More on thought and action (and Trump, of course)
Without any thought at all, “action” can be spinning your wheels. Unless one is reacting quickly in an emergency, thought is (or should be) the engine for action, particularly political action.
But when you call someone a “man of action” (as I did in a previous post) you don’t mean the person literally doesn’t think, has no thoughts at all. It’s about the person’s primary mode of conceptualizing him/herself and presenting him/herself to the world.
For political action, it helps to have a coherent conceptual philosophy and to be able to articulate it well. Ronald Reagan, for example, was very good at that and it was one of his tremendous strengths, although he was no slouch at action either. Donald Trump path to action doesn’t seem to come from that sort of coherently expressed political philosophy, although his supporters don’t care and don’t expect it of him.
That lack in Trump does not mean, however, that he can’t be effective as president. And it doesn’t mean that he acts completely without thought or reason. But it makes him hard to predict and hard to understand for a great many people—even people in the GOP—and it certainly feeds the fear of those who oppose him. It has the advantage, however, of making it difficult for those who want to fight him to predict what he’ll do (although so far he’s pretty much been doing exactly what he promised). There is also the fear of those who genuinely think he’s a loose cannon or crazy and capable of doing just about anything.
A political philosophy and the ability to express it matters when people (on either side) are trying to evaluate someone, particularly someone lacking a record of action in public office, as Trump did prior to his inauguration. All we had from Trump was our perception of his words, and his actions as a private individual. Evaluating those words was especially hard with Trump, who during his campaign (and previously, as well) was fond of over-the-top utterances, nasty tweets, jokes, and statements that contradicted other statements he’d made. All politicians are sometimes given to hyperbole, but if we know their basic political orientation and conceptual framework from their political record, we are less likely to get confused by that fact, or even by promises they can’t keep.
Understanding more clearly where a politician or officeholder is coming from also helps to predict what he or she will do in the future, particularly with new events or issues. It helps the person’s opponents plan a strategy, too, so there’s something to be said for not knowing. But it helps voters decide whether they support that person, and I think Trump’s lack of this ability during the campaign confused and put off some people who otherwise might have voted for him.
Now we’ve had a flurry of rapid-fire action. Now we know more of what Trump is likely to do and to be as president. So far, he’s not only a man of action, he’s a man of conservative action. This is driving the left crazy, and it’s even upsetting some more moderate Republicans. But it’s important information, and tonight when he names his pick for SCOTUS, we’ll get even more information.
Winston Churchill was in ways a micro manager but he always had a long term objective in his mind for everything. He also inspired and reciprocated loyalty in his troops and the public.
Trump needs to realize that he won with the grudging votes of many and against a large number of others. Winning a number over to his policies and at least reassuring others that he will at least do a thorough job will make his efforts better. It has not been his style, but every newly promoted officer, manager or team leader has to surmount that hill.
For political action, it helps to have a coherent conceptual philosophy and to be able to articulate it well.
who says? that is the academics saying that, but the people of action dont necessarily need that as they dont administrate life… which is the point, and why academics like communism, its safe, its administrating, its not natural self organized but chaotic (to them, but not to others).
there are tons of assertions academics make like this to make THEM be the key people to select or else your doomed… but note that an academic is a new thing, and the world and history ran for 10k years without any such thing or any such rules they proclaim!!!!
lots of great talkers with no overarching marxian kind of things which werent in fashion until late 1800s and earliest 1900s… specifically till the academics and politicians got on the boat of a book called “philip drew: Administrator:, and then they wanted it the way fans want star trek to become real!!!
Philip Dru: Administrator: A Story of Tomorrow, 1920-1935 is a futuristic political novel published anonymously in 1912 by author Edward Mandell House, an American diplomat, politician, and presidential foreign policy advisor. [a man by the name of stuart most dont know then used this and influence with wilson and others to remold the USA state and put it on the path]
even the founders didnt have this concept you speak of, thye created it for the sake of the project they were making by cobbling together histories and ideas and education, but they were not academics… academics dont live in the real world, they live in the ivory tower where principals of living can be imagined different than what they really are, and nothing happens.
