Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Donald Trump Is Boring
I have written around 115 Ricochet posts. I’ve written about food trucks, Sweden, Frank Zappa, hairdressers, the EU, John McCain, global warming, Taylor Swift, scarcity, gun control, teenagers, Obamacare, traffic cameras, and lots of other stuff in which I have enough interest to write a post but not enough knowledge to write anything worthwhile. The one topic about which I have never written also happens to be the one topic that consistently garners the most interest here on Ricochet: Donald Trump.
I don’t avoid writing about Mr. Trump because I find him distasteful (although I do) or because I’m sick of hearing about him (although I am). No, I have a different reason for writing about other things. A reason that might surprise you: I find Donald Trump to be, well, boring. I also think he may one day end up being one of our greatest presidents. Which is great. Really. But I find him hard to write about – too boring. Let me explain.
His interviews may be more explosive and combative than we’re accustomed to in American politics. His personal life may be more, um, salacious than us Mitt Romney/Scott Walker fans are accustomed to. His habit of putting his name in giant gold letters on every building that he walks by may seem a bit over the top. But his lack of restraint and subtlety do not make him interesting. At least to me.
Pundits, intellectuals, and thought leaders disdain, and often despise, Mr. Trump. I think this is largely because he is not an intellectual, and also because he shows no interest in their life’s work. College professors are often jealous of successful businessmen – “I’m smarter than that car salesman! I have a Ph.D. and he barely made it out of high school! Why does he drive a new Mercedes and I drive a ten-year-old Subaru?” It’s possible that Trump has read Adam Smith, Nietzsche, Bastiat, Burke, and so on. But I doubt it. His thinking may be nuanced and complex. But if so, he conceals it well. And I find that uninteresting. Not despicable, just uninteresting.
So conservatives who view conservatism as a collection of ideas and philosophies are unlikely to be fans of Mr. Trump. Likewise, conservatives who view conservatism as a temperament or an ethical framework are unlikely to be fans of Mr. Trump and his adultery, outrageous personal taste, and his endless pursuit of not just fame, but celebrity. I personally find this aspect of his persona to be distasteful. But, for a New York billionaire, it’s not especially novel or interesting.
A few years ago there was a news story about a passenger on a domestic flight that had become disruptive and dangerous. Another man who was a passenger on the flight went down the aisle and asked if there was anyone who might be able to help him resolve the situation. A 60-something-year-old man raised his hand and said, “I’m a retired drill sergeant.”
The man responded, “You’ll do.”
A minute later, while the 65-year-old drill sergeant is wrestling the dangerous passenger to the ground in the middle of a big commotion, another passenger asked the drill sergeant’s wife, “Your husband is up there wrestling a madman. Why are you reading your book? Aren’t you interested?”
His wife responded, “I know how that’s going to turn out. I don’t know how this book is going to turn out.” And she went back to her reading.
That’s how I feel about Donald Trump. And I find that strangely comforting.
Suppose you want to improve the security of your tool shed because some thieves have been stealing stuff in your neighborhood. Who do you want outside your tool shed? John Kerry, to discuss economic disparities with potential thieves? Or a Doberman Pincer, which has never had a thought cross its mind beyond territorial impulse and aggression? I’ll sleep better with the Doberman outside the tool shed.
A few days ago LeBron James said something nasty about Donald Trump. I knew how that was going to turn out. Why have the Iranians stopped pestering American ships? Because they know how that’s going to turn out.
Should John McCain have been more aggressive in his campaign against Barack Obama? Hard to say how that would have turned out. But you go against Donald Trump, and his response is simple, predictable, and always the same. It might seem ruthless, but I don’t think that’s a good description. You might call it simplistic. You might even call it a form of honesty. You might like his response, or you might not. But you know exactly what that response will be.
The thing is, I like knowing how it’s going to turn out. And so does everyone else on this planet. An unpredictable U.S. President is dangerous. To a lot of people. The world is a safer place when everyone knows how the world’s most powerful military will respond to things. This is why Democrat presidents are dangerous. Why did the night janitor in that middle eastern aspirin factory die? Because Monica Lewinsky gave an interview. Who knew? Certainly not that janitor.
Trump is a lot of things, but he is not unpredictable. His apparent lack of nuance and introspection is a feature, not a bug.
Are his domestic and economic policies based on Burke? Marx? Smith? Friedman? They don’t appear to be. They’re just based on a simplistic, direct impression of what serves America’s best interests at the time. No one else’s. It’s simple. It’s also boring. But not in a bad way.
His policies on immigration, the EU, global warming treaties, the UN, and just about everything else are the same. I’m not sure there is an over-riding philosophy more complex than simply, “What serves the interest of American citizens the best right now?” He is working on behalf of his employers. That’s it. Some of his policies are troubling to me, but most aren’t. And I know what they are, so there’s that.
