American Trump
American Trump
Perhaps I see the current catastrophe differently from others. To me it reveals and magnifies the worst American traits: stupidity, credulity, nastiness, thirst for violence, love of bullshit, childishness, amorality. I have seen these traits manifested so many times in my thirty-five years here that Trump’s rise hardly surprises me. Only in America could this happen; as a Finnish friend of mine (Esa Saarinen) recently said to me, “Trump is impossible in Finland”. The same traits operate even in university settings: there is a bit of Trump in (nearly) everyone, even on the left. Oh, how they love to demonize and destroy! Careful thought is alien to their raucous cramped minds. But I will not expatiate further.[1]
[1] If you think I enjoyed writing that, you are very much mistaken.
Oh you’re such a never-Trumper Colin.
Trump is the worst of us and brings out the worst in us, but he is also a severe failure of the left to stay relevant to real voters. I think you should cut the Americans some slack. Yes – he is a gleaming, big lightening rod for idiots, but he was also the change ticket in a two ticket race.
The best thing we can do now is ignore him. All the frothy stories/ bitter tirades, Trump said this ha ha, Trump did that oh no, all the meaningless drivel that the middle class press get their knickers in a knot about. He’s the ultimate influencer/internet star, championship level wafflemeister and, most importantly clickbait gold dust. If he didn’t exist the media would have to invent him. All that advertising money that enemies and sycophants are generating for the tv and newspapers by clicking and watching while frothing at the mouth – it fuels the flames – like Greek fire, the more you hate him – the bigger and bigger he’ll get. The only way to put it out is to starve him of the oxygen of publicity, if few click on the stories and turn off tv every time he’s on- the news media will have to focus on other stuff to earn their crust. If all those that can’t stand him stopped reading about him, things would be very different – I could say that for many other internet wallies. Trump is a bad guy, but he’s nowhere near as bad as the bankrupt entertainment culture we’ve become.
Btw Trump thinks that god saved him for a reason, I couldn’t think why, but then it dawned on me – who better to bring about Armageddon?
I do find him absolutely hilarious and look forward to all the impersonations. But I don’t think he can be ignored, because he is our next president. He has to be covered even if he thrives on the (bad) publicity.
I think it’s the type of coverage that matters though – it should just be on policy. I think this is what the democrats approach should have been in the past also. Instead Trump is portrayed as the bogeyman – it only seems to embolden him and his supporters . I like Kamala and she does come across presidential, but time and time again (when I saw her speeches at least) she just talked about trump or minorities – I think voters wanted to hear what she was going to do about the economy and their jobs or lack of. Tv hypnotist Paul McKenna would call this the bunker mentally, where we spend too much time visualising on trying to avoid the bunker, than visualising just putting the ball in the flippin hole [1]
I think the Left also appear to think of minority groups as a single block of people who all think the same way just because they are a minority.
Trump is proud of the fact that he didn’t start any wars, but he forgets he killed 100s of 1000s Americans during covid with his inept leadership. Everyone would certainly have been better ignoring him then.
In the end it comes down to your mental health, I’m going to preserve mine by staying away from him, he’s only got 4 years to destroy people’s lives and he only has one too. I feel a bottle of wine coming on.
[1] Cant believe I just referenced Paul McKenna on your prestigious blog
It’s hard to avoid covering Trump’s personality as well as his policies, because of his legal troubles, impeachments, blatant racism, etc.
Respectfully: the US voters had a binary choice. For many Harris is a radical version of Obama but less shiny and capable. Her consistent pre-election avoidance of serious interviewers and meaningless demeaning labels she used to attack a large chunk of electorate and illegal immigration crisis and crime wave it brought about in certain places antagonized many centrist voters. Her foreign relations policies make Iran, Russia and China perceive of US as a weak decadent country who would not interfere with their aggressive moves towards their neighbours and dictatorial crush of their dissidents. Mainstream media lies about Biden’s mental state were really Orwellian and the lack of primaries in the Democratic party drove the last few nails.
Trump is what they call in Europe “an ugly American”. But the only other available candidate was no better even though her personal traits are evidently way better. Not enough to lead US though.
I was never much in favor of Harris, though I warmed to her a bit. But I do think Trump is far more dangerous. My prediction is that mental deterioration will happen fairly soon, which will be amusing to watch.
Could happen… But with Kamala a further US polarization and decline scenario would have been higher. IMHO she is sympathetic or was an active supporter of many of the woke policies that were applied at your previous university against you.
That’s one reason I didn’t approve of her. All that stuff has fatally skewed democratic politics. That is: feminism caused the rise of Trump and Republicans (inter alia).
The soon to be Piece of Shit of the United States has a lot in common with Richard III in Shakespeare’s play by that name. (I bet I have that right), Just as Richard forced himself on Anne, Trump forced his malicious bullshit about “Stop the steal” and so on upon the nation. It is more than charisma, it is something violent, odd for a man who is such a coward otherwise. He is in D & D parlance “chaotic evil” or maybe just “chaotic” and I think those psychiatrists who claim he is just narcissistic are missing a whopping dosage of psychopathy. He is our all the “bad emperors” rolled into one.
There I said it, it’s in print- but it’s like he’s a reality TV show that we can’t turn off, even if we don’t have a TV
I tend to describe him as a subhuman psychopathic moron, clinically speaking–who for some reason has been twice elected president of the United States. That is some kind of achievement.
I mean at least Hitler made the trains (which carried my ancestors to their deaths) run on time. So you think it is a defect on his follower’s part, that his “charisma” lies in his being one of them and being completely uninhibited (Freud must be the go to guy on this)- you don’t think that being a good liar (or a blatant liar) or good performer or good at being a carnival barker or cunning at being a Machiavellian, that is being essentially a Mafia Don, count as “intelligent”?
If there are universities in the future there will be a department of Trump studies as a counterpart to the department of Hitler studies
I mean he has no apparent intelligence in the sense of understanding anything about the world–apart from a sort of low cunning about manipulating people.
Low cunning. I can go for that. If I were Randall Collins the sociologist I might argue.
Charisma and dominance are not merely traits. Manipulating people involves psychological skill. He is a very lat and boring character. Maybe a flat and dull charismatic is a. good fit for such a decadent and brutal country.
I’d like to see him interred in the Tower of London where he could rot in chains, gold chains
He is a perfect fit for a large proportion of the country. The brutal streak is very common (in women no less than men).