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Regarding Trump Hatred
I have been bewildered by the intense, beyond all reason, hatred of Donald J. Trump since he became a candidate for the POTUS. Therefore, I have finally come to the Ricochet community seeking your insights. I have no reason to suspect he is any more than a normal human being with strengths and weaknesses common to mankind. So, in all seriousness, please contribute your thoughts as to why his opponents are, I believe, quite literally insane, i.e., out of their minds, in regards to him.
Published in Politics
I don’t know that you could blame any one person, it’s an accreted ethos.
Yeah, you got me there.
Who could be plural. I was thinking some group introduced and exaggerated that general Orange Man Bad ethos. Come to think of it where did that come from? Glen Beck?
It looks like it came from the depths of 4Chan.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orange-man-bad
As an evangelical, you’ll get no argument from me on the fallen nature of man *grin*. I will simply add that we are not mindless beasts; we have free will to choose how we treat/approach others. My faith in fact teaches that the coming of Jesus Christ brought light into the world so that – as my favorite theologian John Wesley put it – all mankind has reason to rejoice for the light within which produces at some point (whether we act on them or not,) good desires – the desire to do good – counters the darkness and gives grace to choose to do right. This is part of “every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above”.
Part of my job fighting for light is to stop the Leftist idjits from removing God-given freedom like those enumerated in our Bill of Rights.
As to why some — particularly Leftists and those involved with levers of power in govt, media, industry (unfortunately one and the same too often) — harbour irrational hate for Donald Trump, one simple answer may because somebody came along with enough chutzpah to seriously slow their roll in areas they’ve used to seize and maintain power, both at home in the cesspool of DC and internationally as President of the United States. IOW, Trump did much of what he said he would do in courts, economy (esp. OVERSEAS), foreign policy; said it bluntly straight to Americans, & wasn’t intimidated by the press.
Creation.
Fall.
Redemption.
He took power away from those who thought they wouldn’t lose it, were close to sealing it all up for the foreseeable future and their supporters are easily manipulated. Moreover, he didn’t speak or act like what we’re used to, nor always polite, (or what ever the word is) like almost all successful politicians. We barely escaped the loss of it all and are still threatened.
I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but “normal” is not an adjective that leaps to mind when considering President Trump.
I think it comes down to media coverage of Trump being a combination of selective coverage, exageration, and outright lies. The media animosity is amplified by the ubiquity of social media. Every Republican president since Nixon has been called a fascist by the left, the difference with Trump is that people now have the ability to vent instantly without stopping to reflect or do any research. And yes Trump’s personality doesn’t help either
You’re not wrong here.
Hmmm. Maybe I don’t understand ‘stan,’ but calling oneself a stalker-fan seems to be the opposite of an ironic distancing. Or maybe it’s intended to be taken ironically.
Two things at work here. The leaders of the ‘hatred’ movement are the ‘professional’ Marxist progressives so most active political Democrats will join in quickly without any regard to underlying facts. They then lead the secular members of society, where political awareness is not a necessary factor but a lack of commitment to Christian morality is. Many of these people express a form of commitment to humanity that is empty, exemplified by support for abortion.
I voted for him, and I still really, really dislike him as a person. Much of his policy is fine, great even in many areas (Again, I had a choice, and I chose him). He just happens to have all the characteristics I find repulsive in leaders: arrogant, petty, deceptive about meaningless facts (and some meaningful ones as well), undisciplined, blames subordinates regularly, and obsessed with disloyalty. I’m aware you couldn’t kick a rock down the national mall without hitting a politician that also carries many of those qualities, but very few wear their worst attributes on their sleeves and be praised for them.
And as a final less important note, he ruined the fun of politics. Everything became about Trump. The Bulwark conservatives abandoned principle to remove Trump, and many MAGA conservatives did the same to defend him. Progressives did what they always do, which is make up stuff to attack the Republican president, even though he provides enough ammunition on his own. He is the center of gravity that broke politics, and I don’t like we have on the other side.
Have you seen any of his rallies? The boat parades? The car parades? This is most certainly untrue.
I’m glad you choose to dislike over hate, that goes straight to the issue here.
I don’t really follow you on the last point above because I see most Trump advocates praising his policy commitments and a couple of behavioral attributes required for that outcome while dismissing or ignoring other behavioral attributes that might be irritating but not consequential.
Agreed. They’re like those Beltway grifters who created fake Tea Party campaigns to suck up all the donations from citizens who wanted reform. Worse, actually: imagine paying a company to provide security services, only to learn that they are on the side of the thieves.
Thank you very much for that link to the excellent Lead and Gold which I had lost track of. Many worthwhile posts on all sorts of topics. Just one example: Joe Biden arrogantly lecturing Ayaan Hirsi Ali–a woman with extensive personal experience–on the true nature of Islam.
Just ran across a quote from a NYT article, written early in the Trump presidency. The Times reporters faulted Trump for:
…believing that he can master an entrenched political press corps with far deeper connections to the permanent government of federal law enforcement and executive department officials than he has”…the president “is being force-fed lessons all presidents eventually learn–that the iron triangle of the Washington press corps, West Wing staff, and federal bureaucracy is simply too powerful to bully.
