… During the campaign, Mr. Trump spoke disgracefully of women and the disabled; he scoffed at the self-sacrifice of more than one war hero; he uttered many statements that he knew, or should have known, were flatly untrue. These are serious, regrettable offenses. Even here, though, Mr. Trump exploded the fiction of expertise that has calcified our politics and alienated governors from the governed. That such a man could win a national election should destroy whatever faith we had in political adepts. Where were the experts in 2015 who concluded that, despite everything we knew about him—and all we could guess—Mr. Trump could win the presidency? There were some, but they were very few indeed.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Much in what he says …
… A Trump Achievement That Everyone Can Cheer - WSJ.
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I don't cheer wins. I cheer achievements.
ReplyDeleteThen make sure never to place a bet.
ReplyDeleteI only bet on certainties -- i.e. never.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Winners come and go. Achievers leave a legacy. (Though I will grant you that some winners leave a legacy too, even one which may be noxious.)
ReplyDeleteThat Trump was elected despite numerous instances of contemptible speech and action was not, as Swaim contends, an achievement. It was a demonstration of the undercurrents of bigotry that continue to course through American life.
ReplyDeleteI'm talking about the bigotry of double standards, a bigotry that allows, even rewards, a white male for doing and saying things that would result in the spit-roasting of a woman or a black (or Hispanic) man.
Imagine a black candidate, even one similar to Trump in ideology, approachability and unpredictability, saying that he likes to grab women' genitals. There's not a chance on God's green earth that he would have been supported by the majority of those who voted for Trump. It's equally unlikely they would have supported a woman who announced a fondness for grabbing men's dicks.
Or consider Trump's contention -- in apparent ignorance of the history of slavery and Jim Crow -- that life for blacks in this country has never been worse than it is now. Imagine the response of the electorate had that claim been made by our hypothetical "black Trump".
The second paragraph is a bit of a syntactical muddle, but the point is clear.
ReplyDeleteI should have added that, to date, I have asked 47 Trump supporters -- all friends: hunting and fishing buddies, members of my church parish, in-laws -- whether they would have voted for a black or woman candidate who behaved like Trump. All were startled by the question; 15 claimed they would have, but 32 admitted that they would not have.
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