Nice Folks For Trump
[Big Mike note: Yeah, I know, I posted this verbatim on Facebook, but I also wanted to post it here so I can keep this blog active while I work on the Charlotte Zietlow book.]
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Met a nice older couple from the rural outskirts in the store yesterday.
They were looking for the latest edition of Time mag because it has Donald Trump on the cover. They were clearly excited about it and just as clearly not used to being in a bookstore and searching for a periodical. I helped them as much as I could, directing them to other stores, and explaining why some places might have it and others wouldn’t yet — the nature of periodical distribution.
Then it occurred to me that if we were to have a conversation about Trump, neither of us in a million years would convince the other about him. They see him as a man who has made many hundreds of millions of dollars through his imagination, his persistence, his charisma, and his ability to navigate the rough seas of deal-making. I see him as a fortunate son who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, exploits bankruptcy laws, panders to our greedy natures, and patronizes us by saying Americans either are or should be superior to the rest of the world.
Our Moral Touchstone
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In the end it wouldn’t be worth it to argue with them about Trump because a person’s stance on him actually defines who that person is as a moral being. They want a world where a man can excel, where he can triumph over the nitpickers and the jealous non-excellers. I want a world where “winning” (accumulating wealth, in this case) does not mean there have to be so many “losers.” I can’t make them want my thing, nor can they make me want theirs.
There are scads of people like this nice couple, probably more than there are like me. It’s ironic how they’re nice but obviously want something that, to me, is not nice at all. That’s why Trump scares me: He doesn’t only appeal to wild-eyed lunkheads. He’s attractive to nice elderly farm couples from Indiana.
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