I’ve been thinking that Donald Trump is going to lose on November 3rd.
Why? It’s just a feeling, but I think enough Americans are tiring of his act to tip the scales to Joe Biden, which in my view is not a lot to celebrate.
Senator Joseph McCarthy had his run of malicious lies and denunciations in the alleged cause of anti-communism, but the American people tired of him. They came to reject a man with no sense of decency — a man of no shame. Trump is also indecent and shameless — and reckless with his accusations. These qualities endear him to his closest followers, but over time they lose their appeal to those who aren’t as enamored with the man-child.
Today we learned Trump released his own video of his interview on “60 Minutes.” I chuckled when I read his description of his performance:
“Watch [Stahl’s] constant interruptions [and] anger. Compare my full, flowing and ‘magnificently brilliant’ answers,” Trump tweeted along with the link to the interview.
“Magnificently brilliant”: you have to hand it to Trump. What modesty! The “very stable genius” strikes again.
Readers of Bracing Views know I like to cite my father and one of his favorite sayings: An empty barrel makes the most noise. I think enough Americans are tiring of that noise, and enough have recognized the emptiness of the man, to throw the election to Biden. Which, again, is not a lot to celebrate.
Readers, what do you think on this eve before the last debate? Any predictions?
Back in May of 2016, I wrote an article on two big reasons not to vote for Donald Trump. Those reasons, his denial of climate change and his cavalier approach to nuclear weapons, remain valid. But I’d like to add two more that we were unaware of in 2016: his total inability to bring people together, i.e. his divide and rule approach to everything; and his murderously incompetent response to Covid-19.
If there are any lukewarm Trump supporters reading this, I hope you join me in voting your conscience, which in my case meant rejecting both Trump and Biden for candidates I believe in (in my case, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders).
Don’t vote for a man-child, Donald Trump, who’s golfing and tweeting while the planet burns; who has no idea what nuclear weapons can do, but who threatens to use them while bragging about the size of his nuclear button; who dismisses Covid-19 as just another virus that will magically disappear; and who is so eager to divide us in the cause of enriching himself and his family.
Here’s what I wrote in May of 2016:
Nuclear proliferation and global warming are two big issues that Donald Trump is wrong about. They’re also the two biggest threats to our planet. Nuclear war followed by nuclear winter could end most life on earth within a matter of weeks or months. Global warming/climate change, though not as immediate a threat as nuclear war and its fallout, is inexorably leading to a more dangerous and less hospitable planet for our children and their children.
What does “The Donald” believe? On nuclear proliferation, which only makes nuclear war more likely, Trump is essentially agnostic and even in favor of other nations joining the nuclear club, nations like Japan, South Korea, even Saudi Arabia. When all countries should be earnestly working to reduce and then eliminate nuclear stockpiles, Trump is advocating their expansion. (An aside: recall in a previous debate that Trump had no idea what America’s nuclear triad is; add intellectual sloth to his many sins.)
On global warming, Trump is essentially a skeptic on whether it exists (“hoax” and “con job” are expressions of choice), even as he seeks to protect his resorts from its effects. Along with this rank hypocrisy, Trump is advocating an energy plan that is vintage 1980, calling for more burning of fossil fuels, more drilling and digging, more pipelines, as if fossil fuel consumption was totally benign to the environment and to human health.
Along with his tyrannical and fascist tendencies, Trump is wrong on two of the biggest issues facing our planet today. His ignorance and recklessness render him totally unfit to be president.
For all the talk of a “free” press that has the guts to tackle the powerful, the truth is our press is mainly a for-profit operation that is largely owned by the powerful. We get a lapdog press instead of a watchdog; we certainly don’t get an attack dog. I wrote about this in January of 2012; what I didn’t foresee is how that press would facilitate the rise of a petty demagogue like Donald Trump, mainly because he’s good for ratings and serves the needs of the powerful, but also because so many Americans have lost faith in the media, so much so that they buy the lies of a con man and serial liar like Trump. In short, if you’re tired of the corporate-friendly lies at CNN, why not turn to the entertaining conspiracy theories and lies of a manipulator like Trump?
If America truly had a watchdog press that protected the people, a serial liar like Trump should never have gained such a powerful purchase on our national narrative. Even now, as Trump continues to endanger our national health during a pandemic, the press largely treats him as a “normal” president.
