A range of views are expressed on The XYZ, and a range of views have been expressed regarding Trump on The XYZ.
Here is an article by Jeremy Morgan, who argues that Trump is an opportunist. And here is one by Ryan Fletcher in support of Trump, while another raises concern over his association with anti-vax nutters.
Crudeness – Trump’s greatest strength and greatest weakness
Personally, I have mixed feelings on Trump. As one of my favourite commentators, Bill Whittle puts it, Trump gives us whiplash. He will say a lot of things with which we not only agree, but want to stand up and cheer because someone is actually saying them. But then he will say something which we just cannot condone.
His line on muslim immigration – “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”, is a case in point.
On The XYZ we are concerned about uncontrolled mass immigration from the muslim world, where people may be bringing into the West an ideology which is fundamentally opposed to the principles which underpin our civilisation. So when Trump says something like this, we are drawn to him. But on the other hand, the way he puts it makes it sound like he is just muslim-bashing. We are repulsed because of the crudeness with which he speaks the truth.
But it is this simplicity, which can risk misunderstanding because it is put so forcefully, and with absolutely no concern for politically correct social norms, which has made him so appealing, because he can articulate, in a crude soundbite-sized morsel, what it takes us hundreds or thousands of words to so carefully debate.
I do not think he is evil or stupid. I think he is very intelligent, and above all a brilliant salesperson. I think we should challenge him – which we do – but we also need to challenge the politically correct social norms which cause people in our society to react so reflexively against what Donald Trump says, but not against the socialist, anti-Western rhetoric of Barack Obama.
The left ordains its opponents before the right has even chosen them
The left has the ability to sense, to smell, like a predator on the Serengeti, its most dangerous opponent. They can pick them because they can tell instinctively who on the right does not play by their rules, who does not try to caveat their policies and how they articulate them out of concern for what progressives might think. When they hear a politician on the right presenting a vision, and a principle which is fundamentally opposed to their own socialist worldview, they absolutely flip.
There is an easy way to tell who the most dangerous opponent to the left is. If, in polite, politically correct company, you suggest that said candidate is not completely, 100% evil, it is made immediately clear, in no uncertain terms, that you, yourself, are the illegitimate child of Adolf Hitler. Think of the “unelectable”, “Mad Monk” Tony Abbott, who had earned these monikers even before he led the Liberal Party in opposition. George W Bush was hated and demonised as a bible-bashing rapture-believing warmonger before he was even chosen as the Republican nominee.
You can also tell who the left’s most formidable opponents of the past were, by how they are remembered, and how the history books are rewritten. For example, just ask one of your “progressive” friends what they think of the leaders who saved us from communism, Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan..
The point of all this is that the left have practically ordained Trump as their opponent, while US Republicans still hold out hope for the rest of the field. Trump simply does not care what the left thinks. And he uses their own tactics against them, responding to personal attacks with devastating salvos of his own. The left know he is kryptonite to them, so expect the Godwin’s Law to go into meltdown whenever Trump is mentioned for at least the next decade.
The right – moving from one abusive relationship to the next
A pattern of behaviour for people who have suffered under abusive partners, who have endured the hell of abusive relationships, is that they move from one abusive relationship to the next. A new partner may appear charismatic and deeply attractive, but the same dark traits always lurk beneath the surface. The abused senses this, and even though these dark traits will be the thing which ultimately push them away from the abuser, they are the same dark traits which draw them to the abuser.
Classical Liberals, Cultural Libertarians, Conservatives, what I will broadly call the right, although it may be more accurate to call this broad coalition “not the left”, is currently in an abusive relationship with the society in which we live. The desire and the ability to earn wealth, and to keep it, is reviled. The free expression of ideas or opinions which do not fit society’s increasingly narrow politically correct social norms are met with social shaming, fines, loss of employment or even criminal convictions for those who express them. Pride in one’s nation, in one’s European heritage, is equated automatically with the genocide of Hitler’s Germany. Thus any attempt to assert ideas which are not socialist or Cultural Marxist in origin are immediately quashed.
So, when we on the right hear someone unashamedly expressing the things which we know we are not allowed to say, but which we know are the truth, and they get away with it, we go nuts. We fall in love. Or more accurately, we become infatuated. The right is currently infatuated with Donald Trump. His “progressive” traits, his crudeness in expressing ideas which deserve and need a more thoughtful argument, are ignored or blocked out. In the short term, he may very well deliver a knock-out blow to the left, but we may come to regret our attachment in the long term.
A person trapped in a cycle of abusive relationships will not extract themselves from this cycle until they acknowledge their own problems, and learn to assert their identity. The right needs to realise that, across the board, we are playing by the left’s rules. The centre of politics is being constantly being pulled to the left by a left which knows that all it has to do is hound us and call us Hitler long enough before we inevitably buckle. We need to stop acknowledging that the left have any credibility as a political alternative, at least in its current authoritarian-socialist form, and assert our own identity and policies with no concern for the vitriol it will provoke.
Until this happens, I believe we are stuck with Trump. I think the next decade will be even more turbulent than the last, both in America and the rest of the world. I believe that Trump will give both the left and the right a very bloody nose, but if the right learns to become more assertive, it will come out better on the other side.
The tl;dr version of all this is, with regards to Donald Trump, it’s a complicated issue and there are strong arguments on both sides.
Photo by Michael Vadon 