The Trump Era Dawns
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Readers respond to this stage in our national pageant.
Is it all just kayfabe? From a reader in the Northwest:
Maybe it’s time to stop looking to political pundits to analyze Trump, because politics is the wrong lens? Trump isn’t a politician; he’s a performer. Maybe we should be asking directors and producers to explain what we are witnessing: drama, and nothing more.
Why did he let Cruz speak in primetime without a guarantee of an endorsement? Political ineptitude, or dramatic genius? It was a pro wrestling moment. Betrayal, treachery, defiance! What better way to set up a scene of triumphant revenge! Are Cruz, Christie, Pence, and his own family unwitting or semi-witting extras in Trump’s improvisational “kayfabe”?
Is this all just a corollary to PT Barnum’s quote about bad publicity: “There’s no such thing as bad drama?”
It’s getting out of hand. This reader is less amused:
One of the many concerns with watching a man like Trump edge closer to becoming the most powerful man in the world is the growing feeling that there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. And that we’ve seen this before. And that this is something new and unbelievable. And frightening. Mostly frightening.
There are so, so many rational arguments against him and none of them matter despite many of them being of the utmost importance. Years of over-the-top mudslinging have made us all numb to criticism of his very real faults. It’s not that there are Teflon politicians. It’s just that there are people who don’t care about the charges made against them. They care about ratcheting up the attack even more so that they look good by comparison. So here we are, scraping from the bottom of the scum pond for rhetoric to hurl.
It’s a certainty that the people chanting “lock her up” believe simultaneously that she deserves to be locked up, and that they are engaging in the same type of hyperbolic arguments that they think are being made against Trump. Like Mr. Goldberg’s assertion that Trump = Putin, which I can’t even tell whether it is hyperbole or not. Or Donald Trump: Sociopath?
Yet I think that none of this is effective. In fact, all of it contributes to the success of the Republican call for change, which is made more effective because the change is being proposed in the form of a very, very much non-politician. Who wouldn’t want change in such a toxic election?
I just hope someone can come up with an idea on the Democrat side, something that everyone can rally behind. Things are getting desperate.
Not a deal but a relationship. A reader responses to Time Capsule #49, on Trump’s willingness to walk away from a deal: “You always have to be prepared to walk”:
Trump really relishes deal-making and negotiations, and rightly so. The rules he plays by—regardless of whether they’re anyone else’s rules—appear to serve him well. What’s scary is that he seems to treat everything like a negotiation. As you point out, we don’t just have a deal with, say, Japan; we have a relationship. Relationships aren’t always easy, and the strongest ones require hard work to maintain.
It’s hard not to compare this to his marriages. We can’t just get divorced from Japan or South Korea or Estonia every so often and go start over with younger, seemingly more exciting allies.
The Cruz gamble:
I am a Texan and I despise Ted Cruz.
But he is one of the few to stand up to Trump. I have never voted for a Democrat for President, but this year will be the first. I would have hoped that Cruz would have done the right thing and clearly stated that as flawed as Hillary is, Trump is unfit for office. He did the next best thing.
I think it’s brilliant politics. What are the chances that Trump self-destructs before the election, or God help us as President? Very high, I’d say. Cruz can say he was right when it happens. Also, he sets himself up to run against Trump in Republican primaries in 2020 as the “I told you so” candidate. He could also run as as 3rd party candidate and get significant support as the only conservative in the race.