Which is why men of action beat out academics ALL THE TIME.
dont believe me? how many academics that teach MBA courses are worth 30 million? how many that teach economics have actually run businesses to success? there are old adages to this…
even marx saw this and said talking about it was worthless, you had to make it happen… duh. (been saying that how long?)
it was this stuff that created these false rules that dont apply unless we stick to them and play the game…
it led to the academics and brain trusts doing what to society? how was that idea that to win a war, you had body counts? administrators need metrics, and measures and body counts was it. from the basement of washington they tried to apply what you just said to war, and to economics
this is why they love the soviet union, if only they could be philip drew and have their brand of arching ideas be the ones people alighted on and saved the world..
yeah right.
but note, the people that save the world are the ones who dont have that… look to history if you dont believe me. i have run out of space and dont need to run out of good will too.
[the funny way to show this is to read dilberts druken lemmings of why skilled people are so busy]
by the way, anyone who says this “coherent conceptual philosophy” has never read marx or even the soviet detractors who reveal its gobbly gook but good to get power with. its contradictory, makes up stuff that we think is real today (but then was made from whole cloth) and on and on.
its a practice in baffling with bs to the point the experts can claim they are the leaders and so much smarter than the people they want to lord over and own.
tons of the insiders ahve said so.
many were escuted for being smart enough to know that this was the truth.
wouldnt the emperors new clothes as a story set a different lesson if the boy that revealed it was punished, slandered, tortured and disappeared instead of what happened?
one last thing…
how can you say coherence is needed when most people have low comprhension, dont remember the laws if they knew them at all, and cant tell a lot of coherent things that are written to sound good.
go here if you want to see incoherent coherance
the post modern idea that you said is perfect
since the PoMo generator will write papers that pass muster and are peer reviewed!! but are nothing
in fact if you do a lot of work in this stuff, you find that the requirement would be nice IF people were not the way they were, otherwise its a false rule..
you only have to convince them
And having a overarching theory is not what sells them
having an overarching theory is used to pretend you thought about it more than they and here is the evidence.
you could jsut as easiliy do it with falshoods and other thigns as long as you move the people and the people do not hold rigit thinking things in sucha way mostly to respond to it or not other than SEE, he thought about it and made a theory, which is more than me and the other guy.
heck… you dont even need to say what that theory is, you just have to claim you have it!!! (which is why we catch such leftists when they contradict things and we wonder what theory does that)
have to go.
Artfldgr:
Sometimes I think you don’t read my posts carefully, because you often seem to miss what I’m saying. I explained what I meant by that, and it’s not some empty academic reasoning. I explained what I think it would have helped, and also the advantages Trump gets by not doing it that way. I also explained (as I have before) that now what’s most important are his actions. Actions plus a better way of explaining why those actions are necessary and exactly what those actions do would complement and enhance their effect.
Artfldgr:
I will add that obviously a political leader can lie and use propaganda. That’s often done and can be very effective. I was assuming that was understood. I was describing a more honest and yet still effective way to go about accomplishing political action.
Trump keeps his adversaries off balance with his erratic behavior. There are pluses and minuses to this apect of his character. But so far he has surprised me by actually choosing solid picks for his administration and his EOs. Mea culpa (so far).
My beef is with the idea that the academics know when they don’tA tri-college coalition in Pennsylvania has published a resource guide on “allyship and anti-oppression” that brazenly affirms people of color cannot be racist towards white people.
The guide, made available for students attending Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr Colleges, provides a seemingly-exhaustive list of terms on the topic, including “reverse racism,” which, it then contests, is not actually existent.
Wow… Open season
I guess that academics are right about that too since they think
Yu missed my point neo, that we are raised by academics that tell us to listen to academics and they never admit when wrong and plough on…
They say stuff like you said because it favors them like a jobs program
Now companies have offices of diversity
Who knows that capitalist things needed a communist station that if race based but only hatred white males??