The Failure of Our “Free” Press
01/13/2012
W,J. Astore
Do we have a truly free press, one that is willing to challenge the powerful and to serve the people?
A recent editorial by Arthur S. Brisbane at the New York Times suggests that our press is more lapdog than watchdog.
A truly free press needs guts. It needs to be willing to say, “I accuse.” Yet as Glenn Greenwald points out, our mainstream media today willingly acts as “stenographers” to the high and mighty, as if established elites need more support and more privileges.
The other day I ran across a passage in Arthur Schopenhauer’s Essays and Aphorisms that has much to say about freedom of the press as well as the perils of source anonymity. In full it reads:
“Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety-valve is to the steam engine: every discontent is by means of it immediately relieved in words—indeed, unless this discontent is very considerable, it exhausts itself in this way. If, however, it is very considerable, it is as well to know of it in time, so as to redress it. — On the other hand, however, freedom of the press must be regarded as a permit to sell poison: poison of the mind and poison of the heart. For what cannot be put into the heads of the ignorant and credulous masses? — especially if you hold before them the prospect of gain and advantages. And of what misdeeds is man not capable once something has been put into his head? I very much fear, therefore, that the dangers of press freedom outweigh its usefulness, especially where there are legal remedies available for all grievances. In any event, however, freedom of the press should be conditional upon the strictest prohibition of any kind of anonymity.”
That last statement is the kicker. The media’s stenographer-types market the “poison” of the elites, whether governmental or corporate, and they often do so under the cover of source anonymity. As a result, the “credulous” masses have no way to track the poisoners, and few avenues to find an antidote.
Schopenhauer’s statement also condemns our press for its failure to serve as a “safety-valve” for democracy. Indeed, because our mainstream press is so sycophantic, it fails in its democratic duty to relieve the people’s discontent, notably in its failure to empower the people to redress the abuses of power by established elites.
When our “free” press agonizes over whether it should challenge the “facts” of societal elites, is it any wonder why so many people have lost faith in it?
Hence the rise of the various “occupy” movements. They know that the mainstream press is in thrall to power and is therefore compromised, thus they’re seeking a new path to redress their grievances — and new antidotes to the poison spread by the powerful to intoxicate the minds and hearts of the powerless.
Our press, as Schopenhauer notes, has much power to spread poison, but it also has the ability to serve as an antidote to the poison spread by others.
The ideal of freedom of the press, so crucial to democracy, is upheld only when its practitioners willingly challenge the so-called “facts” of the powerful.
Give us a watchdog press willing to bite the hand that feeds it, not a lapdog that snaps up all the little treats fed to it by its masters.
Trump, delivering to his base, even if it’s all image
W.J. Astore
Chatting with friends today via email, we discussed Trump’s prospects for a second term. Trump could win again, one friend said. “Could” win? He’s got this thing locked up, another friend added. It’s beginning to feel that way.
What’s Trump’s secret? Sure, he’s a shameless con man. He passes himself off as a “law and order” man even as his own way of living demonstrates lawlessness and disorder. Sure, his ignorance, his narcissism, and his laziness have combined to produce 200,000 American deaths from Covid-19, a figure that should have been far smaller with firm leadership from an engaged president.
Yet his supporters don’t hold him responsible for any of this: deaths, disorder, lawlessness in the government, who cares? They favor Trump because he gives them what they want. He makes them feel good.
Can you say the same of Joe Biden? Biden is largely a cipher who’s been picked by the donor class precisely because he’s predictable. His appeals to the progressive base of his party are at best lukewarm. While Trump feeds his base red meat, Biden gives his some warmed up, somewhat spoiled, leftovers.
Trump is an empty shell of man, devoid of compassion and humility. But he knows how to sell, and he knows how to deliver, even if that delivery isn’t quite what one was expecting. So, for example, he hasn’t built much of his great big beautiful wall along the southern border, and Mexico sure isn’t paying for it, but Trump has kept fighting for it. New portions of the wall are being built. And his base likes this because they like walls that allegedly keep out killers and rapists and they like Trump for persisting. Even if the final result is ineffective, a colossal waste of money, it made his base feel better. And Trump knows this.
Trump is delivering with the Supreme Court as well, with help from the ultimate Washington swamp creature, Mitch McConnell. How did Obama do with his Supreme Court choice in 2016? That poor weak man had his pick stolen from him. You think Trump and McConnell are going to let Democrats block or cheat them? Forget about it.
