someone who gave voice to their concerns.
Does someone like John honestly think that the country is on better footing now that Orange McBadman is no longer in office? Is NY's crime problem better or worse in the absence of that vulgarian? Is he enjoying the impact of illegal immigration? The same people who were convinced that Trump would usher in World War III or silence opposition voted for a guy who co-opted federal agencies to do the latter while making the former possible. Yet one cannot reason with those people any more than one can explain that at no point did Trump suggest mainlining Lysol as an anti-Covid remedy.
On occasion, election outcomes get questioned. When every instance of voting machine malfunction, late-night ballot deliveries, vote harvesting, and other tactics all work to the benefit of one party, people notice. What are the odds of such a result occurring organically? Trump's biggest sin is in exposing the nasty little duopoly that exists in DC where "public servants" become quite skilled at self-service in what often has less integrity than professional wrestling. At least in the ring, the audience knows the outcome is scripted; in politics, the principals act as if the result is in doubt and their voice will have an impact.
Playing the man has not worked out too well. I think Trump's window has closed and it's time to look to someone new, although that person will be called the same names that DT gets called, the same names used on every GOP nominee in my lifetime. Robbed of the object of their obsession, media folks will have learned nothing from the experience and they will continue to fail in their role, as the Twitter info dump is showing. The worst part is how many people are either comfortable with or ignorant of govt's role in all this. There is no excuse for either scenario, yet here we are.
Rest assured the media and the pundits will pounce on any other Republican candidate (unless it's someone like Cheney or Romney) like a pack of wolves.
I feel obliged to add to my previous response a clarification regarding the Trump phenomenon. What every anti-Trump person ignores or is oblivious to is that the massive support for Trump is and always has been driven by fatigue and anger at the seemingly endless depth of political corruption oozing out of D.C. Trump was the non-politician. The focus by his enemies on his character, personality, narcissism etc. was always seen by his supporters as a lame diversionary tactic in a political environment of sleaze and grift that equally (at the very least) tainted virtually all of his competition as well. Especially Biden! And the insanely hostile reaction of the political class to Trump, the outsider, has only confirmed his supporters in their conviction that the D'C. swamp will stop at NOTHING to prevent Trump from killing their golden goose. The irony is that the evidence is now overwhelming that there is no principle Trump-hating academics will not abandon, and no illegal, unconstitutional or morally repugnant activity they will not defend if Trump is on the other side. Trump is absolutely not guilty of any sin more venal than theirs. History will not be kind to them. Richard Kuyper, Boulder, CO
Taibbi, Weiss, and Schellenberger are making the case that Twitter and Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop story at the FBI’s behest. The FBI was also complicit in the Russian collusion hoax. Perhaps Trump is a bumbler like Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau, but he’s revealed how far the security state is willing to go to control the American people.
I think as far as intending to reveal things goes, Clouseau was way ahead of Trump. But Trump set himself up as a big, fat target and allowed us to get a good look at who was taking shots at him and how they went about it.
The real problem, Glenn, is lacking the courage to point out to the people (like McWhorter) who say 'Trump is an idiot, moron whatever' that already during the campaign there was absolutely no evidence even before his disastrous presidency that THEIR GUY was in any respect a man of more intelligence or higher character than Trump. Biden had a history of plagiarism and dishonesty that had taken him out of a previous presidential campaign. He had a better documented history of racist comments than Trump etc. His son was obviously peddling influence around the globe. Also, if one had no clue regarding the incredibly compromising Hunter's laptop issue prior to the election it is because one rigorously discounted all available information NOT provided by an MSM that obviously was in the tank for Biden and rabidly, injudiciously anti-Trump. That exposes such an egregious lack of intellectual rigor and curiosity that it brings to mind George Orwell's comment that "Some things are so unbelievable only an intellectual would fall for them." (admittedly a rough translation :-) Richard Kuyper, Boulder, CO
If Trump is a " moron", Biden is dumber than a rock. I don't think the guy has ever had an original thought, other than the tall tales he makes up or imagines.
Of course, if we could limit the anti-Trump tirades to something he actually said or actually did and that was actually unique, the conversations would be alot shorter and far more rational.
