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The Trump Spectrum
Inspired by this comment from @jameslileks.
- Never Trump: They truly believe he is so awful that even the chaos that would ensue after removing him from office does not outweigh the benefits of said removal. Examples: Bill Kristol.
- Anti-Trump: They too believe he is awful, but recognize that we are stuck with him. They may occasionally admit that he has done some good things, but usually only grudgingly. Examples: Mona Charen, John Podhoretz.
- Trump Skeptics: They don’t like him, they don’t trust him, but they are trying to keep an open mind. They criticize him frequently but try to keep it constructive. They probably didn’t vote for him but are trying to be gracious losers. Some of them may even concede that the good outweighs the bad but insist that the bad still needs to be addressed. Examples: Ben Shapiro, Most of NRO, I place myself here as well.
- Reluctant Trump: They don’t particularly like him, but they think we should give him the benefit of a doubt. They will generally cite Hillary Clinton as their primary (if not their only) motivation for voting for him. Examples: Andrew Klavan, Peter Robinson(?).
- Trump Defenders: They admit he’s made mistakes but either think the good outweighs the bad to such a degree as to make the mistakes not worth discussing, or they believe the forces aligned against him are so great that spending too much time on the mistakes is “piling on.” Examples: Victor Davis Hanson, Dennis Prager.
- Trump Apologists: The only thing he’s done wrong is not play by The Rules. Everything wrong with the administration is entirely the fault of his enemies. All critics are either pearl-clutching elitists and/or open borders globalists. Example: Sean Hannity.
Resolved: Groups 4-6 have a vested interest in believing that Group 1 is far larger than it really is and that Group 6 is a strawman. Groups 1-3 have a vested interest in the reverse, and I myself am far from innocent in this. As with many questions of this nature, reality is far closer to a bell curve. For both sides to accept this is the first step towards reconciliation.
Published in General
Summing the numbers 1 through 6 equals 21. Coincidence? I think not!
A useful taxonomy; quite fluid for me – depending on the Tweet/headline of the day – trying to maintain at 3.
My evolution:
July 2015 – 3 (Trump is a joke.)
October 2015 – 5 (McConnell arranging for the resurrection of the ExIm Bank).
Indiana Primary Day – 1 (Trump avers Cruz’s father killed JFK)
Convention- 1
Election Morning – 2 (I wrote in SMOD)
Election Night – 3
Inauguration Day – 4
Gorsuch and Cabinet – 5
Leaving Paris Climate Accords – 6
House Healthcare Fight – 5
Ever since – 5
How to handle Trump: Do not pay attention to what Trump says. Only pay attention to what he does.
I’m a mix of the descriptions for 3 and 4. I do not regret voting for Trump to prevent a Hillary presidency, and he has done stuff I like (Gorsuch, Mattis, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Accords, being supportive of law-enforcement). But I do find myself nodding a lot more to statements by #2’s than statements by #5’s, and I am very nervous about whether or not Trump’s behavior is going to badly damage the GOP’s fortunes in the next couple of elections (not that the GOP isn’t already self-inflicting a lot of damage with their failures to live up to their rhetoric regarding Obamacare). When he started bad-mouthing his own AG on twitter…ugh.
I also get troubled by how many on the Right now seem to not give a hoot about personal morality or dignity among elected officials from our side of the aisle. Some go beyond saying it’s necessary to overlook these flaws in Trump and actually appear to view them as positive and something to cheered.
The problem is in politics what you say and how you say it does matter to a lot of voters.
Perhaps I’m stuck in a glass half empty mentality, but he just hasn’t done enough. If he gets a big legislative win (e.g. repeal Obamacare) to complement the overall sound administrative policy he’s effected, I’ll be much happier.
This is exactly right.
Great post. I’m a 3 as well….the #resist idiots are trying hard to move me to a 5, Hannity is trying to move me to a 1. Lol
I’m on record going back to the primaries as believing that group 1 was very small indeed, and that most people in group 3 and some in group 2 would eventually end up voting for him. To this day, I suspect that some non-zero number of professed group 1’ers actually voted for Trump.
EDIT: It doesn’t matter whether these groups like each other. I’m not even sure it matters whether the all-important conservative policies du jour get passed. 3% economic growth wins a second term, and a second term wins an enduring conservative SCOTUS majority. That’s the ballgame. All the fans go home happy.
I think I’m a 4 in your taxonomy, but that still doesn’t feel right. Along with Kurt Schlicter, I voted for Trump even though it made me want to projectile vomit. I’ve thought for 30 years that Donald Trump has a repulsive personality and nothing I’ve seen in the campaign or since has changed that opinion. Depending on the day and circumstance, and what Trump, GOP leadership, and the media/progressive complex are up to, I can be anywhere on your spectrum. I have never felt this disoriented politically. Nothing feels right.
Heck, I’ll own up to it. I “passively” voted for him, which is to say that I clicked “straight ticket, Republican” and “forgot” (wink wink nudge nudge) to untick the box for President. I never mentioned it because a) I still considered myself a 3 (actually probably closer to a 2 at the time,) and b) I didn’t want to deal with the gloating.
That’s perfectly reasonable. It’s not gloating to point out that smart, reasonable people made smart, reasonable decisions, especially when there are no good choices.
It’s the only way.
I’d almost peg Hannity at a 7. Sheesh. I don’t know who is harder for me to listen to – Hannity or Levin.
