Trump at a rally on March 13. By the way, America is already great again. (Joe Skipper / Reuters)
In these past few days I’ve argued that Donald Trump is an increasingly impressive political performer, whose lack of substantive knowledge on public issues is increasingly obvious. He keeps saying “we’re going to win again” and “it’s going to be great” because that’s all he knows to say about anything involving what a president does. Three installments to this effect are here, here, and here.
For the other side, a sample of reader mail defending Trump. First, from a reader in Europe, a “shake things up” / “intensify the contradictions” argument:
I think I would vote for Trump.
- what American politics needs is radical change. Hillary won't bring that. Bernie is too weak to deliver.
- he would probably really split the Republican Party. Maybe leading to a multi-party system?
- said that Bush lied the country and the world to war.
- does not unquestioningly take the Israeli side.
- he is not a fascist, racist, white supremacist. Wall or no wall.
I wrote back saying: thanks for laying this out, but I disagree for many reasons, among them that Trump does not know anything about either domestic or international policy, choices, problems, goals. The European replied:
I understand. But I believe it is irrelevant. The position of president was never meant to be as powerful as it is today. The country should be rueld by a functioning Senate and Congress.
What America needs is direct democracy where people can vote on issues directly, like in Switzerland. There is no place for riots and violence in such a system, because it gets settled with a vote. If the majority agrees, then the rest has to shut it. Even if the decision is very controversial and might limit some people's rights. It happens all the time in Switzerland. But decisions also get reversed in subsequent votes. And with some issues, like repealing mandatory military service, they vote on it every 10-15 years. Always with the same outcome.
The point is that people actually have a direct voice and what the majority decides actually happens. I think in today's America most of the "elite" and the politically left-leaning there is a lack of trust in the people and their ability to make sane decisions.
The result is Trump.
Again, Hilary will not change this. Trump is just so disruptive that it might lead to some actual change.
For the record, I find this unpersuasive, the kind of thought-experiment that might seem “interesting” from Europe but not if you’re in the middle of it here. Still, offered for the record.
“When are you hypocrites going to question your own party?” A more common theme in pro-Trump mail is anger at the hypocrisy of the press in general and me in specific. A polite version:
Got it. You hate Trump. That’s very clear. I'm no fan either. But I'm still waiting for one of you media elites to step up and say, “I cannot support a pathological liar corrupted by an insatiable thirst for power who abandoned four American to protect a political campaign.” [JF note: for those in doubt, he is talking about Hillary Clinton.]
How about it James? Can you spot a phoney regardless of party? Or is your indignation only in one direction? I think I know the answer.
The less polite alternative:
James you are a pathetic little dickhead
Crawl back in your wigger rat hole
Continue to write slime propaganda and I suspect it will catch up with you
Buzz Mitchell
American
And in essay-question form:
While I might agree that the disavowal of Donald Trump may be a wise thing for Republicans and especially conservatives to do, as his statements seem not presidential, bellicose, and needlessly insulting to many. I would also ask, will you write a similar article suggesting Democrats or Progressives, disavow Hillary Clinton, for actions that break the law, that enrich herself and family though using her position and former positions in government, for her unjustifiable role in attacks and smears against women her husband had sexually abused, and for her constant and conspicuous and ubiquitous dishonestly?
When I see such an article from The Atlantic, or any of the plethora of similar leftist magazine articles which show up on my Yahoo browser page daily, then I might agree that you have a valid point about candidates declaring they won’t support Donald Trump. Otherwise, Mr Trump’s possible nomination and election does not seem any more disastrous than Ms. Clinton’s.
***
Here’s a long message that combines views of the press and the political establishment with complaints about the economy. I’m not taking the time to copy-edit the whole thing, because generally I don’t do that with reader mail. Also, the style of presentation is part of the message.
The reader starts by objecting to my claim that Trump, successful as he may have been in business, is shockingly ignorant about public affairs.
So a stupid and ignorant person can build and own towers, casinos, have many businesses, and employ thousands simultaneously. Realy? Use your brain idiot. So anyone can do this according to your logic?
