My pros and cons list for Trump

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

Pros:

His “I don’t care what the fuck they say about me” attitude (or, less favorably, persona) is a bit refreshing.

His stated desire to focus on reducing debt is good (all other things being equal).

He is (presumably) not bought and paid for by special interest groups

Cons:

He makes stuff up on the fly with little or no information (example, his comments that S Korea doesn’t pay for US military defense, when in fact they do, politifact.com/truth-o-meter … us-troop-/)

Connected to the above is that he doesn’t think before speaking (example, his comments on women and abortions, which he later retracted)

Also connected is that he regularly hyperbolizes for rhetorical effect, demonstrating his interest is more aligned with showmanship and getting an emotional reaction than with being factually accurate.

He lies a lot (examples, saying he never offered to pay legal fees for someone in his crowd to punch protesters, which he did say, or saying he never said women should be punished for having abortions, which he did say).

He openly says he wants more torture and killing of family members of “terrorists”, putting us on the same moral plane as groups like ISIS who actively torture and murder innocents. Furthermore, torture isn’t an effective method of information gathering and is rejected by the military for this reason, not even to speak of moral reasons against it.

He advocated for US troops to ignore international law and then later said he would always follow international laws. (He is inconsistent with himself).

He denies global warming and misrepresents information on the subject (example, he said “back in the 20s… There was global cooling” when really this was in the 70s not the 20s, and really was about the newly developing science of global climatology which, now, we have tons of data and evidence for global warming temperatures. So basically a deliberate cherry picking of data and ignorance of the reality of the science involved).

He wants to ban an entire religious group from traveling to the US, which is not only practically impossible and seriously harmful to the US image and how people view the US, but counter to the evidence (I.e. all or most Muslims are not a danger and in fact the best way to prevent radicalization is through forging stronger community ties and more inclusion/integration efforts, for example in UK it is only Moroccan and not Turkish Muslims who radicalize, which follows the lines of economic disparity differences between Moroccan and Turkish Muslim youth in the UK).

(Not that radicalization shouldn’t be combated, or not that Islam doesn’t have deplorable aspects, but that his approach would actually make the problem worse. His statements directly benefit ISIS as recruitment tools for radicalization by confirming that the US is in a “religious war” with Islam, which is a selling point of terrorist organizations to Muslim youths).

Building a giant wall is a stupid idea. Again his solutions to real problems are impractical and absurdly simple-minded, like something a child would come up with.

As one foreign policy advisor put it (can’t find the link now), his approach might succeed at extracting a small bit more “piece of the pie” for the US from international trade, but at the risk of exploding the pie itself (Trump treats negotiations and international trade and military aid as if these were zero sum games when in fact they aren’t, case in point of how we gain many other benefits from helping S Korea with its defense then simply being paid by them for it).

He has an orange face (maybe less relevant I’ll admit…) and makes sexual comments about his daughter (“If I weren’t her father…”). It’s one thing to see the whole “saying what everyone else is thinking but afraid to say” thing as a virtue, but obviously there are limits to that. Even if his “I’m an asshole but at least I’m honest” persona is appealing in other contexts, as a president presiding over complex arrangements of relationships with allies and foreign countries and economic interests this would be suicidal and not a desirable characteristic of a leader, at least not at the level he examples it. Plus as I’ve already covered above, he isn’t honest anyway. He’s just going for immediate shock value and trying to get a rise out of people (he is crude, immature, childish, openly narcissistic).

According to former extensive interview article by Rolling Stone I think it was, he is a spoiled immature guy prone to fits of petulant rage (saying he has the best pilots for his jet and then suddenly firing them for a turbulent landing, for example).

2

In the world of pro’s and con’s, there lies a phallacy, akin to the one where attempts to categorize events, utterances, facts, fictions seem to work on an even keel, in certain situations.

Where the con’s over-weigh the pro’s by far, in the above list of attributes, (or vica versa) is the lack of qualifications between the various attributes.

