Quote:
Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan
I stumbled on this on Twitter.
Fine writing, I think. I'm similarly perplexed. |
Insightful. But I think Trump is a bit better than that. Yes, I just said that I think he has some "qualities"?
I'll explain... Trump comes from country club land. He loves those places. Those places are packed with middle class to affluent folks who don't care about much. They aren't bad people generally, or good people generally. Most of them are just looking at life as a consumption game. You work, you accrue things, you make enough to take afternoons off and hit a ball around a huge expanse of grass.
They don't think about the considerations raised in that critique of Trump. The Big Questions are of no interest to these people.
And most of the rest of the country isn't terribly exercised about those concerns, either. People are largely fixated on their own thing. If we'd a booming economy that delivered for all as opposed to the top 10-20%, you'd see even less civic engagement. Recall the internet boom years under Clinton? Nobody cared about anything but money.
Trump is vacant, and defined by his vacancies, as that writing notes. But in one odd regard, he is not vacant. He has decided to jump into the fray of politics and, intentionally or not, become a change catalyst. Say what you will of him, he actually tries to keep the promises he makes (unless it really harms his self interest).
He's selfish, but perhaps out of egomania, he's at least engaged with society. That is bad in a number of regards, but it's also more than most of the apathetic and exclusively narrowly-thinking people like him would do. Most would simply hit that ball around the grass and watch their portfolios on their cell phones.
And so yes, I am saying a lot of Americans, and an exceedingly large number of the top 20%, are actually more vacant than Trump.
If you gave what I wrote right here to them they'd say it was deeply uncool and even self defeating (because it would make one unhappy or cause one to think about a complex problem beyond the scope of any one person's abilities) to consider such things. And one certainly should never discuss such things aloud.
I know this because I've lived my life in that thin band of people, as many of you have, and we can recognize them, can't we? They're the rule, and those who care and think about these complex issues thoughtfully are the exception. Trump decided to do something. As much out of self interest as anything else, but he did decide to do something. In this regard, he deserves a bit of a defense.
