Thursday, March 21, 2019

Full display

Readers of this feature will remember that I was, during the 2016 election, in the NeverTrump camp. I hated being there, because I did not want Hillary Clinton to be president, either, but I had serious misgivings about Trump's demeanor and assumed he was going to do irreparable damage to the conservative cause.

Once he was elected, I took a "wait-and-see" stance. I also stopped being a NeverTrumper, because what was the point? In the 2+ years of his presidency, he's really helped to clarify a few things, to wit:

  • His opponents on the Left are unhinged
  • His opponents on the Right range from unhinged to cynical, sometimes both (a good trick, by the way, but watch Bill Kristol some time if you doubt this assertion)
  • Nothing that the mainstream media says about Trump can be taken at face value
A liberal college-era friend of mine made an astute comment about Trump. My friend, who has struggled with mental health issues, objects to the "Trump is mentally ill" tropes that seem to be back in the air, now that Mueller looks to be a disappointment. He said this:
Apparently, [George] Conway thinks diagnosing Trump will some how confirm or nail down some "secret" about him. Trump is already on full display. We don't need psychiatry.
And that's spot-on. Trump has been on full display his entire adult life. What you see is what you get. So, having viewed the display of Trump, and the circus that surrounds him, what do you make of the display? 

3 comments:

jerrye92002 said...

For over two years I have been saying that Trump's greatest achievement is offending all the right people. It's driving the liberals stark, raving coo-coo, and that's free entertainment.

Bike Bubba said...

Most of what the left says about Trump doesn't bother me because it's so transparently false, or at the very least hypocritical--the party of Teddy Kennedy and Gerry Studds is suddenly all worked up about sexual misbehavior? Seriously?

What does bother me about Trump is how he made a living in Gotham before Giuliani subdued the Mob. Does he just know what it takes, or did it involve some huge compromises? I don't know, and that concerns me. Hopefully it's the former.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

BB, I read recently that Trump worked with the FBI back in the 80s-90s. There was supposedly some document that came out last fall that relates to this. It's possible that this is wishful interpretation. But it's also possible that Trump has been actively working for good in a lot of ways using the brash persona as a kind of distraction. It will be fascinating to read about him 50 years from now (If I'm still around for that.)