"And when we reduce our evaluation of this phenomenon to an assessment of his character, we're giving short shrift to the sentiments of those many, many millions who think that he is representing them. He's their tribune, that kind of thing. "
What concerns me greatly is that Glenn Loury is one of the most rational liberals I've ever come across (no, he would not necessarily call himself a liberal, but...), yet he speaks like a true bigot. The main premise of this discourse is that Trump is truly a horrible person, but we should at least be able to draw that conclusion on our own. That's about as broad as the thinking gets among the progressives.
I have a master's in education. That's my preface to saying this: I have found progressivism and progressive education to be sad testaments to intellectual inbreeding and academic incest. There hasn't been a rational thought, or a recognition of factual reality, out of the progressive movement in many decades, if ever. I've been saying this for far longer than Trump has been out there saying essentially the same thing.
Those who take offense at my statements might want to consider one, minor detail. As exemplified in Loury's comments, progressives have been making insulting, bigoted comments about conservatives for longer than I've been alive, which is quite a while. As one really rational democrat once said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
It's about time that we recognize that the progressive movement has a very ugly history, including but not limited to the racism of President Wilson, and the eugenics of Margaret Sanger. Hitler followed the lead of the progressive movement in his racist policies. After you get through choking on that one, try doing some real research and not just cribbing off of each other's master's theses. It's true. Hitler was a progressive. You are not the anointed ones. You are the pigheaded ones.
p.s. I didn't vote for Trump in 2016, because I saw him as no better than Hillary, who is truly a horrible person. So, I voted for libertarian Gary Johnson, his one qualification being that he was neither Trump nor Clinton. Two things led me to vote for him in 2020. One, the horrible, brainless, hate-based persecution of Trump by Pelosi and her cabal of progressive tyrants absolutely horrified me. We are now, thanks to her, a banana republic. Two, Trump proved quite competent. He is capable of thinking and doing outside the political box. Boy, do we need a LOT more of that in DC. Don't you think so?
I find it really easy to denounce a man who was morally responsible for violence at the Capitol and for being such a sore loser.
Trump is the tip of a populist republican movement that sees establishment republicans as no better than democrats. They believe that all establishment politicians are corrupt egotistical narcissists and so they don't care when the press or others decry these characteristics in Trump. They applaud when Trump openly belittles these elites and refuses to "play along" with the façade of Washington politics. They understand that "polite society" demonizes Trump and demands that we denounce him and pretend that establishment politicians are these highly moral, caring individuals that only want what is "best" for the American people. Each day more and more Americans push back against this farce. Some, like Glenn, do it simply by saying "I would never tell you if I voted for Trump", something that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.
I definitely think Trump is a narcissistic asshole. I’m a classical liberal. (But free-thinker.) I have my critiques of Biden, too. I LOATHE woke identity politics. Wokeism is not liberalism. The ‘polite society’ elite trust-fund moral purity tests are asinine. Here’s another point: Even though I think Trump’s an asshole, I DO understand why half the country voted for him. This is the biggest blind-spot for Dems: They simply cannot see their part in this. Ask not why so many millions voted for Trump; ask instead why so many DIDN’T vote for Hillary. Then you’ll get into the territory of critical thinking and empathy. Ask also why non-white voters (especially Hispanics) are shifting more and more to the Republican side. What are the Dems doing wrong? (A lot.)
I write about this kinda stuff on my Stack.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
But let's be fair, most politicians are narcissistic assholes, Biden included.
Yeah sure but Trump has a unique history. Look at his past. Ya know? Is Biden perfect? Absolutely not. But that seems like a weak comparison lifestyle wise. Trump has always been solely into Trump.
Well Biden is no pauper at a worth of about 9 million, and he's been in politics all his life.
I see Trump as the narcissistic, bombastic surgeon who will save a patient's life.
Biden is the quietly narcissistic bumbling surgeon who loses the patient on the operating table.
Loury for President
I’m quite sure you voted for Trump. After all you’d be a fool not to have voted for him no?
One thing that Trump showed is that the game is fixed. Say what you want, but you know most media, all academia and all 3 letter government agencies have their finger on the scale of justice.
When Ed Koch was fumbling and bumbling, and babbling and prattling, it was Trump who built the ice rink in NYC.
When Trump's father begged him not to invest in Manhattan real estate because their family wasn't part of the elite, he did it anyway and built some of the nations most iconic skyscrapers and golf courses.
