Posted on 02/05/2017 5:46:11 AM PST by chajin
On the surface of it, it really is mystifying.
I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, and I remember well how most middle-American adults in my life thought and spoke of Donald Trump at that time. He was a Manhattanite billionaire playboy who couldn’t stay off the talk shows and tabloids. His name and image were synonymous with obscene wealth and a decadent lifestyle. He treated women badly, it was known. Small business people, farmers, and factory workers rolled their eyes at Donald Trump. His values could not have had less to do with theirs. Many probably hated him and everything he stood for...
There’s always talk of how those politicians who are career attorneys with Ivy League pedigrees, hail from upper-crust families, and maybe vacation in the Hamptons or the French Riviera are maybe a bit out of touch with common people.
But here we have a real estate tycoon for whom the Reagan years were one long limousine ride, an unapologetic egomaniac who delights in throwing his name up in lights, and a guy who made a television career out of firing people on camera: one would think such a person would represent a whole higher echelon of “out of touch.”
So, yeah — how did this man transform himself into the populist savior of the working class?
(Excerpt) Read more at quora.com ...
I found this interesting because, like Mr. Lindsay, my studies in college were music and philosophy, along with an MBA. He is something rare in the Left, an honest progressive. His understanding of the Trump phenomenon is not 100% accurate, but it is closer to the truth than most on the Left will say, and certainly closer than most of the Left believes.
Lindsay's mistake is that he genuinely believes in "democratic socialism" as the means of removing inequality from society, rather than realizing that inequality will never be removed from society, and working instead for the rising tide that lifts all boats, not worrying that some boats will be bigger than others. He is, however, knowledgeable and honest, and might be persuaded, over time, to a set of intellectual arguments for conservatism, much as I was in the 1980s, when I was out of college and he was a baby.
Because the last two Democratic Presidents were lying, cheating, America betraying bastards with lying, wretched spouses?
The author is an ignorant liar. As a New Yorker since the early 70s (well, a Manhattanite) I can tell you Trump never had a reputation like that. His reputation was as a builder first of glitzy buildings and a guy who had several marriages to blond women second. He had a pretty long marriage to Ivana and most of the tabloids had to do with them going to society parties hosted by Brooke Astor, the gilding of General Sherman on 5th Avenue and the purchasing of The Plaza Hotel. We all worried he was going to paint it gold! He did not. Of course, his affair with Marla made the papers for a while but he did the right thing with her as well. But first and foremost, he was known as a brash builder. He was also off the pages of the two NYC tabloids for years at a time. The lies about this man are out of control and no one seems interested in combating them.
Thank God for his twitter account.
“I’ve been sheltered from a number of the realities that my parents had to face in their lives.”
The only rational thing he said. Lots of me, me, me.
That and it was plainly obvious that Hillary didn’t care about anything or anyone but her empire and herself. We didn’t know what we would be getting with Trump, but we knew damn well what we would be getting with Hillary Clinton.
I agree. When most civil, clear-thinking people considered the future under these malignant poltroons, they voted for someone who MIGHT be able to turn the course. In the last couple decades, the government has been full of frauds and schemers...it still is. Hopefully, President Trump and his team will weather the storm, punish the frauds and use the Rule of Law to hold these criminals accountable for their crimes.
I think that both sides, Democrat and Republican, the normal people, not people wearing a giant vagina, just want a politician to do what he says he’ll do. What Trump proposed in the campaign was rational and good for everybody. (Granted, the people wearing a vagina don’t see it that way, but they appear to be idiots.)
I don’t agree with him, but his screed is well-written and he recognizes the existence of alternative viewpoints, if not their validity, unlike the vacuous Hollywood idiots and much, if not most, of the media. The historical problem that “democratic socialism” faces is that it doesn’t work; if you bring up Soviet Russia, they will always cite the “betrayal” of Stalin and respond that “well, true communism has never been tried”. Well, it has been tried, and it always ends up with the same result: enrichment of a tyrant and his family (Castos, Mugabe, the Chinese leadership) at the expense of the impoverishment of everyone outside the protected class.
I don’t agree with him, but his screed is well-written and he recognizes the existence of alternative viewpoints, if not their validity, unlike the vacuous Hollywood idiots and much, if not most, of the media. The historical problem that “democratic socialism” faces is that it doesn’t work; if you bring up Soviet Russia, they will always cite the “betrayal” of Stalin and respond that “well, true communism has never been tried”. Well, it has been tried, and it always ends up with the same result: enrichment of a tyrant and his family (Castos, Mugabe, the Chinese leadership) at the expense of the impoverishment of everyone outside the protected class.
Just goes to prove even the news of the 80’s and 90’s had a bias slant only focused on certain aspects of Donald’s life and not him as whole person.
I don’t think “caring” makes a difference. I just want Constitutional government, first, and policies with which I agree, second.
And because he grew up and became responsible. People change.
America overreacted in 2008. We have been correcting course ever since. America leans to the right, not the left. Too bad for the liberals who think the answer is to move even farther to the left.
“Many probably hated him and everything he stood for”
I don’t agree w/the author’s assessment of Trump’s public perception. Only communists hated him because he was a capitalist.
I simply saw him as a rich guy that also acquired some public fame. Not much different that someone like Getty.
Per why would I think that he “cares” - it gets a bit abstract.
My perception is that he thinks more like I do. I hear the communist spiel from the left and the press and think “You f’n idiots, don’t you realize that the harder you make it for a successful person to succeed, the harder you make it on yourself?”
The more difficult it is for a business to operate means it’s harder for YOU to start and open your own business.
The more that property rights are violated in order to distribute “fairly”, the fewer property rights YOU have.
So I don’t think Trump cares about me in particular, but I think he does care about removing the impediments that would allow others to succeed.
Some businesses want to use government corner their own market (e.g. GE and light bulbs). I don’t think Trump is interested in that. He seems to want a free market.
As such, his self interest is the same as mine.
For this jerk, History ENDED with November 8!
Yup, I was against Reagan, but at the end of his terms I choked up as I realized that he had done exactly what he set out to do - it was morning again in America. This kid has never seen a real president.
Well, the one thing he DID always have was a big mouth. Also forgotten in all the hate is how all of these big networks used to use him as a pundit.
Also, about that time Art of the Deal came out and he EXPLAINED his technique of using the media for free air time by being outrageous. I used to say during the campaign that it seemed like, to Donald, having to pay for advertising was about equivalent to having to pay for sex.
You cannot be a billionaire playboy and make the billion dollars yourself through your own hard work.
It's hard work building anything at a cost that is less than it's fair market value. Every chickenshit construction company, worker, supplier, zoning and licensing official is out to take you to the cleaners for more than all you are worth.
Just try getting someone to fix your kitchen sink and multiply that experience by 100,000,000.
Playboy my ass. Someone with the instincts of a mafioso hit-man, I would buy. But lazy drunken (oh he doesn't drink) womanizer, Hah!
That is the very definition of an elitist.
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