In four short years, Trump will deliver three supreme court justices who are conservative and who will likely overturn Roe v. Wade, sealing the support of evangelicals until End Times. Again, like him or loathe him, Trump has delivered to his base.
Remember when Obama promised hope and change in 2008 and then hired all the usual suspects in Washington to protect businesses and the bankers while screwing the little people? Remember when Obama instantly caved on the idea of universal health care as he worked toward what became Obamacare, which is basically Romneycare and originally a conservative idea? Remember when Obama admitted his policies were basically those of a moderate Republican? So do I.
That’s why we got Trump in 2016. That and the terrible campaign his Democratic rival ran. “I’m with her,” but she wasn’t with me or the majority of Americans, so she lost. Now we have Joe Biden, yet another Democrat who wants to win without promising anything to the base that will upset his donors.
And how does that base feel about Joe? My sense is they are, at best, ambivalent. They don’t trust him. And why should they? Biden is establishment, unexciting, and past his prime. Trump is anti-establishment (in his poses), exciting (in a violent and visceral way), and still hitting on most of his cylinders. Edge to Trump.
Look: Readers of Bracing Views know I despise Trump. I find Biden unreliable as well as uninspiring. His message, so far, is “I’m not Trump.” And I don’t think that’s enough.
You need to inspire. You need to make people feel — something. Trump does this, mostly in a highly charged and negative way. His followers like him and think that Trump knows them and cares about them. Biden is not connecting, not in the same charged way as Trump does, and he’s not giving the Democratic base much of anything.
If the Democrats lose yet again, they had better change tactics and actually play to their base, else you can start penciling in Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as America’s president and “first man” in 2024.
It doesn’t get much more depressing than Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. Con man versus corporate man. Neither candidate is a friend of workers, labor, the disadvantaged, the poor. Neither candidate has an ounce of progressivism in his body. At least for me, neither inspires confidence. One has to win, meaning that America’s decline will continue through 2024.
Perhaps I put too much stock in who is president. Yet for certain issues, surely it does matter. Joe Biden won’t seek to appease his evangelical base by trying to outlaw abortion. Joe Biden won’t try to eliminate Obamacare (and thereby cut health care coverage for millions during a pandemic) just out of spite. Joe Biden won’t deny the reality of climate change and thus will help, in a small way, to prepare for future global disruptions caused by the same. These and other reasons are enough for many people to vote for Joe.
But Joe is largely an empty vessel that’s waiting to be filled by all the usual suspects within the Washington Beltway. His domestic agenda will likely be defined by neoliberal economics and disastrous compromises with Republicans, e.g. cuts to social security, while his foreign policy will likely be the usual forever wars driven by neoconservative agendas disguised by appeals to American exceptionalism and national security. In short, much like Obama, but more conservative (if such a thing is possible).
Friends like to send me appeals to vote for Joe, because Trump is basically a blustering ignoramus who doesn’t care how much damage he does, as long as he remains in office (and thus can call himself a “winner” while enriching himself further). They argue that Joe will be open to progressive ideas after the election, or at the very least will respond to progressives when pressured.
It’s nice fairy tale, where somehow things end happily ever after, but it’s just that. A fairy tale.
As I wrote to one friend about voting for Joe:
It’s all so depressing. This is what the corporate-bought DNC is counting on. Vote for Joe — he’s not quite as bad as Trump. And you have no other choice.
And if Joe wins, forget about Progressive initiatives, as Joe pivots, i.e. caves, to the Republicans in the (false) name of bipartisanship and “reaching across the aisle.”
And, just after I sent that, I saw this image of Joe and Mike Pence at a 9/11 event:
Prepare for lots of bipartisanship under Joe. But it will serve the elites, not you.
As I said to my friend, Nothing wrong with voting for Joe — but this is what’s going to happen if he wins. We get a moderate Republican — bought and paid for — instead of a lazy egomaniac named Trump.
With Trump trailing in the polls, some people have suggested an “October surprise” looms, such as a provocation against Iran, that could swing the election. But what if this “surprise” is something different. What if Trump decides to outflank Biden on an issue of great importance to ordinary Americans. It’s a scenario that’s more than possible, as the redoubtable M. Davout argues in his latest article for this site. W.J. Astore
He’s willing to thump a Bible — why not thump Medicare for All?