Either your the ignoramous for writing an entire article on something that has zero logic to it or your part of the liberal lieing propaganda machine taking advantage of the stupid american voters that Jonathon Gruber was refering to. Which would mean your just pure evil like Obama, whom only got elcted on lies and broken promises directed towards stupid and ignorant voters.
Example of Lies:
"If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it"- No, that put a bunch of new requirement on mandatory plans so that was a blatant lie. The new cadilac tax that was imposeed on small busninesses by his plan is why I lost mine. Went from paying $116 a month with $500 deductibale through my employer, kicked to the private sector paying $265 a month with a $1800 deductable. Which brings me to the next monstrous lie.
"The cost of healthcare annual increase will slow to the lowest levels in american history" -That the lie from hell. That same silver plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield was gonna increase from $265 to $430 this year if I would have kept it. That's a 62% increase from one year to the next. You tell me any year in the history of our nation healthcare has gone up that much? It hasn't! Now I'm a average income machinist making $45000 a year that ony has a catastrophic plan and paying $216 a month. How is that improved healthcare for middle class amaerca?
"The average american family will save $2500 a year on healthcare under my plan"- The above explains what a lieing crock of shit that is.
"I'm gonna bring hope and change to a disfuntional Washington"- This was his main theme during his first campaign. When you start your time in office overhauling the entire healthcare system in america and ramming down everyones throats with out even enough time for Congress to read it not to mention reach across the isles to discuss it, you set a precidence of divided politics. What did Polosi say" You have to pass it to see what's in it"? Can you get anymore divisive that this move? How many time hasn't he stated to give him what he want or he'll shut the government down? He's one elected official. Congress are hundreds of representative elected by the american people. Government has never been more divided as it is now and it's directly because of him.
"Al-Queda is at it's lowest levels of activity and on the run" Part of his debate statements just prior to the last election. Then Bengazi happens a few weeks later and he has to make up another lie to cover this one. NBot a single human being that was in Libya that day said there was a single deminstartion. I remenber on CNN a Libayan official came out the next day in an interveiw and said there were no demonstration going on. It's been a complete fabrication by this administration from day one and average joe me can see that. Terrorism around the world has gotten at least 10 time as bad since he's taken office under his polices. Another major ass deception to the american public to get re-elected.
Above are 5 examples of massive blatant lies by this administration towards us american voters that I remember thinking how great that would be if it is as he says. Finding out the facts later and him being one big fraud to the american public. Or at least the stupid and ignorant ones.
My opinion on the Trump rise against you whom don't understand. Middle class america is pissed about being misled on a massive scale with no accountability. Democrats have lied and told us everything we want to hear(which Hillary and Bernie are doing now). Republicans have been rolling over and letting them get away with it. Trump don't need to be bought and he isn't telling everyone all the nicey nice things that they want to hear. He won't put up with the lieing crap on either side of the isle.
Example- You see Hillary in the last month or so address the african american community and telling them everything they want to hear so the agree with everything she say. Prior to running she never talked that way. Good indication she's another Obama and just filling the american voters full of crap.
Just a middle class average income hard working american tired of the lieng BS by politicians and the press,thats tired of making less and having it given to those whom worked less and sacrificed less to get by. America became great without free healthcare and college. We've had to pay our way though life, why should others get a free ride. One sides bought mainly by big lobbyist, the other side just is plain bought by american tax dollars thru entitlements. Bernie just don't get that socialism isn't gonna make everyone wealthier. History don't lie so that sorta leaves Trump now doesn't it?
[I’ve removed the name, but it’s from a real person in Wisconsin]
Machinist
Nearly eight months to go, and then we’ll have to deal with the aftermath.
Good thing he didn’t challenge her to a game of Jeopardy! ™ (Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters)
After the latest GOP debate, I noted that Donald Trump was remarkable for his very high-level performance skills, and for his near-absolute lack of knowledge about policy or public affairs. Then readers weighed in to the same effect. Now, more from readers on Know-Nothingism and the Rise of Trump.