Your overarching thing would not have helped at all
No one listened to it
They can’t even get passed the h1b law requires looking for Americans first and that Trump did not create it that way.. They also leave out that the government takes your taxes and subsidized it too
Same with the unconstitutional ban for religion, except the ban is not permanent and country based not religion based and came from Obama law in 2015…
If they are not going to xmit the two thing the theory won’t help it will just be selective hearing and thinking things not there
I want to see some full arcs of Trump’s action from inception to persuasion to launch to execution to post-mortem.
Some people may claim his campaign was such an arc. If so, I’m not comforted. He ran that campaign in a risky, undisciplined way that could easily have lost IMO, even with an angry electorate and a snake for an opponent.
I sure hope as POTUS he executes a good deal better that that.
We shall see.
The problem with Trump Politics he is very vocal with his actions. Trump continue his manner as with his TV show when love to say “You Are Fired”.
I this day of communication age Trump tweets, TV and other format keep very vocal even when he signed his executive order for banning entry for 90 days for 7 country citizen showing his signature to media which none of US president done before.
While Obama was so quite doing his orders in very snaky, one of Barack Obama’s final actions in office before the inauguration of Donald Trump, he released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority.
The $221 million comes from federal aid the US provides to the West Bank and Gaza, which totaled around $355 million for 2015. The sum released by Obama during his last hours in office had been held up by a bipartisan group of congresspeople, including both Ed Royce and Kate Granger.
You write a very nice apologia for Donald Trump, Neo. The contortions are masterful, with just the right amount amount of wiggle room allowing in a perfect blend of deference to those unyielding naysayers who may still foolishly think he’s a loose cannon, or crazy, or capable of doing just about anything. It’s comforting to know that he’s not completely without thought or reason, that the contradictions and nasty tweets aren’t lies and insults, that they serve a higher purpose of keeping his opponents guessing.
Such rare insight wrapped into a sweet lemon pie of rationalizations. So sweet that it makes one gag.
The Other Chuck:
Gag? Give me a break. I write now, and I have always written, what I happen to think. I have not changed my mind about Trump the person, as I’ve made quite clear. But Trump the president has more respect from me—so far. But I don’t and won’t hesitate to criticize him when I disagree.
Nor do I care about playing to my readers. I think most readers come here to get my honest opinion—and then to argue about it (and with each other) in the comments.
I’ve always tried to look at things as clearly as I can. For example, when I was a liberal Democrat (or at least voted that way, and certainly agreed with many things in their platform at the time), I found myself agreeing with certain things Ronald Reagan was doing. That surprised me, but it still was my opinion. And later, I was open to changing my mind on a lot more.
Trump is who he is. His past will not change. He may do a lot of awful things as president. So far he hasn’t, and I will continue to analyze the man and my impressions of him and his behavior and actions as honestly and fairly as I can.
In addition, you’re not actually reading what I wrote. Never did I say—nor would I say—that Trump’s insults aren’t insults. They are. That they also sometimes serve a purpose in the sense that they have a certain effect is also the case. That is a statement of fact, not of moral approval.
Note this comment of mine, which I wrote yesterday:
“For political action, it helps to have a coherent conceptual philosophy and to be able to articulate it well.” Neo said that.
“For the love of money is the root of all evil:”. Timothy said that (6:10).
“The love of theory is the root of all folly.” I said that.
(With apologies to Bob Dylan)
We all have theories about how the world works, whether we realize it or not.
As Keynes put it:
“Practical men, who believe themselves to be exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
In Trump’s case, I think Peter Wehner was right to suggest that in politics Trump is a follower of that mad philosopher, Nietzsche — whether Trump knows it or not.
In economics, Trump appears to be a follower of the “mercantilist” school.
In neither area does he seem to be bothered by facts that contradict his theories.
