I saw the following post in Facebook this morning and it exactly captures what is so frustrating to me about the current election.
Alex Schiller
Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him.
Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him.
Hillary oversaw the department of state while 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail.
2 Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem.
Immigrants don’t pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out.
Trump doesn’t pay taxes. He’s a business genius.
Hillary’s foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people. She’s a crook.
Trumps foundation paid off his debts, bought sculptures of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations while using less than 5% of funds for charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy… Put him in the white house.
Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same “small loans” he received would be worth $12 billion today… without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He’s a real business whiz.
Hillary took a loss of $700k. She’s a criminal.
Trump is the first candidate in the modern era not to release his tax returns, and took a billion dollar loss in 1 year. Genius.
Hillary takes responsibility for private email servers and apologizes. Not credible.
Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record), he’s just telling it like it is.
Your arguments are thin. Your ignorance of reality is shocking. Your double-standards are offensive, and your willingness to blindly support him and recycle the rhetoric is absurd. Your opinion is not fact. Your memes are not news articles. And your hypocrisy is not a platform.
And it’s really not a “Republican vs Democrat” thing (for me, at least). I understand the frustration that Trump is capitalizing on; Bernie Sanders did the same on the left. People are upset at business as usual in Washington, they feel passed over in the economic recovery and are frightened that their way of life is slipping away (or maybe already has slipped away). They feel that at some unspecified time in the past America was “Great” and they want that for now. Trump promises to “make America great again” and they fall all over themselves in support.
What’s bothering me is how totally unqualified Trump is for the position, full stop. Every single argument brought up in his favor fails, because of who he is.
And here’s the thing: as I said, I understand the frustration of the people supporting him, and in fact, agree with much of what is so upsetting to them. (I posted a link to the Newsroom clip of Jeff Daniels’ character talking about why America is no longer “the greatest country in the world,” so “let’s make America great again” actually resonates with me.) We have a lot of things in this country that need fixing. Our middle class is shrinking with more and more wealth concentrated in a very small group at the top. Our nation’s infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) is in need of repair and update (in some cases, in desperate need of it). Our health care system is badly in need of overhaul; for the amount we spend the outcomes are pretty pathetic. We’re pretty damn good at heroic intervention medicine (US-trained surgeons are among the best in the world, for instance), but we don’t do too well at helping people stay healthy in the first place. Until the Affordable Care Act, basic healthcare was denied to so many it constituted a national embarrassment. We spend more for our military than pretty much the rest of the world combined, with no real credible threat to its dominance anywhere, while our veterans can’t get the healthcare and support they need to live a decent life after they get out of the military.
So there’s lots to fix, and I agree; I’d like to see America great again.
But is Donald Trump the person to make that happen? I think not. Trump is almost precisely the wrong guy to fix things. We need someone who can build consensus. Trump has never had to (nor even tried, as far as I can tell) to build consensus. We need someone who is true to their word; Trump has been sued over 3000 times for defaulting on contractual obligations. We need someone who can be trusted; Trump is fundamentally a liar. When caught in his lies he denies having told them in the first place, in spite of recordings proving otherwise. We need someone who owns up to mistakes; Trump blames everyone except himself, even making ridiculous assertions that have not even a shred of credibility in defense of himself. We need someone humble enough to take advice from experts; Trump’s own handlers say he has to be manipulated like a six-year-old to get him to change his own destructive behavior. He cannot accept criticism and believes himself to be smarter than experts, even in areas where he has absolutely no experience.
People supportive of Trump say he’s got the business acumen necessary to fix our economy. Setting aside the fact the government is not (and cannot be run as) a business, all evidence points to the fact that he’s actually terrible at business. How a person who loses nearly a billion dollars in one year can be thought of as a “great businessman” is completely beyond me. He got out of that particular hole by forcing the people he contracted with, his business partners and the banks he borrowed from to foot the bill for his bad business decisions.
His supporters say “he tells it like it is” but I’ve never been able to find out exactly what people mean when they say that. Are they referring to him saying “What a nasty woman” about Clinton during the debates? Or that “The military operation in Mosul is a complete disaster” when in fact the military leaders on the ground say it’s going well? Or how about “It’s Hillary’s fault that I was able to take advantage of tax loopholes” and not pay personal income tax for nearly two decades”? If people are referring to his misogynistic or overtly racist comments, then I don’t think that’s “telling it like it is;” that’s just him spewing the vitriol that reflects what lies just beneath the surface in the “bubba” subset of his followers. I hope that’s not what a thinking person really believes.
“He’s rich already so he’s not in the pockets of special interests.” This one is a classic. Are these people so fuzzy-thinking that they fail to see the irony? He IS the “special interest!” What little he’s revealed of his plans (assuming he actually has thought that far ahead) indicates he’ll lower taxes on the richest (him) and stick the bill for all his “projects” on future generation of taxpayers. Things like the billions it would cost to deport people here illegally. The likely trillions it would cost to build a “Yuge” wall between here and Mexico. The untold cost to business by tearing up trade deals, pissing off our largest trading partners and starting ruinous trade wars.
And on and on.
Yes, there’s a lot that needs fixing in our country. And it’s very depressing to me when Washington is so gridlocked that nothing is done; even more depressing when it seems like we’re going to keep doing nothing. McCain (whom I thought to be a bit more moderate than this) is vowing to continue to block any and all nominations to the Supreme Court under a Clinton Presidency. I keep hoping that reasonable minds will prevail; maybe the turmoil in the Republican Party will lead to some kind of willingness to build consensus rather than stonewall, and hopefully the Democrats will be there to work with them.