I’ve heard from a reader who for professional reasons has carefully studied a very large number of “newsmaker” interviews in recent years. The reader writes that Trump’s cumulative record is remarkable, especially when compared with Sarah Palin’s:
Most liberal folks in my experience have never really listened closely to either Trump or Palin very much but instead rely on superficial appearance and caricature, so I thought I’d contribute the view of a liberal who has actually listened to them very carefully.
In the year or so after the election, I listened to a lot of Palin interviews, and although her range of knowledge is certainly quite limited, she spoke very confidently and enthusiastically about some Alaska-specific issues, one being the oil industry in the state. Another was less important but still fascinating—the myriad complexities of voting and getting votes counted in Alaska. She took obvious pleasure in her mastery of these subjects and pleasure in explaining them to people who didn’t know much about them.
I have now been through dozens of interviews with Trump with a variety of interviewers, and I have never once—not once—heard him discuss anything, any subject of any kind, with any evidence of knowledge, never mind thought. None. Zero. He’s like a skipping stone over a pond. He doesn’t even come close to the level of dilettante.
You’d think at some point, something, anything would have engaged his interest enough to read up on it and think about it, but as far as I can tell, nothing has. Much more so even than George W., he appears to lack anything resembling intellectual curiosity. Maybe he’s faking it, but while understanding can sometimes be faked, you can’t fake ignorance convincingly.
Quite simply, Trump is the embodiment of the saying, “fake it ‘til you make it.” Confidence can have an impact on outcome. If you don’t have the skills or knowledge to get the job you want and you don’t feel confident, you simply pretend to be confident until you gain the experience required to make it happen. Accordingly, Trump is always the best at everything (in his mind). He’s mastered this skill so thoroughly that I doubt even he recognizes it within himself.
And on practicalities of the job he is seeking:
Why hasn’t anyone considered how Trump would actually handle being president? It seems fairly obvious that after a few months of confronting the frustrations of the job, he would get bored and disinterested. If he thinks the nonstop narcissistic rewards of campaign rallies will continue post inauguration, he has a rude awakening coming.
***
Finally for today, on the conjunction of Trump’s performance skills and his oft-discussed hands:
Trump obviously had substantial acting coaching, especially with his hand gestures. Other people notice this too, since most of his press photos feature his hand gestures. I suspect he learned to do this as a reaction to Graydon Carter’s infamous epithet [in Spy magazine] “Short-fingered vulgarian.”
Nothing sticks to Trump. He is a master of “frame control.” He never accepts the premise of a question or comment, instead he answers it within his own frame of reference. He has absolute control over any interaction, skillfully deflecting anything that might hit him and stick.
EXCEPT one thing: his hands.
So my new hobby is photoshopping Trump’s hands. I have to find a way to get these pics to Graydon Carter. The only problem is, they’re too good; nobody can tell they’re photoshopped. I tried not to make them totally implausible, I only reduced them by about 25 percent. You could easily overlook the resized hands, which was kind of my point. I sort of hoped they would escape and go viral and nobody would notice the difference until it was too late. But no luck so far.
I think it’s entirely possible that this is the only way anyone will take down Trump. I wish I knew some other way. But I don’t. So here for your amusement are some of my depictions of the short-fingered vulgarian. I wish I knew what to do with them. These are mostly copyrighted AP news photos but I’ll claim Fair Use as satire.
Here’s one from his rally [this weekend] in Cleveland. Maybe I should start a blog and do one of them every day.
Photo-shopped version of AP photo of Trump at Cleveland rally
This reader concludes:
Maybe I shouldn’t continue to mock Trump’s tiny hands. He will just get stronger. But I can’t help myself.
***
[Update another reader writes in to suggest one exception to the Trump-as-blank-slate principle. That is the subject of eminent domain, which Trump has indeed discussed as if he knows something about it.]
