HG, we’ve had eight or ten months to vet the candidates. Understand that Trump supporters aren’t flocking to him, merely because he’s a bright and shiny object. No, many of us have taken the time to give the man a fair hearing, then having liked what we heard, taken Even more time to work through our doubts about him. Quite a few of us even began this campaign as staunch advocates for Ted Cruz.
I am such a person.
Trump means what he says. He’s got no reason to lie to us, and every reason to hold true to his campaign promises. He doesn’t need the job. We need him to fill the position.
I probably can’t say anything that will convince you to choose Trump over Cruz. That’s a decision you will or will not make for yourself.
I think it is a function of how we evaluate people. I have always had a difficult time reading people and wind up constantly surprised. People I think I can trust turn out to be unreliable and people of whom I expect nothing wind up coming through.
So I rely on things that I can see and measure. If somebody doesn’t have a record I can evaluate, they can sing the most wonderful tune and I will still not trust them. People who make big promises with nothing tangible to back them up just leave me cold.
But there are people very different from me who are more adept at making such judgements, and they respond very differently.
I think Obama was like that. So many of my friends were swept up, and I never saw what they saw in him. He struck me as a con artist and I think events have borne out that judgement. But perhaps I learned that lesson too well.
I like Cruz because I see what he has done, I like what he has done, and I am reasonably confident that he will continue along the same path. I am constitutionally unable to make a leap of faith to an unknown quantity like Trump, but I also recognize that I am very limited in this regard.