I hope you know what you’re doing. I get the part about voting for him. What I don’t get is being fooled by him. And I’m not sure who’s getting fooled. Is he what he appears to be, or is it all just an act?
He’s a real estate salesman. He doesn’t design buildings. He doesn’t actually build them. He just puts his name on them. He “gets it done” but what about how he gets it done?
What is his word worth? Is he an honorable man? A decent one? A kind one? Do we have any fucking idea who this guy really is?
There is a saying: “The elites take Donald Trump literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Our future may depend on them having the clearer view.
This election shows the split between yesterday and tomorrow. “Make America Great Again” … like it used to be.
It is a rejection of the elite modern globalists. Those comfortable with — and who do well with — the global economy. The inevitable America of tomorrow is their world.
This election sought to make it less inevitable — break us away from the modern global economy that stole the jobs that made America great. The split is global versus local. It’s all too big; it doesn’t work.
An implication: Even the modern USA — and more so, the USA of tomorrow — is too big. It doesn’t work. Yesterday was smaller. You could wrap your head around it.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Remember this?
But who gets to be in that smaller USA?
What, exactly, is Donald Trump’s Great America?
And how will he get us there?
I’m shocked, dismayed, dumbfounded,… but not very surprised. It’s exactly what I feared, what’s been keeping me up at nights, what’s made me sick at heart.
§
This election cycle showed entropy in action. The barrel of wine and the barrel of sewage. Okay, maybe it was a barrel of vinegar, but the point stands.
Add a teaspoon of sewage to a barrel of vinegar, and you no longer have anything like a barrel of vinegar.
But add a teaspoon of vinegar to a barrel of sewage, and you pretty much still have a barrel of sewage.
Simply put: Shit wins.
§
I hope this works out the way you think it will.
And to all you Third Party “protest” voters… Thanks a heap. This is “why not.” I hope you’re happy.
Nate Silver got the World Series Indians really wrong, too!
I hope Chris Matthews is right (he’s a really smart guy). Is the appalling clown who slam-dunked an election in the most startling way possible what he seems or a savvy operator who put on one hell of a show?
And if, against all apparent odds, it turns out to be the latter, does that same savvy make him a better President than we expected?
Or is he just an opportunistic bystander to a greater desire to step back from the fast-paced modern global village.
Will the Real Donald Trump please stand up?
Logos con carne 
November 9th, 2016 at 7:16 am
Those protest voters make me want to throw things. How could they? How could they? And I just glanced at an article in the NYT about people who just didn’t give a shit enough to get their lazy asses out to vote. Wow. I’d like to say they’ll feel bad if things go downhill, but I doubt they’ll remember anything.
I haven’t slept, so excuse me if I make no sense.
November 9th, 2016 at 1:45 pm
I talked to a number of people who weren’t “enthusiastic” about Clinton or didn’t find her “inspiring” enough. Asshats…
You’re still making sense, but if you haven’t slept all night, you should get some rest! (I finally crashed around 4:30 CST when I finally gave up hearing a call on Minnesota and Arizona.) I just got up and haven’t checked in on the news yet.
November 9th, 2016 at 1:55 pm
I finally fell asleep around 6am or shortly after. The news is terrible…I’m glad you got to sleep before hearing the worst.
November 9th, 2016 at 2:13 pm
Worse than Trump’s election? I better check in!
November 9th, 2016 at 1:47 pm
Oh, and there were a lot of people who just completely hated her, thought she was the evil one. We can thank GOP propaganda and internet bubbles for that one.
November 9th, 2016 at 2:16 pm
It’s hard to believe. I think the millennials played a big role here, those idiots. Did they get their news from Facebook? Did they really think they were doing the world a service? Do they not know what the president can do now? I can’t be thoughtful or nice anymore. I just can’t. The snark is coming out of me in a constant stream. Maybe they didn’t make the difference, but I still want to strangle them. And some of them moved from Bernie to Gary Fucking Johnson. How stupid can they be? People, reasonable people, people who reasonably reasoned that Gary Johnson would take votes from Trump but not Hilary were just wrong. They underestimated the rampant stupidity going on, the irrationality. I saw how many Johnson signs there were at the local Bernie event. I even have ‘friends’ on Facebook who admit to making this switch. I don’t know that it would have made the difference had Johnson not been around, but it made me sick to see the margins Trump won by, and to see that margin filled by his stupid ass.
November 9th, 2016 at 2:27 pm
But what do you really think? 🙂
As you no doubt know, the margin in many states was considerably less than the votes Johnson got. Had those votes gone to one of the candidates, it might have been a very different race.