You can’t criticize his intellectual framework, because he doesn’t seem to have one. You can’t criticize his ethics, because he doesn’t seem to have any. You can’t criticize his past voting record, because he doesn’t have one. All that matters to Donald Trump is what is happening right now. And that’s boring.
Trump’s dogged pursuit of improving the lives of his constituents (employers) may seem simplistic. Even ruthless. But he may be exactly what this country needs at this crossroads in our history. American culture, politics, and self-image is a mess right now, and his direct approach might be just perfect for our current needs. I suspect he would have been worthless in 1770 (although I’m losing interest in betting against him). But in 2018?
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he might – just might – end up being one of our greatest presidents of all time, despite the predictions of lots of smart people.
Like me, for example. During the campaign, I thought he was an embarrassing joke. After the election, I predicted catastrophe. Now, I’m not so sure. I still think he’s a lousy person. He’d be a terrible Sunday School teacher. But he may be a great president. He may be just exactly what this country needs right now. The right guy at the right time.
Which is boring.
But that’s ok.
Published in General
An expanded, fact-based conversation, if that were actually possible, on what appears to be such an easily perceptible “fact” for so many, just might be interesting. I see ethical question marks from my desk almost every day that have long ago been justified at the alter of more important considerations and are now just common practice. Unfortunately, ethics in modern America seems to be more an art than a science. It may not be right, but the bar may not be exactly where us commoners think it is.
Is this the version of a “lie” popularized on the left where if someone says something untrue, it’s a “lie.” Or what a lie actually is–a knowing misstatement of fact. Do you have any evidence of the latter?
“Appears” is a nice word when one has no evidence, but still wants to throw out unsupported allegations.
I might dispute you on this. On the surface it seems like Trump “likes” us, but he is a severe narcissist, and might not actually be capable of having a lot of empathy for other people. He gives many over-the-top accolades to Americans and people who support him when it feeds his ego, but he is extremely fragile when it comes to criticism. He gets in public fights with people who have insulted him, who otherwise nobody ever heard of and who are not important.
I can easily see why Trump would give up his king lifestyle for the presidency. It is the ultimate “king lifestyle.” It has little to do with money, and everything to do with power and prestige.
This is not to say that Obama was any better. I would believe that both Presidents Bush and even Bill Clinton had genuine like for people, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into good policy or good executive decisions. Conversely, Trump’s narcissism doesn’t necessarily translate into bad decisions, though I think sometimes it does.
I grant you that Trump lies, but I think he actually believed the Birther Issue which does not make it a lie. I would guess that he even believed the Cruz-Kennedy conspiracy too, at least at the moment he said it.
As for stealing and corruption, what evidence do you have for that?
Hillary Clinton has spent the better half of her adult life lying. Yet you voted for her. So lying clearly isn’t the issue you’d trip over, here, since you voted for her.
It “appears” to you that Trump is corrupt? Google “Clinton Foundation” and “Haiti”. Enjoy the read.
Donald Trump is boring, yet your post about how boring he is instantly gets more comments than my post about the positive effects of Trump’s tax policies. To me, prosperity and effective policies are more interesting than playboy models and Russian spy intrigue. But certain topics get more eyeballs than others, so what are you gonna do?
Imagine. A president free of the corrupting influence of philosophy and dogma. Totally refreshing.
A president who has different, competing groups of boisterous people who are totally convinced that they are pious and righteous competing against each other. And because THEY aren’t ruling the roost, they cry to the press, which interprets this as chaos.
A president who understands that what he receives from his intelligence agencies is a tissue of lies when it gets filtered at the top.
That’s precisely what I like about this president.
In terms of conservatives, in so much that Trump ‘likes us’ at the moment is due to the fact that he sees the swing voters being more on the side of the right than on the side of the left at this time. His populism over the years has swung to and fro depending on where he sees 50.1 percent of the public is — he doesn’t care if the other 49.9 percent hate his guts, as long as he’s on the majority side of the subject. And Trump has over the years has been very, very good at gauging the mood of the general public, and reacting accordingly.
Where he’s wrong and is against the majority, his ego might not allow him to directly admit he’s wrong, but he backs down on the issue and goes in another direction. You saw a hint of that in 2012, when he supported Mitt Romney’s stance on illegal immigration, when Romney’s position on illegals was the toughest in the GOP field (and what attracted Ann Coulter to Mitt in the first place). Trump gauged that the public wanted tougher enforcement, but after Obama won, he gave that interview to Newsmax and said Romney had been too tough on immigration. Once he saw that was not the way the voters were going, he went back to supporting tougher restrictions on immigration, and did it in such a way people who were angry about open borders thought Trump was madder about the issue then they were.
How about two examples. First, Birtherism. Trump’s original sin that he has never apologized for.
Second, Ted Cruz’s Father helped Lee Harvey Oswald.
We shall see what surfaces with the Mueller Probe and the emoluments lawsuit. Trump cheated vendors and creditors repeatedly. I see no evidence he has ever changed.
The other reason is that Trump pure and simply reminds me of a high school bully. I am unwilling to follow him into battle. All I want to do is to throw him out of the Party of Reagan.
