Trumpety-Trump

[poliphilo]

An American friend who is distraught about Trump and admires the Clintons is sending me furious emails about how terrible the Republicans are. I don't exactly disagree, but my considered opinion is that the Democrats aren't much better- and anyway Trump is only nominally a Republican- and she won't be having it.  I'm trying to keep my temper but it's hard. Every attempt to mollify or distract or philosophise is met with more shouting. If I do anything but wholeheartedly agree with her I get an essay about how furious she is and how I'm little better than an appeaser of nazis.

We went through a storm of this a few week back- and then it died down because I told her to stop. I've told her again. I don't want to lose her friendship but this isn't how friends behave.

At the moment I'm holding my peace about Trump. He keeps sending out signals- and one tweet contradicts the last and it's hard to say whether this is because he's scatterbrained or because like a World War II bomber trying to confuse enemy radar he's throwing out chaff. I refuse to jump up and down and call him a moron and a nazi because I don't think we have sufficient information yet. Also it's unintelligent. He's a political phenomenon the likes of which we've never seen before- besides being a very odd human being- and shouting out the insults of yesteryear is like firing a shotgun at a distant moving target.

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that deep down it's about race. The guy who said that Trump's win was the last great whitelash was on to something, I think.

I can't help sharing some of your friend's frustrations. There is no equivalence between Clinton's flaws and this...buffoon. Trying to pretend there is, is pure disingenuity. This fellow is dangerously unstable and treating the leadership of the free world like some sort of throw-the-dice game is not something I feel comfortable with. Seeing how Trump has behaved during and after the election, I can't have any common cause with any American who voted him. The stakes are too high to treat this like a game. It's deadly serious.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm sure race had something to with it, but it's one of many factors. Incidentally I've read that great numbers of black voters stayed away from the polls. If they'd supported Hillary as they supported Obama she'd have won.