Hard to say which candidate with any accuracy. There were “protest” votes on both sides. We do know there were those like Susan Saranwarp who were voting in protest of both Trump and Clinton. (Proving once again what flakes actors can be. Why we pay them any attention off-screen is sometimes beyond me. They’re animated cardboard cutouts that writers and directors move around to tell stories.)
David Frum put it excellently: Your vote can be a statement or an instrument. He (and I) believe it should be an instrument. In particular when the need is great, we cannot afford the luxury of treating our vote as a statement. The time for statements is before we vote.
Voting is our instrument for shaping the future; it must be used wisely and productively.
November 9th, 2016 at 2:40 pm
Couldn’t agree with you more on everything here. I like the cardboard cut-out analogy.
November 9th, 2016 at 9:05 am
I was reading a list of 30 things Donald Trump believes, on the BBC website. I would say that about a third sound like they might be good ideas. One third sound terrible, but I completely get why people might like them. One third of his ideas are so bad, you would have to be a monkey to vote for them.
One explanation is that his supporters are smarter than we think. OK, so forget I suggested that. The other explanation is that half of Americans are monkeys. That sounds about right. Turns out, half of Britons are monkeys too. We just found out a few months sooner than you did.
November 9th, 2016 at 1:56 pm
One problem with his “good” ideas is that he has no plan to implement them (because it’s dubious they could be pulled off at all — they’re just smoke and mirror wishes). And some of his bad ideas are literally contrary to our Constitution.
But who knows what he really thinks. We have no idea; just what he’s said so far.
There is a great deal here in common with the Brexit vote; many of his supporters expected it to go down that way. The failure of the polls to capture the truth in both cases. The rise of populism and nationalism in both cases. The chance of huge sticker shock over a massive mistake in both cases.
And in both cases, “low information” voters going with their gut rather than applying (or, tragically, even knowing how to apply) critical reason to their thinking. Something I’ve argued against time and again here. One of my key issues. The Death of a Liberal Arts education. The rejection of science and intellect.
It all depends on whether it was right to take him literally or just seriously.
November 9th, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Yes, looks just like Brexit to me.
November 9th, 2016 at 9:07 am
Just to be mischievous and make your day worse than it already is, (but also with some genuine curiosity), I have a question for you. You’ve been arguing for a while now that the world is getting steadily worse and that we need to turn back the clock. That’s pretty much what Trump says too. So is there anything about his policies that you endorse?
November 9th, 2016 at 2:12 pm
“You’ve been arguing for a while now that the world is getting steadily worse and that we need to turn back the clock.”
You are correct on the first part of that — it’s a keynote of mine — but couldn’t be more wrong on the second part.
I have never argued we should “turn back the clock.” Quite to the contrary, I’ve said many times I’m not one to look in the rear view mirror. What’s past is past; what’s ahead is more interesting.
What might seem like a desire to return to the past is a desire to return to a point of view that sees education, knowledge, and the dialectic as crucial to society. I agree completely with every one of Leon Wieseltier’s amazing ten-word critique on modern society:
All three clauses speak to exactly why we’re in such trouble socially.
More to the point, the Trump we’ve seen seems to oppose what those clauses address and require. That’s why he terrifies some of us (those who revere what those clauses speak to).
My view is that we can only get where we need to get by moving forward in the direction pointed to by The Enlightenment and over two-thousand years of Western literature and thought. (Not to mention as much, if not more in some cases, from other civilizations who reached beyond their grasp to escape our animal origins. Intellect, not guts, is our escape velocity. The guts is just our fuel.)
As for any policies I could or would endorse, I have no idea what his policies even are. Even less, what plans he might have to accomplish them. So far, he’s all talk.
There is this, though: I do believe certain things can be ruined — totally ruined — by other things. Obvious case in point, Anthony Weiner’s sexual perversion totally ruins any political or social or personal value he might have otherwise.
People don’t understand why I rejected the TV show Breaking Bad… It was because it starred a meth maker and dealer. In a movie, if it was a really good movie in some way, performance, script, cinematography, whatever, I might allow that into my life for the duration of the film. But to allow that into my home on a regular basis, for multiple seasons? No; I just won’t do it; it doesn’t matter how good the show is, it’s about a meth guy.
And likewise, based on what I’ve seen, Donald Trump. I see him (so far) as a barrel of sewage that no amount of wine could make drinkable.
November 9th, 2016 at 2:37 pm
OK, thanks, I understand better now. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t enjoy Breaking Bad either, and largely for the same reasons.