Yes his demeanor during the primaries bothered us all and when he knocked off our preferred candidates that was worse, but that was a long time ago, they were mostly trivial like a lot of the things he does that bother us are trivial. Policy is what matters. Deregulation is vital. Dismantling the administrative state is essential to our future. Court appointments matter more than all of the short term nonsense and even more than policy progress in the short term. The notion that he is under Putin’s influence is fantasy and demonstrates that you are deeply influenced by the mainstream media and Democrat party spin.
Actually, I am certain that Trump likes me. You…maybe not so much. Ha! Just kidding. I was also absolutely certain that our dear former President Obama did not like me. But that water has run under the bridge. In reference to the power and prestige, there is no doubt POTUS is the dude. But it comes with multitudes of drawbacks. You really lose any semblance of one’s own life. I believe the job to be a great personal sacrifice for someone with the already acquired wealth of Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, this is not responsive to my point. I asked for examples of a “lie” based on the knowing intent required of a lie (in other words, what a lie actually is). If you are going to say somebody “lies” (a serious accusation), it would help to understand the term. So we’re back to square one.
And I still see no evidence from you beyond unsupported allegations. Certainly someone so “corrupt” would have a criminal record.
I have no defense of the Ted Cruz’s father thing. That was just garbage, every one who heard it knew it was garbage.
I would question your Birther argument. There is a difference between being wrong and lying. As recently as December 1/3 of the general public (including 51% of Republicans) said that they believed Obama was born in Kenya. Are they all lying as well? I don’t believe this stuff but it does not follow that people who do are necessarily lying, they could just be wrong.
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/12/08/republicans-see-little-need-russia-investigation
Even Ann Coulter concluded that Birtherism was bs. Any public figure who promoted that execrable garbage is disqualified. (The two major figures who persisted with Birtherism were Trump and Joe Arpaio.)
That doesn’t really address my point. Anyone who looks into it knows that Bernie Sanders’ math just doesn’t work. His arguments are garbage. He is simply wrong. The thing is Sanders actually seems to believe what he is saying. There is a difference between being wrong and lying. I would rather have our public discussion revolve around proving ideas. Not around telling one third of the public that they are disqualified, liars for their wrongly held belief.
How about the rolling denials about Don Jr’s meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower?
We are getting close to what Justice Scalia said in a different context, “ Words have no meaning” in a dissent.
Oh, I do hope so. And I suspect it would be his inclination, if only the left could tone it down for just a little while. At any rate, I find him exhausting, not boring.
I so agree. Trump is exhausting.
@garyrobbins, you seem unwilling to address the validity of several commenter’s disputing your assertion of two specific “lies” by Donald Trump– the birther issue and the Cruz-Kennedy conspiracy. Instead you just throw this at the wall to see if it sticks–
I even agree that Trump has lied quite often, but you need to be precise when making such accusations. @jager brought up the difference between conscious lying and simply not knowing something to be untruthful. Democrats purposely conflate the two things all the time in a deceitful effort to try to smear Republicans. I could just as easily say that you are “lying” by using bad examples, but that would not be correct either.
The Washington Post has “documented” some 3251 “lies” by Trump in 497 days. That might be a good place to start.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/01/president-trump-has-made-3251-false-or-misleading-claims-in-497-days/?utm_term=.1cc1bb3c7b54
.
I really don’t think you get it. I already told you that I agree with you that Donald Trump has lied a lot. But you can’t just say that everything he gets wrong is a lie. A lie is a willful act of deceit.
I haven’t looked at your link to the Trump list of lies, but I’ve seen similar lists. They usually include some of the notable ones, but they almost invariably include a huge litany of trivial factual errors that were never meant to be deceitful. The same kind of lists are out there for George Bush, a man that you have to examine with a microscope before you can find any evidence of prevarication.
I think that we may be in greater agreement than you think.
Reagan once that trees create more pollution than automobiles. Opps. Ike once lied at a press conference to avoid releasing classified military information that could have put the secret U-2 program in danger. (Too late, Gary Powers had already been shot down.) Also some of the Washington Post’s are factual issues which may be susceptible to different interpretations.
But Trump kept flogging his execrable Birtherism for years without any evidence. That seems pretty deceitful to me.
Perhaps we are in agreement on many things, but there really are millions of people out there who sincerely believe in totally nonsensical stuff despite evidence to the contrary, and they are not lying about it when they propagate their beliefs:
Just look at Astrology, Space Aliens, quack medicines, ESP, crystal power, numerology, Elvis sightings, the Kennedy assassination, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bruce Springstein’s musical talent. There was even one deluded guy who said “There has not been a single scandal in my administration.”
Perfect.
I agree with your assessment of Bruce Springsteen. I heard a discussion where the people were in agreement that he was overrated. However, the guest said that he enjoyed X’s cover of some song and Y’s cover of another song. They ended up saying that he’s a talented songwriter.