Well said Gertie! He goes, as you say, right for the 'feels'. It's all about emotion (i.e., cult of personality lyrics/I know your anger, I know your dreams...).Gertie wrote: ↑August 16th, 2022, 10:27 amI think Trump's narcissism gave him an instinctive knack for targetting people's sense of justified self-interest, which when presented as tribal interest further taps into very strong, basic drives. He just didn't bother much with the usual surrounding justifications and explanations of policy. Instead he presented himself as a tribal champion, a demagogue, who will sort all that stuff out for us in his tribe. There's no policy Trumpism as such, it's more of a tribal cult of personality.3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑August 10th, 2022, 11:24 am Greetings philosophers of Politics!
As a Christian Existentialist, I don’t consider ‘this world’ my kingdom. I give to Caesar what is Caesars, appreciate the cultural and political freedoms (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness) that in-turn our constitution provides for, vote on occasion and try to stay informed. I live by our currency of In God We Trust. But I try to keep it all in perspective and don’t get too spun-up. As such, I was researching something having to do with logical fallacies and ran into this:
Since philosophy lives in the logic of language, and language itself matters, particularly with respect to our expectations in so-called leadership abilities/qualities, I started to think about the differences between likable candidates v. unlikable one’s and what that all means. Then, combining one’s own likes and dislikes with political ideology and expectation levels of elected officials, I felt the need to parse what causes people to like certain candidates.
Generally speaking, this leads to our choices associated with our system of government. We have Democrats, Republicans and Independents. I myself am a moderate independent. That translates to me being free to vote either party, in hopes to either find moderation (moderate candidates both left and right), and to submit protest votes in order to get the lesser of two evils. In this case, I didn’t vote for Trump.
You could consider me an old Reagan moderate (though he spent way too much money), or a modern-day Adam Kinzinger Republican. Or even a modern-day Joe Manchin moderate from the left. I like limited government but also appreciate the many entitlements that have been put into law; it's a balance. My political belief system is centered around (no pun intended) Aristotle’s mantra of moderation bringing happiness to the masses, as well as the commonsense application of ‘compromise’ with some exceptions. For instance, the world around us relies on compromise for many things including those dynamics between interpersonal relationships to engineering design to products/services and manufacturing. An engineer can design an engine that is more efficient but would be cost prohibitive due to its design materials and high compression ratios (requiring over 93 octane) not to mention maintenance costs. Though high-performance vehicles are popular, there is always a moderate compromise between performance efficiency and cost, manufacturing and maintenance. Or we can even look at building products and a whole host of other products to see that they generally incorporate ‘moderation’ in their designs.
This even extends into gun safety and speed limits, as we don't go 200 miles an hour and we don't 35 on the highway. Instead we go somewhere reasonably i the middle. We don't put a top fuel dragster on the road (assault weapons') we allow them to race on the dragstrip. It's about public safety. The far right wants tanks and nuclear codes, the far left wants to take them away. I could go on an provide examples of 'moderate' capitol punishment ideologies but I'll stop there.
With all that said, obviously ‘extremism’ is at the opposite ends of the political equation. Needless to say, I’m against extremism both left and right, and with few exceptions, generally think it’s bad for the country. And unfortunately, the experiment known as ‘Trumpism’ turned into lessons of extremism. Remember too, all Presidents do good and bad. Those that do (worse) more bad than good, generally don’t get re-elected. It’s like firing an employee; they did some good, but the bad outweighed the good. Or a relationship, you break-up or divorce because the bad outweighed the good. Conversely, you stay in it because the good outweighs the bad.