M. Davout
In my first contribution to Bracing Views a little more than four years ago, I appealed, as an enthusiastic advocate for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries, to fellow Bernie supporters in swing states to vote for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming general election. This election cycle I will be taking a different approach.
The virtual Democratic National Convention for the 2020 general election has just ended with the nomination of a candidate, Joe Biden, whose political instincts, record in office, and stated policy goals are in most essential respects updates of Clinton’s. Despite the convention speakers’ almost universal silence about policy, we can expect from a Biden win a continuation of what has largely been the Democratic Party policy agenda of the last forty years: maintenance of the US global military umbrella, protection of neoliberal economic interests, and gestures of racial inclusiveness and multicultural tolerance.
If Biden wins, it will be because of Trump’s catastrophic public health leadership failures in the face of the Covid pandemic, which has radically disrupted social life, tanked many parts of the economy, and thus far killed 175,000+ American lives. And Trump’s heartless and authoritarian response to the mobilization of millions of people in street demonstrations affirming that Black Lives Matter has not helped his electoral prospects.
In his acceptance speech, Biden emphatically told us that if elected he will take effective action to get a grip on the Covid crisis. Yet, on other occasions, he has also told us that if he wins, he will not fundamentally address the more insidious and chronic crisis of tens of millions of Americans with few, if any, health care options, even going so far as to say that he would veto any Medicare-for-All bill passed by Congress. On the issue of policing, he has been up front about his intention not to challenge the militarized and racist institutions of policing in this country other than to call for more training and prohibition of police use of choke holds.
The sad truth is that of the two major party candidates, only one has ever run a national campaign as an economic populist and it isn’t the current standard bearer of the Democratic Party. In 2016, Donald Trump promised Americans that he would get all of them great health care, take on Big Pharma and make prescription drugs affordable, end the hemorrhaging of American lives and treasure in foreign wars and drain the swamp by putting a stop to special interest corruption of members of Congress. Trump was lying, of course, but these lies were just effective enough in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania because the Democratic Party had lost all credibility as the party of working people.
So, this cycle, rather than try to persuade my fellow Bernie supporters once again to vote democratic, let me try a different approach and offer Trump some electoral advice. Give a nationally televised Oval Office speech in which you commit to stopping the pandemic and embrace, as one of the main pillars of your pandemic response, Medicare-for-All. Tell the American people the truth—that the private health insurance system in the U.S. has failed to protect the health of the American people and instead has lined the pockets of CEOs, rich shareholders, medical specialists, insurance industry lobbyists and members of Congress. Tell them that ensuring universal and affordable access to healthcare through universal expansion of Medicare is an essential step not only in defeating Covid-19 but also in protecting against the pandemics that might occur down the road. A true nation-state takes care of its own and Medicare-for-All will Make America Great Again.
As a certified political scientist, I can guarantee that you stand only to gain electorally by taking this advice. You won’t lose your business supporters and anti-Communist Republican voters–they will know that you are lying. The idea of universal health insurance based on the expansion of a system on which their parents and grandparents have relied will be attractive to your white working class base voters who have suffered disproportionately from opioid and alcohol addiction and deaths. And, who knows, maybe some progressives, unhinged by Biden’s hostility to universal coverage, will pull the lever for you. It may be enough to keep Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in your column (and maybe even swing Minnesota your way).
I give this advice not because I want Trump to win but because of my conviction that until the Democratic Party is forced to compete for working class votes on the basis of economic populism, we are going to be locked into an ever more dangerous cycle of alternating rule by neoliberal Democrats and nationalist-racist Republican populists.
M. Davout teaches political science in the Deep South.
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, the Walrus Man, is back with “revelations” about Donald Trump. Yet, unless you’ve been a MAGA man or under a rock for the last four years, these are hardly as revelatory as media mouthpieces are making them out to be. Some examples:
Trump cares most of all about getting reelected in 2020. To this end, he’ll make deals with China to shore up his domestic support.
Trump sympathizes with authoritarian dictators and promises to intercede on their behalf in various investigations.
Trump is ignorant of the most basic facts, e.g. he didn’t know the UK has nuclear weapons; he didn’t know Finland was not part of Russia; etc.
Trump is mocked behind his back by some of his most ardent supporters, e.g. Mike Pompeo.
Trump said Venezuela is “really part of the United States.”