How about the amusement? I have to say I think that’s pretty funny.
Sooo…
I guess that I’m between #3 & #4- since I didn’t vote for him and think he’s incompetent and doing poorly, but I like his deviations from establishment conservative ideology. I hope the party adopts them.
Then again, I’m a Hoosier and like the #1 folks I do tend to think that “the chaos that would ensue after removing him from office does not outweigh the benefits of said removal.” #Pence46
1.5. Trump has some positive accomplishments which I desperately hope Pence will have the opportunity to expand upon, sooner rather than later.
OK, I’ll play. Put me down for a big ol’ 5, because I don’t feel like parsing out the basis points further.
but also,
If you’re going to court, you don’t necessarily want your lawyer to be a nice person – you want a pit bull terrier. I think the same applies in politics.
Might be useful and interesting to see this turned into a Ricochet poll. Then we’d have the results at a glance, instead of wading through pages of comments to determine where people stand.
I’m a 4 I guess – I totally voted not-Hillary.
Understand here that I’m not apologizing for Trump and his antics, but when I want to get upset by the latest thing, I remind myself about the impossible scrutiny that he’s under; none of us have ever seen anything like it. (Maybe the dispatching of 30 or 40 reporters to Alaska to find something, anything, to discredit Sarah Palin comes close, but that didn’t last long.)
We’ve never seen leaks like this, reports of his every inhale and exhale. His handshakes are scrutinized and dissected for nefarious content. Every conversation he has with anyone about anything might be fragmented, stripped of context, and thrown to the populace like scraps of meat to snarling dogs. Not to mention the things that are completely fabricated.
We obviously should hold our leaders responsible for what they do and say, but we’ve never known before what any of our leaders did or said to this degree; I wonder if any of them would’ve been able to get anything done. Remember “dog on the car”, “binders of women”, etc.? Mitt wouldn’t have survived 20 minutes of this. (Neither would any of the other cast of 17, no matter how much we may be wishing one of them had won.)
I know if I were being treated this way at my job, I would have long since folded like a cheap suit. Trump’s super power is his apparent invulnerability to insult, and his impenetrable self-confidence. I try to remember that the things that most make me grind my teeth about him are the very – the only? – way anyone could have defeated the Clintons.
As long as he can keep it up . . . .
Why should reconciliation be a goal? I couldn’t care less about reconciling with the likes of Bill Kristol. Or Mona Charen.
It was after the Tomahawk strike on Syria. It lasted about two weeks. Pretty easy to miss; I don’t think she wrote about it.
Now there is some truth to this too. However, I don’t think that is what Umbra had in mind. I think he might be talking about more between us members. I don’t think he is necessarily including the upper echelons of opinion.
I have to note the significance of this with more than just a like. This is so true.
I was a 2 during the election and a 3 after he won, but I shift back to 2 on occasion when events exasperate me. Off Ricochet, I’ve occasionally gone to 4 because the “resistance” is just so dang annoying. (I originally had a stronger word in there, then remember the CoC. Please replace “dang” with something more vehement in your head.)
I never considered voting for Trump, but I also had the luxury of knowing Maryland would go to Hillary by at least 20 points. So I did a lot of waffling about what I would have done in a swing state, but I felt comfortable voting for neither based on the geographical advantage of not having to choose.
I have friends who are 1s and as much as they loath Trump, even they admit to enjoying watching the exploding heads on the left.
I don’t fall into any of those categories I think. Right now I personal lothe him and think he is incompent, a a bold face lier and narcissist. However I am able to compartmentalize. I judge a person by their actions not by their rhetoric and my personally feelings towards them. In that aspect he is pretty good so far on policy. I would vote for him with no second thought in a General election. ( I was almost going to vote 3rd party in Florida last year but did not so. very reluctant trump voter back then). Now I still would not vote for him in a primary. However I now believe depending on what he does in actions I could be persuaded.
The one thing I was so completely and totally wrong on for the good is his forgien policy. He is no Regan but his best speechs and great policy is coming on that front
You can find me saying a few times on here I think your clueless if you think Trump would be better than Hillary on forgien policy (the only thing Hillary had going for her in my mind). Man I was completely wrong on that. This was coming from a point of view were I think Hillary is completely unaccoplished in forgien policy.
So because I dont buy into the whole cult of personality and believe the overall guiding principle in judging politicians is actions not words, my personal approval and job approval are completely different from each other. Unlike almost every one else who can’t separate the two both for good and bad.
I may not get published, but as far as I’m concerned my opinion is pretty high echelon. ;^)
“On a scale of 1 to 10, where do you fall?”
“I’d say about 7.5.”
“What th-?? I give you ten options and you can’t even pick one of them??”
So yeah, I’m at 3.5 despite your 1-6 being quite well done.
3. Trump Skeptics: They don’t like him, they don’t trust him…They criticize him frequently but try to keep it constructive…concede that the good outweighs the bad but insist that the bad still needs to be addressed.
4. Reluctant Trump: They don’t particularly like him…They will generally cite Hillary Clinton as their primary (if not their only) motivation for voting for him.
Group 1’ers have always been overrepresented among conservative columnists and Ricochet members, neither of which is representative of the center-right electorate. There’s no need to reconcile with such a small group. Even a small amount of success will win over more than enough voters to replace group 1’ers many times over.