Friday, August 5, 2016

Trump: A Historic Opportunity?

My favorite blogsite Crooked Timber hosts my favorite political scientist Corey Robin, who has invested more than one Original Posts (OP) examining the predictably overheated hyperbole about the unique historic badness of The Donald, and not just concluding that but showing exactly how it breaks down.  I couldn't imagine him as a Trump supporter, but like me he does these things.  One thing, for example, it helps to re-examine the myths about Ronald Reagan, and be glad he was lazy, and Barry Goldwater, and be glad he wasn't elected, but also aware that he and his people engineered the ultimate Reagan era in politics which continues to this day.  And, it's always interesting that Donald may well take the most heat because of saying some things that are actually true.  Corey notes Trump saying the US is not always the best exemplar and therefore messenger in Human Rights, which is true.

The comments section likewise is not a great bastion of Trump support, out of a universe of a few hundred Crooked Timber commenters (I'm one sometimes) there are just a few, it's hard to know how many, Trump supporters, just that there aren't many.  Crooked Timber is famously left, with just a few sturdy stragglers and trolls on the right.

Quite a few Greens and others unwilling to go along with the corporate side of the Democratic Party, best exemplified of course by Hillary Clinton, however.

But one of the most notable pro-Trumpers following this recent OP by Corey goes by the name Kidneystones (which I imagine as meaning one who has been pissed for a long time) who makes a forceful leftist (as he seems to be leftist) case for being affirmatively pro-Trump (this is a link to the main article and all 800+ comments)..

His most positively memorable comment is (or was, beware of possible change) 278:

[...] 
I continue to support Trump because I don’t believe his record shows him to be anything worse than a vulgarian egomaniac brimming with bombast who loves nothing more than garnering attention for himself in the most grandiose fashion.  
Trump doesn’t want to start anymore wars and he wants all people in America to enjoy the same legal protections. And for all his public and private intemperate behavior and bad judgment, Trump has yet to appear allow himself to be filmed laughing about people he helped kill during a CBS interview. So, there’s bad judgment and bad judgment. 
Finally, a question. Which is more important – electing another neocon cause she wears a dress, or helping destroy Ted Cruz’s GOP by electing a NY liberal billionaire who promises to remake the party of Lincoln? 
I mean, if we’re talking about big ideas and the fierce urgency of now. For real.
First, let me say even if I don't agree with this, in some parts I'm very moved by it.  It represents the best defense of Trump, and the best reason the Presidential race needs to be  Trump v. Clinton.

But about this "neocon in a dress" thing?  He later denies that is sexist.  So we see he has some weaknesses.  His case for Trump is interesting.  If Trump is elected, I hope that Trump is as Kidneystones says.  As I write, Trump has been on a downhill spiral in the Huffington Post and lefter media.  I don't pay attention to anything else, I can only imagine the mainstream media is the same, possibly with some exceptions.  The above blog is from more than a week ago.

Sadly I think Kidneystones seems to have lack of memory for things Trump had already said and done when he wrote the above.  He's worked hard--too hard--to ensure he isn't seen as secular or pro-choice or liberal in any way.  It seems in many areas--if not all--he's sold his soul.  That's what immediately came to mind with his VP choice.  Anyway, for me I also fear the disolution of social democracy, I'm still more hopeful that electing Democrats is the best chance (though hardly perfect) for preserving social democracy.

One pundit I respect mostly who remains solidly Trump is Pat Buchanan.  Pat has written some of the best articles on the encroachment of Russia by NATO expansion.  He has been though of as having racist views, but I think I'd love to see him running foreign policy, as I expect it would be away from foreign entanglements.  I'm not sure of his domestic policy, and then there's his party, the Republicans, and their horrible influence on the courts.

Another pundit is Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism, who endorsed Trump after hearing he would tear up TPP if passed by Congress in the lame duck session.

People think of voting as an individual act, but really it's a collective process, by which at great cost the people only make small changes.

I remain firmly in support of voting Hillary in contested states, and voting Democratic when possible otherwise, and Green if no Democrat, and nearly anything but Republican.

A friend points out that Lincoln's party when from nowhere to being, well, the most elected party since 1860 in just a few years.  But I don't have any special hope of this happening now.  Now the most important thing is indeed defeating Republicans, and that is unquestionably the only way a new alternative majority party can be created.

I strongly don't see Donald Trump as not being that kind of agent of change.  Sadly no.

Frankly, I don't see anyone.

That probably says something too.






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