And so on. That last one is especially funny. Trump must mean their oil, for he hasn’t exactly been clamoring for more people south of the border to be put on a path to U.S. citizenship.
Earlier today, Bolton gave an interview in which he said Trump is unfit to be president. Surprise! I was saying that in March of 2016, and I was hardly the only one.
Look: I’m no Trump fan, but none of this is news. As a narcissist and egotist, of course Trump places his reelection above all else. As an authoritarian ruler (at least in a wannabe sense), of course Trump relishes striking deals with other dictator-types. Clearly, Trump doesn’t have a democratic bone in his body. He’s incurious and apparently doesn’t read (not even the Bible, it seems), so he doesn’t know some of the most basic facts about geography and foreign policy. Indeed, in this sense he’s the prototypical American. We only learn geography after we invade a country.
It’s not hard to predict the reaction of Trump’s base to these “revelations”: they couldn’t care less. But, hey, if it helps Bolton to sell books, then he’s taken a page from Trump’s own playbook. Lots of hype, “alternative facts,” and controversy are good ways to move copy; don’t some people say there’s no such thing as bad publicity?
Meanwhile, Trump’s true feelings for his base are revealed in his decision to press ahead with a mass rally in an indoor arena this weekend. Never mind the deadly danger of Covid-19: Trump says its fading away.
Now there’s a true “alternative fact” that may prove a killer for far too many, true believers and otherwise.
Perhaps you’ve heard the saying that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Karl Marx used it to describe Napoleon’s cataclysmic reign followed by the far less momentous and far more ignominious reign of his nephew, Napoleon III.
Marx’s saying applies well to two momentous events in recent U.S. history: the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and the current coronavirus pandemic. The American response to the first was tragic; to the second, farcical.
Let me explain. I vividly recall the aftermath to the 9/11 attacks. The world was largely supportive of the United States. “We are all Americans now” was a sentiment aired in many a country that didn’t necessarily love America. And the Bush/Cheney administration proceeded to throw all that good will away in a disastrous war on terror that only made terror into a pandemic of sorts, with American troops spreading it during calamitous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, among other military interventions around the globe.
Again, it was tragic for America to have thrown away all that good will in the pursuit of dominance through endless military action. A great opportunity was missed for true American leadership achieved via a more patient, far less bellicose, approach to suppressing terrorism.
In this tragedy, the Bush/Cheney administration avoided all responsibility, first for not preventing the attacks, and second for bungling the response so terribly. Indeed, George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 and has now been rehabilitated as a decent man and a friend by popular Democrats like Michelle Obama, who see him in a new light when compared to America’s current president.
Speaking of Donald Trump, consider his response to America’s second defining moment of the 21st century: the coronavirus pandemic. It’s been farcical. The one great theme that’s emerged from Trump’s 260,000 words about the pandemic is self-congratulation, notes the New York Times. Even as America’s death toll climbs above 50,000, Trump congratulates himself on limiting the number of deaths, even as he takes pride in television ratings related to his appearances. The farce was complete when the president unwisely decided to pose as a health authority, telling Americans to ingest or inject poisonous household disinfectants to kill the virus.
Tragedy, then farce. But with the same repetition of a total failure to take responsibility. As Trump infamously said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the botched response to the pandemic.
9/11 and Covid-19 may well be the defining events of the last 20 years. After 9/11, Bush/Cheney tragically squandered the good will of the world in rampant militarism and ceaseless wars. Then came Covid, an even bigger calamity, and now we have our farcical president, talking about the health benefits of injecting or ingesting bleach and similar poisons. At a time when the U.S. should lead the world in medical expertise to confront this virus, we’ve become a laughingstock instead.
What comes after farce, one wonders? For too many Americans, the answer may well be further death and loss.
The case for Joe Biden can be summed up quickly: He’s not Donald Trump.
Frankly, for a lot of people, that’s enough. Biden suggests a return to normalcy, a hint at bipartisanship, Supreme Court selections that won’t be carbon copies of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and policies that, for example, accept the reality of climate change and seek solutions to immigration that don’t enable racism or prioritize walls.
But it’s not enough for me. Biden is a deeply flawed candidate, and his policies (such as they are) haven’t stoked my interest and earned my vote.
Yet friends tell me I must vote for Biden, since a vote for any other candidate represents a vote for Trump.