You can find the Wehner op-ed by searching the NYT site. It was published last spring, as I recall.
@Jim Miller,
Nietzsche was a nihilist. Trump is more a follower of Norman Vincent Peale, the antithesis of Nietzsche.
Neo,
does the idea of “the man of action” and the other two personality types come from a recognised school of psychology?
I am curious because I had formed a very similar idea independently.
“although so far he’s pretty much been doing exactly what he promised
was fond of over-the-top utterances, nasty tweets, jokes, and statements that contradicted other statements he’d made
so there’s something to be said for not knowing” – Neo
It absolutely matters how one does something.
If trump was deliberately trying to keep people in the dark, it is not us who were confused, as we had nothing from which to be confused about.
We did not know.
Nobody really knew.
Of course, there were many who claimed they were very “certain” about very specific things, but there was no evidence to which one couldn’t point to a contradiction from trump.
trump was so mutable (your words) there was no telling he’d be anything other than “not clinton” in body, with only their hope that it would be so in political philosophy.
trump’s closest thing to a “promise” really only hit in October with his “contract”. But even then, being so late in the campaign, with so little fanfare from trump himself that it hardly put to rest all his contrary points that had come to pass.
What got much more fanfare in October was “Lock Her Up!” – where did that go?
.
So now, we have a “ban” (trump’s and spicer’s words – that is now not a “ban”, but a media spin, according to them), that even now his own organization (federal government) didn’t know was coming, they had to keep it so “secret”.
There was nothing about a “ban” in the “contract”, btw. That is how they chose to go about implementing one of the “promises”.
Waiting for confirmation of his cabinet and consulting them for input and letting them organize was not an option?
The danger was so clear and present that they had to move suddenly we are told (to say nothing that they waited, what, five days to sign it? to say nothing that the majority of events have been perpetrated by people already here, legally, for some time?).
trump’s cabinet were largely good choices. So maybe they, together, couldn’t have come up with a wiser approach? bunion was the only guy smart enough to lead this?
Much the same thing couldn’t have been implemented under “extreme-vetting” and leave it at that? Then leave this whole firestorm off the table?
And, even still, the confusion and firestorm was completely unpredictable to bunion and trump (and whoever else involved)?
Or, was it a firestorm they wanted? Is this is all really some grand plan to keep trump’s enemies “off-balance”?
Did they want to take the hit on looking incompetent? (notwithstanding all that campaigning about “competence”)
Did they want to lose some trust from our allies? And, drive up their concern?
Does anyone really think this is all a good thing?
.
This is a foreshadow of what is to come, whether we like the policy being implemented or not.
I swear, if I were sitting on the “throne” in the kremlin, I couldn’t be happier!
Such foolishness.
The results showed the average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000, or around the time the mobile revolution began, to eight seconds. Goldfish, meanwhile, are believed to have an attention span of nine seconds
people dont listen to overarching theories
academics do, which is the skill thye have that allwos them to be so…
the above attention span does NOT cover the even lower attention of ADHD, and other disorders that have gone thorugh the roof thanks to single parent hood and the making of the new orders feral children
we used to rear our kids, now we raise them
you rear animals as they require teaching
you raise corn, left to its own end outside of basics
given the media matters memo i sent as an exclusive from an insider, you will find that if trump picks someone they like, they will hate him
ie. the game is hate everything, let nothing slide, keep it up, impeach or harang him till he is impeached
why?
well the media matters leaders aid
Trump has the legal side
but we have the moral mandate
dont you get scared when communists start talking moral mandates? the gulag was a moral mandate, purges were moral mandates, etc.
read that media matters plan to get trump and you will have a list of organizations that will pound him they are putting together.
the nice academics always feel that if you nice to bullies they will be reaonsable. if they see that dont work, they then try to make opposition into friends and try being reasonable.
but reasonable is not on the table
they see it as a war
and if trump does something good, take it away
if he does something bad, pile on
if he does something they like, attack him
if he does something the person they like did, ignore the person they like and attack him.