Just so you know, while I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, when I vote I want to feel comfortable with my decision, of course knowing all the while I’m not going to get everything I want. At the same time, I don’t want to tell people what to believe, but rather I want to understand why I make the decisions that I do. Accordingly, I researched both the ideologies and character of Trump from his private sector days (dad’s involvement with KKK, Trump university failed business venture/law suits, racial discrimination in his rental properties , Casino failures, and then character/leadership abilities in the form of misogyny, infidelity, and other lies and deceit and narcissism/ego from Jan 6th particularly where he allowed armed people to pass through the MAG and was basically derelict in his duties) both before and after his presidency. Then, you have that perpetuation of the big lie that was designed to portray himself not only as a perceived loser, but so he can continue to dupe donors and raise money and live for another day (some donors sued to get their money back). Many Republicans have acted cowardly towards all this by saying one thing in public; in private another. Why? Because they have a good thing going and don’t want to lose their jobs. Simple arithmetic there; but despicable, nonetheless. A sell-out of sorts just to get re-elected. A Republican party of values, and law an order you say?
This is not even mentioning all the other nefarious activity that we know about from his former campaign associates being convicted of lying/crimes ( Manifold/Flynn, etc.) , the impeachment, to the most recent lies/Jan 6 and now the allegations of destroying documents and otherwise allegedly committing a crime in keeping classified documents. Ironically enough, he seems no better than Hillary herself; lock him up (or both) I say! And in real time, this just in! Trump pleads the fifth in New York City… ?
And that leads to the notion of what causes people to support a person who like Teflon Don, is a thug and a cult of personality. Remember, he said that he could shoot someone, and nobody would care, right? Hence the personality type:
Cult of Personality Lyrics:
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV
Oh, I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
Oh, I'm the cult of personality
Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set me free...
And so all that said, I will argue that not only is this former president not worthy of re-election, but he did not drain the swamp; he is the swamp. He’s a reality TV host who feeds on emotion, rather than logic and substance, He attacks people who have opposing views by acting as though he’s a tough guy and fires them. In actually, more people left him because they saw the writing on the wall; he’s a fake and a fraud and a coward (pleading the fifth today). And many of those observations didn’t come from me, remember the 2016 primaries?
Any takers?
If you're part of his tribe, he's manipulating powerful instincts, which can easily over-ride logic and allow a lot of other stuff to slide. As long as he tells you you're great, your tribe is great, and hates the same people you do, that hits hard in the gut. Especially if you're white and/or male and you're feeling the sort of status slippage which can feel like a personal attack on you and your values. Such people feel like he's telling it like it is, but can't articulate that well, because he's going straight for the feels.
If you're not, it looks crude, cruel and stupid. And difficult to understand how anyone can fall for his blatant hucksterism. But of course it's just an outlier extreme of how all our biases can work. Tho I expect that combo of victim-hero resonates particularly well in a certain type of Christian culture.
And if you're some hypothetical objective outsider, I expect it looks ridiculous.
Similarly, I see a lot of hate from his followers. They just seem to be 'intrinsically' angry and hateful of people who are different than them. If, for example, there are policies that relate to entitlement's that need revised, then propose revisions to them (i.e., drug testing people who are 'interminably' on welfare) where it seems obvious they are taking advantage of those entitlements. Politicians just immediately default to repealing 'all' things without trying to tweak an already existing policy because it makes them look and feel more powerful, distinct to the fan base. Like taxes, you don't do away with them, you tweak the tax code. Or course, there are exceptions to everything, but you get the idea.
Despite my unsupported view of his character, leadership and lack of policy's, I hoped he could bring a fresh pragmatic approach to Washington. Telling it like it is, so to speak, then backing it up with pragmatic policy. Instead, as you alluded, it just seemed to be more about a selfish need for power and greed. It's as if he just used some of the policies from the GOP for his own personal gain. And my goodness, the deficit got worse when he was in there! The need for power and greed has become painfully obvious, as the truth is finally starting to unfold... . Remember, when he lost, he was like a little baby and pouted "have a nice life". What kind of person says this?
Again, there was some good and bad, but the bad far outweighed the good. That's why he lost. I'm hopeful that at least one teaching moment for American's will be how we go about changing things without radicalization. If that's what he's going to continue to sell, we're not buying it. We're on to him now. Those who are unconvinced, I say run while you can, lest you go down with the ship. He's taking on water fast!
