A friend of ours sent us some of his musings on Donald Trump. He was amongst those who voted for President Trump more as a vote against Madam Hillary than for The Donald. He decided initially to just take a close listen to President Trump’s speech to Congress and from there gave the story of his relationship leading to his vote. We turned the two into the more sensible order with the reaction to the speech second and his commentary on Trump from the start. We asked his permission to use them which he gratefully gave. We all agreed that his relating might clear the picture to some degree for others who also tread his path during the elections. With no further ado, we present his thoughts starting with the beginning.
After a year and three quarters of watching our Twitter-in-Chief operate and manipulate his way to the top, I just want to engage in a brief review.
It all started with his announcement of his candidacy for the position of President of the United States. I didn’t think he had any chance at all. The main street media (MSM) covered it and viewed him and his candidacy basically as a joke. He was just a businessman, an entertainer. As a politician he was a neophyte, an amateur who will quickly get his clock cleaned and his comeuppance from the real politicians. Trump was nothing but a side show, a flash in the pan, a one-off who will soon crash and burn. His candidacy was merely entertaining fodder to sell more copies. Much to the delight of the MSM, Trump spoke and said some of the awfullest outrageous things I have ever heard from the mouth of a politician. I thought that he was toast. The MSM thought he was toast. His candidacy rose in the polls to lead all the Republican candidates.
Then came the debates. Trump was at center stage because he led in the polls. He held his own. And he continued to speak. He managed to insult, in an ugly manner, any and all of the candidates that were challenging him in the polls. He went after their integrity, their reputation, their families. I thought he was toast. The MSM thought he was toast. Trump continued to gain in popularity.
Then came the primaries. Trump started winning. He didn’t win them all. He won most and scored well in the ones he didn’t win. And he continued speaking, making awful outrageous comments about any one and anything that challenged his lead. I couldn’t believe that he was still in the race, still in the lead. He should have been toast. The MSM started going apoplectic. Trump had become the focus and the center of their coverage of the 2016 Presidential campaign. The MSM didn’t understand. They thought they were all powerful, that they controlled the thought and voting behavior of the ‘people’, the public that they wrote for and spoke to. They thought they were so powerful that they could determine the candidates, and the winners, and the losers of the elections. The MSM started going all negative, all the time on Trump. Trump should have been toast. I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t toast. And the size of Trump’s campaign rallies continued to increase, although the MSM never reported on it. And Trump’s popularity grew.
Then Trump secured the Republican nomination for President. The MSM now went into full anti Trump mode. It was as if they had declared war on Trump and his candidacy. It was all negative, all of the time when reporting on Trump, his candidacy, and his campaign. Hillary was all but declared the winner. Trump had no chance. He was unfit, mentally unstable, a loose cannon, a racist, a misogynist, and an anti-Semite, a business failure, and a quitter. And he was stupid and unintelligent, as well. These characterizations were and are totally bogus. Most of the other charges against him were unsubstantiated or blatantly false. So I forced myself to listen to one of his campaign speeches. Parts of it I didn’t agree with, parts of it I liked, on other parts I had no opinion; but overall it met with my approval. I read one of his position papers. Parts of it I didn’t agree with, parts of it I liked, on other parts I had no opinion; but overall it met with my approval. As for Trump’s behavior, he continued saying and tweeting what seemed to me to be whatever popped into his head at that moment. Some were entertaining; some were awful, disgusting, and absolutely indefensible. I watched a Fox News interview of some commentators; and one of them, I think it was Laura Ingraham, who was asked, ‘now that Trump has secured the nomination, what advice would you give him for his campaign against Hillary’. She said she would advise him to act more presidential, that he should tone down his abrasive talk and espouse more on his political positions; that he should be nicer to the Press and to his opponent. However, her final comment was an observation that posed the question as to why should Trump change any of his campaign behavior. So far it has been highly successful. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Then all of a sudden, Trump no longer gained ground in the polls. It seemed that all the polls, all the time had Hillary as the winner.
Then Trump won. I was shocked. How could all those polls and pollsters been so wrong. Did their biases against Trump cloud their reporting. Did the MSM intentionally lie. Trump spent about half of what Hillary spent. And I think it was mostly his own money. Trump used the MSM to garner free advertising. He led them around by their collective noses and they followed like sheep. This relationship between Trump and the MSM continues in the same mode. The MSM still has not come to grips of the reality of Trump’s victory. They don’t believe that they were played. They still publish unsubstantiated and false news items about Trump. (The story of Trump and the prostitute doing an unmentionable act in a bed that the Obamas allegedly slept in is the most egregious one; that Trump is an anti-Semite is so blatantly false that it doesn’t require comment.) If the MSM lied so baldly during the presidential campaign, or maybe they only produced biased news, or possibly they were just incompetent, why should they be believed now. The MSM has not come to grips with the possibility that they are not as powerful and influential as they believe themselves to be.
Trump is Trump. He is still as obnoxious as ever saying things that are indefensible or simply beyond outrageous. My faith in the MSM was not shattered. I never fully believed them anyway. But now it seems to me that in reality they are no better than the tabloid press, those newspapers that publish stories about UFOs and alien abductions, and stories about celebrity gossip. Trump still plays the MSM. It had been big news about Trump being in bed with Putin and the Russians, that the Russians enabled Trump’s victory in November. So Trump tweeted that Obama ordered the bugging of Trump Towers and the narrative of the entire story changed directions. I have to admire Trump. He may be the best ‘player’ to have ever been elected President of the United States.
All hail the ‘player’-in-chief.
President Trump Addressing the United States Congress
And this is his review of President Trump’s speech to Congress.
I think that I finally got it. I understand, maybe.
I watched Trump’s speech to Congress the other night (28 February 2017). Basically, I liked it. Nearly everything he said, I liked. I can’t think of anything in particular that disappointed me, except maybe that he mentioned Israel. I would have preferred that he had not mentioned Israel at all. The speech appears to have been positively received by the American public. I liked that he focused on the economic well-being and the physical well-being of the US citizens. I liked that Trump acknowledged that his constituency is the American public, not the citizens of other countries. Trump is definitely quite comfortable with the concept of the nation/state as the basis of governance.
During the speech when the camera panned to the Democratic members of Congress, most of what I saw were their sour faces. At times I could understand their disappointment. Most of what they felt was holy, now lay shattered in shards at their feet. At times it appeared to me that the Democrats/progressives/socialists are on the wrong side of history. I felt that the Democrats could easily be saying that famous quote from Walt Kelly’s famous cartoon character, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us”
But as I perused the disappointed Democrats, I began to understand this issue from another point of view. That point of view involved Maslow’s pyramid, or Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The Democrats talk about bathroom usage, gender equality, group identity rights, civil rights, equality of results. All these items are noble and righteous. Trump talks about the physical security of the individual, the economic well-being of the individual. The items on the Democrat’s list are those at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The items on Trump’s list are at the base of Maslow’s pyramid. According to Maslow, the base of the pyramid must be settled before issues above can be dealt with. It is obvious to me that many US citizens, if not most of them, are more embroiled in the issues of the physiological and safety that Trump talks about as opposed to the Democrat’s issues of esteem and self-actualization.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 