Real Estate development is not a profession for dummies. His grandfather was a saloon operator in the wild west. His grandmother invested in properties in queens and his father expanded on that business; his Uncle taught at MIT, and his children are well behaved and thoughtful which resembles good parenting. This doesn't sound like a family of dummies and degenerates. On the other hand, smoking crack cocaine and sleeping with prostitutes might say something about someone's character.
Trump is guilty of being uneducated about politics, law and philosophy; in this way he resembles the average citizen. He's not interested in intellectual pursuits; he could care less about art and music and the refined sensibilities of "polite society." He is probably more like his wild west grandfather than his MIT uncle; he is a rough around the edges; but that has nothing to do with innate intelligence; McWhorter doesn't know anything about building skyscrapers. He couldn't organize it; he couldn't even build a house. He wouldn't know where to begin.
How many successful businesses does McWhorter own?
I like John, but let's get a grip with reality. Knowledge in a particular area doesn't equate to innate intelligence. Unintelligent people cannot show up to a rally, unprepared, with no idea what they're going to talk about, then speak for three hours -- mostly coherently, with the occassional blunder throw in, and in the process convince millions of people to vote for them.
Indeed, you might consider him authentic which in a world of inauthenticity is attractive. How would Obama fair if he wasn't reading from a prompter where every word was carefuly chosen by a political scientist.
People who vote for him are well aware of his weaknesses, but they hope that his strengths and his authenticity and his toughness can help bring common sense solutions to political problems, or at the very least shed some light on a very corrupt political establishment class. Not to mention, his policy positions, for the most part are pretty good.
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).
Absolutely spot on, Liam! And incidentally, as much as we all respect him for his intellect, John McWhorter couldn’t change a fucking tire much less build a skyscraper!
The "Trump test" is the embodiment of what goes wrong when playing the man instead of the ball. Who, other than the most rabid partisan, would say that things have improved under Biden? Playing the man is an intellectually cheap way of fixating on Trump's personal flaws, as if he is the first and only human to have them, while ignoring results under him vs. results under his successor.
The fallacy is the pretense that his election, Trump morphed into something that he had never been. That's nonsense. People knew exactly what they were getting. He's always been loud, vulgar, and unable to walk away from a real or perceived slight. Those people tuned in weekly to hear him tell some poor sap, "you're fired." The same media obsessed with Trump could not interview him often enough when he was a citizen. The larger point is that his election was not about him; it was about a segment of the population that was being ignored and marginalized by the political class. In Trump, these people saw someone who gave voice to their concerns.
Does someone like John honestly think that the country is on better footing now that Orange McBadman is no longer in office? Is NY's crime problem better or worse in the absence of that vulgarian? Is he enjoying the impact of illegal immigration? The same people who were convinced that Trump would usher in World War III or silence opposition voted for a guy who co-opted federal agencies to do the latter while making the former possible. Yet one cannot reason with those people any more than one can explain that at no point did Trump suggest mainlining Lysol as an anti-Covid remedy.
On occasion, election outcomes get questioned. When every instance of voting machine malfunction, late-night ballot deliveries, vote harvesting, and other tactics all work to the benefit of one party, people notice. What are the odds of such a result occurring organically? Trump's biggest sin is in exposing the nasty little duopoly that exists in DC where "public servants" become quite skilled at self-service in what often has less integrity than professional wrestling. At least in the ring, the audience knows the outcome is scripted; in politics, the principals act as if the result is in doubt and their voice will have an impact.
Playing the man has not worked out too well. I think Trump's window has closed and it's time to look to someone new, although that person will be called the same names that DT gets called, the same names used on every GOP nominee in my lifetime. Robbed of the object of their obsession, media folks will have learned nothing from the experience and they will continue to fail in their role, as the Twitter info dump is showing. The worst part is how many people are either comfortable with or ignorant of govt's role in all this. There is no excuse for either scenario, yet here we are.
Rest assured the media and the pundits will pounce on any other Republican candidate (unless it's someone like Cheney or Romney) like a pack of wolves.