But the real frustration for me is that I simply cannot understand why so many people in this country don’t see that Donald Trump is exactly the wrong guy to “Make America great again.”
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer.
Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.
Trump is exactly the wrong guy to “make us great again.”
I saw the following post in Facebook this morning and it exactly captures what is so frustrating to me about the current election.
And it’s really not a “Republican vs Democrat” thing (for me, at least). I understand the frustration that Trump is capitalizing on; Bernie Sanders did the same on the left. People are upset at business as usual in Washington, they feel passed over in the economic recovery and are frightened that their way of life is slipping away (or maybe already has slipped away). They feel that at some unspecified time in the past America was “Great” and they want that for now. Trump promises to “make America great again” and they fall all over themselves in support.
What’s bothering me is how totally unqualified Trump is for the position, full stop. Every single argument brought up in his favor fails, because of who he is.
And here’s the thing: as I said, I understand the frustration of the people supporting him, and in fact, agree with much of what is so upsetting to them. (I posted a link to the Newsroom clip of Jeff Daniels’ character talking about why America is no longer “the greatest country in the world,” so “let’s make America great again” actually resonates with me.) We have a lot of things in this country that need fixing. Our middle class is shrinking with more and more wealth concentrated in a very small group at the top. Our nation’s infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) is in need of repair and update (in some cases, in desperate need of it). Our health care system is badly in need of overhaul; for the amount we spend the outcomes are pretty pathetic. We’re pretty damn good at heroic intervention medicine (US-trained surgeons are among the best in the world, for instance), but we don’t do too well at helping people stay healthy in the first place. Until the Affordable Care Act, basic healthcare was denied to so many it constituted a national embarrassment. We spend more for our military than pretty much the rest of the world combined, with no real credible threat to its dominance anywhere, while our veterans can’t get the healthcare and support they need to live a decent life after they get out of the military.
So there’s lots to fix, and I agree; I’d like to see America great again.
But is Donald Trump the person to make that happen? I think not. Trump is almost precisely the wrong guy to fix things. We need someone who can build consensus. Trump has never had to (nor even tried, as far as I can tell) to build consensus. We need someone who is true to their word; Trump has been sued over 3000 times for defaulting on contractual obligations. We need someone who can be trusted; Trump is fundamentally a liar. When caught in his lies he denies having told them in the first place, in spite of recordings proving otherwise. We need someone who owns up to mistakes; Trump blames everyone except himself, even making ridiculous assertions that have not even a shred of credibility in defense of himself. We need someone humble enough to take advice from experts; Trump’s own handlers say he has to be manipulated like a six-year-old to get him to change his own destructive behavior. He cannot accept criticism and believes himself to be smarter than experts, even in areas where he has absolutely no experience.
People supportive of Trump say he’s got the business acumen necessary to fix our economy. Setting aside the fact the government is not (and cannot be run as) a business, all evidence points to the fact that he’s actually terrible at business. How a person who loses nearly a billion dollars in one year can be thought of as a “great businessman” is completely beyond me. He got out of that particular hole by forcing the people he contracted with, his business partners and the banks he borrowed from to foot the bill for his bad business decisions.
His supporters say “he tells it like it is” but I’ve never been able to find out exactly what people mean when they say that. Are they referring to him saying “What a nasty woman” about Clinton during the debates? Or that “The military operation in Mosul is a complete disaster” when in fact the military leaders on the ground say it’s going well? Or how about “It’s Hillary’s fault that I was able to take advantage of tax loopholes” and not pay personal income tax for nearly two decades”? If people are referring to his misogynistic or overtly racist comments, then I don’t think that’s “telling it like it is;” that’s just him spewing the vitriol that reflects what lies just beneath the surface in the “bubba” subset of his followers. I hope that’s not what a thinking person really believes.
“He’s rich already so he’s not in the pockets of special interests.” This one is a classic. Are these people so fuzzy-thinking that they fail to see the irony? He IS the “special interest!” What little he’s revealed of his plans (assuming he actually has thought that far ahead) indicates he’ll lower taxes on the richest (him) and stick the bill for all his “projects” on future generation of taxpayers. Things like the billions it would cost to deport people here illegally. The likely trillions it would cost to build a “Yuge” wall between here and Mexico. The untold cost to business by tearing up trade deals, pissing off our largest trading partners and starting ruinous trade wars.
And on and on.
Yes, there’s a lot that needs fixing in our country. And it’s very depressing to me when Washington is so gridlocked that nothing is done; even more depressing when it seems like we’re going to keep doing nothing. McCain (whom I thought to be a bit more moderate than this) is vowing to continue to block any and all nominations to the Supreme Court under a Clinton Presidency. I keep hoping that reasonable minds will prevail; maybe the turmoil in the Republican Party will lead to some kind of willingness to build consensus rather than stonewall, and hopefully the Democrats will be there to work with them.
But the real frustration for me is that I simply cannot understand why so many people in this country don’t see that Donald Trump is exactly the wrong guy to “Make America great again.”
About BigBill
Stats: Married male boomer. Hobbies: Hiking, woodworking, reading, philosophy, good conversation.