attack attack attack
validity, reasonableness, ability to concede, etc
are ALL off the table when the revolutionaries are so close to winning it all and it was snatched
or ddnt you read what happened in 1917 when the people didnt rise up to take control and didnt like the communists!!! they forced it on them, and russia was born anew as permanently despotic place with or without ideoogical foundations.
the Media MAtters plan is scary in that it basically lays out an attack only strategy that will give ZERO quarter and will twist, and so for everything… no selection, attack for everythig, good, everything bad, everything in between and if he does nothig attack for doing nothing
today the daily news started out its coverage of trump order to take out some ISIS m,embers by going after trump for collarteral damage of a young girl. then putting up ISIS members laments that Trump is starting off killing children
THEN after that, they mention in passing a dead navy seal or special ops person, then a bit on trump calling him, and then back on the poor isis child that trum murdered and suffered for two hours till she expired
but there was no mention of isis loading the kids into cages and setting them on fire, was there?
wake up people
you think this is a debate kind of war, like in football
its not
this is a real war and all your property and lives are on the table if you lose. if you win, you get to stay as you are for th emost part till they try to take it all again
they are fignting WARS
your asusming they dont mean real war
but they have a moral mandate
and moral mandates are what tojo had, mao had, stalin had, castro had, even torquemada had.
Waiting for confirmation of his cabinet and consulting them for input and letting them organize was not an option?
no
100 days
they are watching and working
they know that if he did wait, they could screw his and our pooch by forcing nothing to happen for the 100 days and then say – look he did nothing
its heads i win tails you lose with deadly seriousness only one one side
one of the more interesting things you learn living in a slum, a war zone, or being a soldier is the realization that someone else wants you dead. not in the i hate you wordy method were nothing happens, but in the i will kill you even if i die kind of way, cause i am fighting under a moral mandate
ie. isis is also fignting under a moral mandate
and what limit does THAT have?
play the good people for their goodness
its the first rule of every sociopath and psychopath and the good people treat them too good!
which is why they are victims of the other
and the other is never a victim of theirs.
until pushed to far and they see it for what it is thorugh the glasses they tinted rose to ignore it till it got way too far and way too much damage
their goal is to play you as an idiot
and sadly, it works
[its the figuratie you, not the specific you]
“He ran that campaign in a risky, undisciplined way that could easily have lost IMO, even with an angry electorate and a snake for an opponent.” – huxley
Right!
trump had an extremely low percentage of eligible voters – much lower than McCain in obama’s blowout. Many would-be GOP voters stayed home. Only, the dems also stayed home in great numbers – clinton was so awful to them.
trump flipped a few swing states by <1% of the vote.
With such a thin margin, it is likely that had the news on the last week turned out differently, we'd have clinton as POTUS.
.
Why is all this important?
While most (who knows?) of the policies trump may implement are what we agree with, trump does not have a clear mandate and needs to build support beyond his core base.
Of course the dems / left / msm will do what they always do to disrupt him. That hardly should be a surprise.
Many here made assurances that was how trump's authoritarian instincts (if he had any) were going to be limited. They are behaving very much as expected.
There is a sizable body of people who are not fully bought into what the dems / msm have to say. Reality is that they are also not fully bought into trump.
Unless trump intends to be rule as an authoritarian, he must win over a majority.
.
Action speaks louder than words – not only in substance, but in execution.
If the "ban" is an example of how things will go down, it is not promising.
There is only so far an "FU" attitude wrt the press and elected dems, secrecy, defensiveness, blame, and surprises will get the trump admin.
My bet is either not very far, or too far, indeed.
“but reasonable is not on the table
they see it as a war
…
attack attack attack
validity, reasonableness, ability to concede, etc
are ALL off the table when the revolutionaries are so close to winning it all and it was snatched” – Art
Frankly, this comes out of a world where two things are held as absolute truth by both sides of the political spectrum in this country:
1) Their side loses too often because the other side use bare knuckle tactics, while their own side has played by the Marquess of Queensberry rules.
