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Trump Didn’t Expect or Want to Win the Election
And that’s probably the greatest endorsement I can come up with for why I’m glad he won.
Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Night, when the unexpected trend — Trump might actually win — seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears — and not of joy.
There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon’s not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump.
Several times on different threads I’ve used the Douglas Adams quote about governance:
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
From that point of view, there’s nothing better than to put someone into office who doesn’t really want to be there, and who hasn’t spent their entire life plotting their climb up the greasy pole.
Published in Politics
I find it perverse that there are people who bend the whole trajectory of their lives to pursue politics and ultimately the presidency. This seems especially to be the case with Democrats, with examples being Obama, the Clintons, the Kennedys, etc. I think Trump has had in mind for a while that he would like to be president, but he had a successful business career outside of politics and the pursuit of the presidency. When a Democrat like Hillary Clinton grooms herself for the presidency her entire lifetime and then loses, it’s completely devastating. For Trump, had he lost he would have been disappointed but not devastated. For me, that’s the difference between wanting to be president and having the presidency be your life’s pursuit.
No matter how long in duration the Trump presidency lasts the word association game will trigger some derivative of “normal,” such as “normalization” or “not normal.”
With all the speculation about Trump’s mental state there seems to be a mass hysteria that’s been induced in large swaths of populace being pushed out of their comfort zone. The presidency has morphed into a priesthood and if the high priest steps out of the accepted orthodoxy of ritual the congregation is shaken to its core.
Most deny the allegations that it’s just Trump’s “style” they dislike for to admit that would reduce their reputations from being deep thinkers to that of being rather shallow.
For our side it does expose the shallowness of some of their long cherished rhetoric. There’s hardly a conservative that hasn’t wielded the Buckley quote about being governed by the first two thousand in the Boston telephone directory than the two thousand faculty members of Harvard. Well, now they have one of those more ordinary folks in charge and they can’t stand a second of it.
It’s funny that you mention Carrot Top. So often I will hear a Republican say something along the lines of “I don’t care what Trump says. As long as it makes the Democrats/media/The Establishment blow their tops, it must be good.” It makes me think maybe we ought to nominate Carrot Top to be Surgeon General. Sure, he knows nothing about medicine, but it would aggravate The Establishment, so it must be the right thing to do.
I read the excerpt, and since the country is being run better than it has for decades, I found it a bit soothing… Trump is very different than the career politicians wanted him to be and were rolling their eyes, and back stabbing, then many quit, and others stepped up to save the nation… both good reactions… and why Trump is getting stuff done.
I am fine with having a crazy President, if this is the result.
Really, I think this book is not going to hurt him as much as the author and left assume… Trump must be some kind of genius to have the country humming along like this with such chaos in the halls of the Whitehouse.
In fact geniuses are often confused with crazy people. The difference is in the results.
Thank you, Mr. Lileks, for popping that balloon of methane.
No, Goldmember.
Since I haven’t heard anything from or about the Surgeon General for between…oh, ten or twenty years, I’m at least open to the idea.
Why do we have a Surgeon General? Anyone know? Where is his role described in the enumerated powers again?
He could tell everyone to stop smoking just like the last guy. Other than that, what does the Surgeon General do? Oh, tell people about condoms – I forgot.
I’d vote for him but my first choice would be Gallagher – and I’d like to be in charge of the seating arrangements for the Senate confirmation if that’s okay.
Or the famous Tolkien quote about “bossing other men”.
Rather than look on Google, I’ll just ask you. What was that quote again?
If it’s non-fiction, I’m probably just not that familiar with it.
Is it from his fiction? It does sound like “The Scouring of the Shire.”
I’m tired of you NeverCarrotToppers!
As much as any humiliation for the evildoers of progressive oligopoly-authoritarianism remains well deserved, I am sure that are better sources for such already in the actions of the man since in office. Their regulations start going up in smoke.
More importantly, the current President may be many things and flawed to the gazoo but he certainly is not an idiot.
Actually it’s this one: “The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
Excellent.