This is a pretty clear assertion that the real government consists of the listed entities, and the president..any president..will must have his actions circumscribed by their desires. Entirely consistent with my earlier comment about the Prince-Electors:
In the days of the Holy Roman Empire, there was a small group of men called the Prince-Electors. They, and only they, got to choose who the next Emperor would be. In America today, we have an analogous set of people who, while they may not get to make the ultimate choice on the Presidency, do believe that have the right to vet who the acceptable candidates may be. Trump was not one who passed their screen, and he doesn’t even genuflect to their Prince-Electoral privilege.
This has a lot to do with the level of Trump-hate that exists in certain quarters.
I’m late to the party, but I’ll add my two cents. Why the irrational Trump hatred? I attribute it to the increasing secularization of our society. It’s not that previous presidents haven’t been hated. But, with Trump, the hatred (and irrationality) are turned up to 11. Even some formerly conservative Nevers used to say it shouldn’t be this important who’s president. My sense is, only America-loving Trump supporters still believe that. So he’s kind of a jerk? Is he doing right by the country — and especially ordinary, working class Americans? Eh, we can live with that.
What happens with secularization isn’t lack of faith — it’s self-deification. My interpretation of the Original Sin of “eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil” isn’t strictly the sin of disobedience, although it’s that. Choosing to eat from that tree (by the Power of our free will) means making ourselves the deciders of what is good and evil. What PBXVI called the “tyranny of moral relativism.” This is the definition of Pride — “I am right. Because I am good (god) and I am right and have chosen wisely, if you disagree with me, you must not only be wrong, you must be evil — the devil.” (Prejudice)
Agreeing to disagree isn’t a thing anymore. The Left is all about conformity and its power of enforcement (cancel culture). And the threat to their (righteous and entitled) power that Donald Trump presents makes him a target of cancelling with extreme prejudice. Christians aren’t exempt from this either — this lack of mercy and disbelief in the redeemability of sinners — see French, David. I see Donald Trump as having grown tremendously while in office (where Obama shrank almost to nothingness). I think he’s a better man than he was four years ago, and I have no doubt he loves this country and its people (Obama did the opposite).
Conservatives tend to want to be left alone to live by the light of our consciences. Progressives see us as an obstacle to their project of creating heaven on earth, so it isn’t in their minds to leave us alone. We will always have the Left and its useful idiots with us.
I just wanted to point out that this is why we need to repeal the 19th Amendment.
There are other reasons, too, but agree 100%!
Interesting, thanks for the shared piece. “Knowingness” is something of a pet peeve of mine, though I never thought of it quite this way.
It seems borne of insecurity. How do you mask insecurity? By expressing yourself with absolute certainty, such as, “Mark my words, Donald Trump will not be President.” How many uttered that phrase or its equivalent? Yes, quite a few expressed something similar, including many who trade on their political knowledge and/or knowingness.
What could be more embarrassing?
Further, some of these same people were responsible for the dispensing of millions of donor dollars. How likely are they to be trusted again? It is a one thing to lose, quite another to lose AND have your expertise exposed as lacking.
So Trump’s success wasn’t just an embarrassment to the consultants of DC, it was a career threat. And why are pundits we’d normally think of as rivals cheering for Trump’s defeat? Because he’d become an aberration and they could go back to the safe place where their knowledge is once again authority.
But look, I doubt any of them have ever thought it out. Some may have spent the past four years with that terrible feeling of fear in the pit of their stomach. And if they don’t have that, it’s probably because they moved on to anger.
The saddest part of it all is they haven’t even attempted to learn lessons from Trump’s success. I mean, we’re talking about intelligent people. But just as “knowingness” differs from knowledge, there is a difference between having intelligence and being smart.
I still think it’s funny that the guy who lamented “The Death of Expertise” is one of those responsible for sending it to its grave.
I once asked a leftist idiot — but I repeat myself — why he was so angry all the time and I got an honest answer: Because we have the ability to create Utopia and we keep screwing it up. Of course, in his view it was always someone else who screwed it up. He was blameless. What he did not acknowledge is that he and his fellow travelers would gladly sacrifice half of humanity to achieve that Utopia.
Rand, apparently you missed the wild intense arguments here between those of us who understand and appreciate Donald Trump but acknowledge his flaws and those NeverTrumpers who get deranged and disjointed over the man. Quite a few people have left Ricochet over this battle. I think sanity won out in the end, and will hopefully be sanctioned by the will of the people on this coming Tuesday.
I don’t think the producers are evenly distributed between those halves so the ‘utopia’ left after such a sacrifice might not run very well
Here’s a meme that is being circulated on FB:
Where do you even start, with someone who has these beliefs?
These things don’t have to be true. They just have to be repeated enough times.
This is the way he’s painted by the Press, but I don’t see this at all. He really does make up with those with whom he’s had serious disagreements or contests. Look at Christie or Cruz, or even Carson. And when has he been arrogant? Or undisciplined. He seems very disciplined to me. He regularly blames subordinates? Give me three recent examples when he blamed anyone, let alone someone who didn’t deserve some blame. Obsessed with disloyalty? Name one politician who has been leaked on or about as Trump.
He’s turned out not at all to be what we were warned he’d be.
I think you’re buying the progressive Press’ script.
But what if you couldn’t vote to repeal … because you’re a woman? Eh?
But seriously, maybe it’s because the video clips right-wing outlets choose to show, but most of those anti-fa and BLM people getting in cops’ faces and hurling insults and invective, seem to be women, too.