2) Their own side does bad things only because the other side started it.
.
“their goal is to play you as an idiot
and sadly, it works”
So, we mustn’t question what trump does, and we mustn’t allow time for thinking about alternatives, after all, arguing so would make one part of the unpatriotic / pacifist sympathizing left, or a stooge thereof.
This all reminds me of something someone once said about this way of thinking…
the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. – Gé¶ring
It is not hard at all to define Trump’s ideological principles, even he himself is so reluctant to do so. His moral philosophy is objectivism as formulated by Ayn Rand: keep Big Government away from business activity. His political philosophy is Jacksonian as Walter Russel Mead defined it: non-interventionist in foreign relation, protectionist in international trade and populist in domestic affairs. And his strategy is that of scorched earth by gen. Sherman or gen. Patton, or, as his chief strategist Bannon formulated, Leninist: bring down establishment by any means necessary, by hook or by crook.
@Sergey – care to explain further?
Doesn’t fit with my understanding of these notions.
For one, I hardly think he is an “objectivist”.
What kind of “objectivist” would involve themselves with bribing, and brag about it?
Would feel themselves entitled to “grab p*ssy”, and brag that it is because he is famous and the women would “let him”?
Those are very far from my understanding of an “objectivist”.
Could go on with the other notions, but don’t want to get into a long debate about the validity of them.
The most prominent principle Ayn Rand proclaimed was “Man is a heroic being”. Her approach to morality was rightfully called Nietzschean. Objectivism means “materialism + capitalism”, just as Marxism means “materialism + socialism”. And “heroic” in her philosophy meant an ancient Greek view that heroes were semi-gods, superhuman creatures. Nietzsche took his “superhuman” notion from the same source.
Huxley — “He ran that campaign in a risky, undisciplined way that could easily have lost IMO, even with an angry electorate and a snake for an opponent.”
Nonsense. The guy figured out how to win a presidential election with Lefty control of the Democratic Party and the MSM, at half the cost of Hillary’s campaign. He worked harder than any candidate I’ve ever seen, and that goes back to Eisenhower. He invented the use of social media in a presidential campaign. And he won!
I just wish George H. W., McCain, and Romney had been so risky and undisciplined!
“It works the same way in any country” – no, this does not. It did not worked in Britain even when enemy treat was very real. Anglo-Saxon culture is famously immune to authoritarian menace. Even less such authoritarian rule is possible in USA, with so many institutional barriers erected specifically to prevent this – traditions, laws, separation of powers, etc. No way. Neither Trump, nor anybody else can overcome all these hurdles.
Risky – yes. But very calculated and disciplined. All these provocations and scandals were cleverly used to promote Trump and lead press into a trap to make unpaid advertisements for him and raise his visibility. And in the second half of the race he was able to switch to more “presidental”, solid appearance so not to scare horses. As a veteran showman, he understands brilliantly how to entertain and impress the public to the desired effect.
Richard Saunders – nonsense!
Read the first part here:
http://neoneocon.com/2017/01/31/more-on-thought-and-action-and-trump-of-course/#comment-2170111
Another “p*ssy grab” news items would have sunk him, his margin for win was so very thin.
clinton was just that bad a choice to lead the dems, that despite would be GOP voters staying home, so did a rather large number of dem voters.
Had a good number of expected GOP voters not stayed home (e.g. had trump received more than McCain as a percentage of eligible voters), you might have a valid argument wrt a trump grand strategy.
All you can claim is that trump’s win was fair and square, and he is a legitimate POTUS as a result.
Sergey, your take on Ayn Rand and Objectivism is distorted. I’m not a follower of what became her cult, but I do have a very, very thorough understanding of her philosophy. While she initially identified with Nietzsche, by the time she got around to publishing The Fountainhead she had explicitly renounced his philosophy, to the point of removing any references to him in her dedication and even rewriting passages she considered too Nietzchean.