That’s what a friend told me on Facebook: That I had to put aside my ideals, hold my nose, and vote for Joe, since Trump constitutes an existential threat. Trump’s been a disaster; indeed, I argued against him, vociferously, as in this piece from March of 2016. But that doesn’t mean I want to vote for “the lesser of two evils.”
Here’s what I said to my friend on Facebook; I’ve only included my statements, with minor additions for context:
Very frustrating because the fix for Biden has been in since the beginning. And Joe Biden is a horrible candidate. Can’t vote for him or Trump.
I understand the sentiment [of voting for Biden]. But I want to vote for someone, not against someone else. It’s quite possible Biden will be unable to serve due to mental decay/dementia. So my response to the DNC is: How dare you give me Biden as a candidate! How dare you tell me to hold my nose and vote for yet another corrupt politician who’s clearly in decline! How dare you fix the process against progressive ideas! You have not earned my vote.
I respect your choice [for Biden]. But your logic [that a vote for anyone other than Biden is a vote for Trump] is wrong. I write frequently against Trump, and try to persuade others of the dangers he represents. So, I won’t vote for him. Period. I will vote for someone else, but I refuse to allow the corrupt DNC to dictate that my only choice is to vote for a senile corporate tool named Biden.
It’s shameful that the DNC has conspired to give us such a weak candidate to go against Trump. If Biden loses, it’s the fault of the DNC, not those voters who found him unattractive. In politics, you have to be able to earn votes. Nominating a candidate who is so deeply flawed is just plain stupid and cynical. Luckily, I live in a state where my vote really doesn’t matter, i.e. Mass. is not a “battleground” state.
A year ago, I guessed the dream ticket of the DNC would be Biden/Harris. It may be that one prediction that I get right. It’s an uninspiring ticket that’s designed to suppress progressive changes. You have to accept a grim reality: the DNC exists, not to win elections, but to suppress progressive change and candidates like Bernie and Warren. In the eyes of the DNC, they have already won, even if Biden loses in November.
What say you, readers? Should we vote blue no matter who?
MAGA: Make America Great Again. That was Donald Trump’s slogan for 2016. He obviously believes he has succeeded, since his slogan for 2020 is Keep America Great. “Great” is obviously vague, protean, and labile in meaning, but what does it mean to Trump?
It’s a serious question that deserves consideration. Here, to my mind, is how Trump thinks he’s made America great, keeping in mind that greatness to Trump is all about that which produces adulation for, well, one Donald J. Trump.
Military might. Trump loves to brag about how he’s “restored” the military, making it bigger and badder than ever.
More riches for the richest. Hence that huge tax break for the richest, perhaps the signature achievement of his first term.
A galloping stock market. Well, until Covid-19.
More power and money for Trump and his family. Trump views greatness in terms of what’s best for him and his family empire.
Walls to keep out “the other.” For Trump, part of being great is denying that status to others. A world of great heads like Trump demands lots of little people suffering.
A neutered press (the “enemy of the people”). For Trump, the press is his foil, his lapdog, his trumpet, and his enemy, all in one. When it’s dancing to his tune, Trump knows he’s winning – and he feels like a winner, too.
Permanent partisan divide in which the Democrats are seen as almost demonic. Trump needs an enemy to measure himself against, and “Demoncrats” like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are tailor-made rivals to belittle, which helps to make him feel bigger.
Near-total dismissal of expertise, especially of science (climate change as a “hoax”). A “very stable genius” needs no help from others; he is omniscient. He even knows the best way to tackle and treat a pandemic!
Always blaming someone else for any setback. Greatness, to Trump, means never having to say you’re sorry.
Disenfranchising or discouraging as many “bad” Americans as possible from voting. Not every American can wrap their heads around Trump’s greatness. Those who can’t really don’t deserve to vote.
In all seriousness, Trump is great at one thing: shameless deception. The man knows the craft of the con. He often can fool most of the people most of the time. Imagine the good a man like this could do if he had empathy, ethics, and truly sought to serve others. But Trump serves only himself. A petty tyrant, he has commanded the attention of Americans in an almost unprecedented way, only to divide them and diminish democracy.
Herein lies a conundrum: How has a man whose spirit is so small, whose sense of service is so shriveled, whose judgment is so un-great, convinced so many that greatness lies within their grasp if only they listen to him, follow him, cheer him on, and reelect him?
Great may indeed be a protean concept – but by any definition the greatness of America does not reside in enabling or empowering one Donald J. Trump.
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