I feel obliged to add to my previous response a clarification regarding the Trump phenomenon. What every anti-Trump person ignores or is oblivious to is that the massive support for Trump is and always has been driven by fatigue and anger at the seemingly endless depth of political corruption oozing out of D.C. Trump was the non-politician. The focus by his enemies on his character, personality, narcissism etc. was always seen by his supporters as a lame diversionary tactic in a political environment of sleaze and grift that equally (at the very least) tainted virtually all of his competition as well. Especially Biden! And the insanely hostile reaction of the political class to Trump, the outsider, has only confirmed his supporters in their conviction that the D'C. swamp will stop at NOTHING to prevent Trump from killing their golden goose. The irony is that the evidence is now overwhelming that there is no principle Trump-hating academics will not abandon, and no illegal, unconstitutional or morally repugnant activity they will not defend if Trump is on the other side. Trump is absolutely not guilty of any sin more venal than theirs. History will not be kind to them. Richard Kuyper, Boulder, CO
What army is Trump guartering to be a threat to democracy? Leftist (not liberals) now embrace the FBI, CIA , and JD overlords, how ironic!
Taibbi, Weiss, and Schellenberger are making the case that Twitter and Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop story at the FBI’s behest. The FBI was also complicit in the Russian collusion hoax. Perhaps Trump is a bumbler like Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau, but he’s revealed how far the security state is willing to go to control the American people.
I think as far as intending to reveal things goes, Clouseau was way ahead of Trump. But Trump set himself up as a big, fat target and allowed us to get a good look at who was taking shots at him and how they went about it.
The Sellers analogy is brilliant.
The real problem, Glenn, is lacking the courage to point out to the people (like McWhorter) who say 'Trump is an idiot, moron whatever' that already during the campaign there was absolutely no evidence even before his disastrous presidency that THEIR GUY was in any respect a man of more intelligence or higher character than Trump. Biden had a history of plagiarism and dishonesty that had taken him out of a previous presidential campaign. He had a better documented history of racist comments than Trump etc. His son was obviously peddling influence around the globe. Also, if one had no clue regarding the incredibly compromising Hunter's laptop issue prior to the election it is because one rigorously discounted all available information NOT provided by an MSM that obviously was in the tank for Biden and rabidly, injudiciously anti-Trump. That exposes such an egregious lack of intellectual rigor and curiosity that it brings to mind George Orwell's comment that "Some things are so unbelievable only an intellectual would fall for them." (admittedly a rough translation :-) Richard Kuyper, Boulder, CO
If Trump is a " moron", Biden is dumber than a rock. I don't think the guy has ever had an original thought, other than the tall tales he makes up or imagines.
Of course, if we could limit the anti-Trump tirades to something he actually said or actually did and that was actually unique, the conversations would be alot shorter and far more rational.
That would help all of us.
"And when we reduce our evaluation of this phenomenon to an assessment of his character, we're giving short shrift to the sentiments of those many, many millions who think that he is representing them. He's their tribune, that kind of thing. "
What concerns me greatly is that Glenn Loury is one of the most rational liberals I've ever come across (no, he would not necessarily call himself a liberal, but...), yet he speaks like a true bigot. The main premise of this discourse is that Trump is truly a horrible person, but we should at least be able to draw that conclusion on our own. That's about as broad as the thinking gets among the progressives.
I have a master's in education. That's my preface to saying this: I have found progressivism and progressive education to be sad testaments to intellectual inbreeding and academic incest. There hasn't been a rational thought, or a recognition of factual reality, out of the progressive movement in many decades, if ever. I've been saying this for far longer than Trump has been out there saying essentially the same thing.
Those who take offense at my statements might want to consider one, minor detail. As exemplified in Loury's comments, progressives have been making insulting, bigoted comments about conservatives for longer than I've been alive, which is quite a while. As one really rational democrat once said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
It's about time that we recognize that the progressive movement has a very ugly history, including but not limited to the racism of President Wilson, and the eugenics of Margaret Sanger. Hitler followed the lead of the progressive movement in his racist policies. After you get through choking on that one, try doing some real research and not just cribbing off of each other's master's theses. It's true. Hitler was a progressive. You are not the anointed ones. You are the pigheaded ones.
p.s. I didn't vote for Trump in 2016, because I saw him as no better than Hillary, who is truly a horrible person. So, I voted for libertarian Gary Johnson, his one qualification being that he was neither Trump nor Clinton. Two things led me to vote for him in 2020. One, the horrible, brainless, hate-based persecution of Trump by Pelosi and her cabal of progressive tyrants absolutely horrified me. We are now, thanks to her, a banana republic. Two, Trump proved quite competent. He is capable of thinking and doing outside the political box. Boy, do we need a LOT more of that in DC. Don't you think so?