As to Trump being an Objectivist, perhaps he wants to think of himself as a radical advocate of unfettered capitalism, but his entire business career has been an example of crony capitalism, from buying off government officials to using bankruptcy and eminent domain (theft) to achieve his “success” at any price. In short he is a man without ethical grounding or a consistent ideology. He is similar to Nixon in his thinking. In a speech Ayn Rand gave at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, she referenced Nixon as a perfect example of Pragmatism. Nixon was a man without principles, as is Trump. Whatever works is the motto. Action before thought. Revenge as a means.
It’s hard for me to see Trump as an Objectivist. I don’t take Trump’s Christianity too seriously, but it’s hard for me to imagine a real Objectivist claiming the Bible was his favorite book.
As Roy Lofquist mentioned above, Trump was a follower of Norman Vincent Peale, the “Positive Thinking” pastor. Trump and his parents regularly attended services at Peale’s church . Trump’s sisters were married there along with the funeral services for Trump’s parents.
So Trump does have a history with Christianity, although Peale was often attacked for running more of a cult than church.
Big Maq — your visceral hatred of Trump clouds your judgement. Res ipsa loquitor — the thing, in this case the election, speaks for itself.
@Richard – you read me wrong, but what the heck, that’s part and parcel for calling into question anything wrt trump.
The problem is trump and his devoted followers think the election itself is proof of much.
Just how obsessed can one be about the margin (not particularly big) of EC votes?
Must trump need validation from every world leader that he has won legitimately?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html
This election had the fewest proportion of eligible voters in recent times. trump’s margin in the swing states was razor thin.
Facts are facts, even if inconvenient to trump’s narrative of having a “mandate”.
He doesn’t.
He merely has a chance to prove himself, with a GOP majority in Congress who really don’t owe him much.
GOP leadership is now bound to Trump camp by the most important thing in politics – ability to win elections, on every level of governance. Trump has shown that without white workers on the board no election is winnable. So all GOP policies must be reoriented to keep this constituency loyal to the party. This is the main shift in the body politics, and it amounts to Jacksonian revolution. It is useless to dispute now whether Trump has mandate or not: the seismic shift has happened, and it is irreversible.
I do not claim that Trump is Objectivist ideologically, he is no ideologist at all. But as a person, he looks like a personage from “Atlas Shrugged” page by any measure. And his main strategist and ideologist, Bannon, is as Nietzschean as they came.
I just wish George H. W., McCain, and Romney had been so risky and undisciplined!
GHW Bush, McCain and Romney ran against two of the strongest Dem campaigners since FDR.
Trump barely edged out the worst Dem candidate in living memory in a change year with the third-term curse working against her.
Seems like a whole lotta hubris goin’ on.
Despite all the bitching on my part about Trump, and any lack of empathy for those who would excuse and rationalize his faults, so far he’s made excellent cabinet choices and is showing an iron resolve in taking on the DC establishment. You may not like the man and his past, but he has surrounded himself with conservative advisors who he seems to be listening to. So far.
@Other Chuck – right. There are good signs. Most of the cabinet and advisory choices were good, from a conservative point of view.
So, plenty of potential.
A few problems.
1) Will trump really be listening to them? And will he back them, when the going gets tough?
2) Who does he rely on most? If it is bunion, then we are sunk. A good example is this “ban” that is not a ban debacle, which bunion apparently led.
3) Will trump (and his team) learn from their mistakes (requiring they recognize them, even if only internally)? And do so well before any major damage or crisis happen?
Usually we can defer to our president and his staff a superior level of understanding and capability. But, when I come away feeling I (yes, me – who is even further away from politics as trump was) can do a better job, than has occurred the first few days, there is a problem.
I was expecting FAR better from this billionaire who bragged about his competence.
Surprisingly, never got that sense with any past president, even with obama, as much as I was against his politics, and suspected his community organizer experience.