Making America Great, 1850s version: the Know-Nothing Party at work. (Wikimedia commons)
Yesterday I noted that Donald Trump was by far the supplest and most gifted TV performer of all the presidential candidates left in the field, yet also by far the most ignorant on foreign or domestic affairs, military or government programs, or the other realities of being President. Hardly anything the man says about public affairs is true; what he doesn’t know, or hasn’t heard of, is astonishing.
Readers weigh in on on why a person as able as Trump should have bestirred himself so little to learn anything about the job he now seeks. First, a reader re-stating the question itself:
The oddest part of Trump (to me) is that we're this far into the game and he hasn't made any attempt to educate himself on any policies. It's as though he's uninterested in them or else thinks he need only bullshit his way through the presidency. I don't think he's stupid. Does he honestly believe he can succeed as president without understanding the job? I cannot make any sense of the man.
Beginning of an answer, from a reader in New York:
I worked with Trump in his real estate empire, and the pattern was very similar. Brilliant front man, barely bothered to learn about spreadsheets or financials. Just wanted us to tell him that a deal would be “great.”
On the “greatness” of the decisions he makes:
When I was reading your latest piece, the one thing that immediately came to mind was Trump as a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect: that unskilled individuals rate their competence much higher than it actually is. [JF note: my name for the same phenomenon is the “barroom Einstein effect.”] I doubt this is a particularly novel observation, but [this last debate] really drove it home.
“Citizen Know-Nothing,” the party’s ideal. (WIkimedia)
From someone who disagrees — about Trump, and about my saying that a presidential candidate who has never heard of the “nuclear triad” needs to study up on defense policy:
Just read your recent Trump analysis, post debate. Listen to Trump addressing the same subjects outside the debate. Trump keeps it deliberately simple during the debates. It took awhile to figure that out.
Big deal on the nuclear triad. I've yet to meet someone who knew what that was, it's so obscure. I doubt if most people writing or talking about him not knowing what it was knew about it themselves. This is not knowing about the details, it is the willingness to make things right. We all know Common Core is all wrong. He was right on with what I hear from teachers and occupational therapists working with school children. It's conceptually wrong, it's not working. What else do we need to know?
***
Finally for now, from a reader on the larger question of what Trump knows and doesn’t:
I [think your post is right] to recognize Trump’s performance chops and also his remarkable ignorance. Of course he is the carnival barker that Obama undressed “fittingly,” but what is strange to me is that anyone as successful as he claims to be could be so appallingly uninformed about the world outside his comb-over.
This is, however, the vice that has become the virtue of “Conservatism” since 1976, or, as a Californian, I might say since 1968 when Reagan became governor. [JF note: Reagan actually won in 1966, beating Pat Brown, but the shift in political alignment and tone became much clearer in the election by 1968.] Ignorance of history, ignorance of government, ignorance of everything has always been an identifier for the conservative movement. The sole weakness in your argument, it seems to me, is that it does not account for how this man made his money. And I am supposing that more than half his wealth is fictitious. But, still, somewhere, sometime, he must have had a clue.
Given your analysis, I am thinking it is possible that Trump is playing a role that he has divined will gain the best results. And there are plenty of actors who get so submerged in their roles that they never come back again (I'm thinking Heath Ledger), so he may or may not believe his BS.
But, there are two things that can take him down. One of them is what Bill Clinton did to George Bush when Gore finally allowed him to speak in the late fall of 2000. I'm sure you remember this. Bush had said something about how the government could never create a program as successful as Medicare. Clinton just laughed at the man. He kicked his ass. It was hysterically funny. “Can you believe this guy?” and Bill is laughing.
The other thing that will catch Trump will be something along the lines of Romney’s Benghazi moment in his second debate with Obama. An instant factcheck with his opponent onstage, smiling at the cheater missing an obvious question on the midterm. Fox Noise tried to pull that off, but the three other stooges weren’t any better clued in than Trump so the gambit just looked weird.
And there is also the likelihood of a stack of binders.
I expect Hillary will be able to laugh at Trump. Maybe not as spontaneously as Bill, but she will have endless opportunities. And then she should call for the moderator’s reality check.