Perhaps a lie, uttered by a hopeful nominee, is far worse, then his pronouncement of a wish to balance the budget. The US budget is in such a disastrous state, that any presidential hopeful making that kind
of promise, is suspect of uttering sweeping generalizations, for the sake of enhancing his value.
In fact, a very dramatic act would need to be
accomplished, such, that would entail the total
overhaul of the tenuous state the world is in, thereby , taking on unacceptable risks, to a very high degree.

The pro’s would need to realign with the cons, in a sort of detante, acceptable to all parties. This kind of synthesis is is neither conceivable, nor feasible, in the present time. Trump projecting an independent facade does help to intuit some kind of momentum , but with his lacks abounding, it’s doubtful.

3

Wyld,

You omitted the basis for the most important basis for his tremendous appeal, the immigration problem.
All the other nuanced issues are dwarfed by it.
It seems to revert to the most basic animisms, that is immigration.

The implication to close borders is tremendous, as it is deceptive. The whole concept of the New Workd a Order, seems to be denigrated here, for if the mass exodus is stopped, the next fall is the whole concept of unification, of the World,of Europe, and the US. The trend will be overturned, and those who do not go along with it will be harshly Dept with. It has come down to the entertaining value of the process of governance, versus the very elementary behaviorism, which would rule, again. Everything depends on the great actor and charlatan Trump, bless his soul.

4

Yes I could have included in the ‘cons’ list the fact that he panders to the lowest kind of xenophobic “blame the [insert minority or marginalized group here] for our problems”. Meanwhile the wealthiest of society keep voting for the same “conservatives” and right-leaning politicians that the lower and middle class Republicans are duped into voting for, which should tell you something.

Illegal immigration is not the central problem of US society, not even a significant problem of it. Yes it is a problem, but one ranked quite down the list of many others. Making it seem like the central issue and demonizing Mexicans, who quite understandably want to get to the US to escape Mexico, is just a form of cheap scapegoating and non-thinking political rhetoric. It gets idiots riled up against “them” and for their own “in group” and allows themselves to see themselves as the victims. Then you get socially affluent upper middle class white guys congregating in front of the state capitol buildings with Tea Party flags, ranting against “Obama” and “Marxism” and “them ille’gals” as if these Tea Partiers were somehow the victims of something other than social privilege and happening to be born into a country of wealth and opportunity and into a decent socioeconomic strata. The sociological concept of ‘habitus’ comes into play here quite nicely (“[Habitus is] A structuring structure, which organises practices and the perception of practices.”(Bourdieu, P. 1984: 170)).

So yeah, Trump bashing illegal immigration and using it as a political prop of cheap hate-fueled propaganda is definitely on the ‘con’ list.

Also on the ‘con’ list then would be the fact that his grandiose hyperbolizing of the issue is actually making it even harder to realistically address the problems that are actually there. And then you have the black and white thinkers come out of the woodwork saying “You support Obama gutting ICE and you love sanctuary cities and drugs coming into 'Murika!” and no… that isn’t the case. A generally very low level of intellectuality and discourse is the real problem in US politics today, and Trump only fuels that madness, whatever the actual real problems.

I don’t know about that whole “NWO” thing by the way, but ok.

5

lol.

6

It would be wrong to conclude from his behaviour that he believes in “I don’t care what the fuck they say about me”. He only pretends that. On the contrary, he cares a lot, or rather more than other candidates about what others say about him. He is intentionally playing a role of an antihero on the political stage, something like what role Liev Schreiber played in Ray Donovan. He does that because he knows that many US citizens like people like Ray, who can fix all things somehow, though that does not happen in reality.

His recent apology on his earlier statements about abortion is the clear cut proof that he cares what others say about him. He only pretends to be not caring if he feels that his this manly attitude makes him more popular among voters.

You rightly used presumably here.

I do not think that he in entirely on his own. Forget about US, it is not that easy to fight for head of any small country. Though legally/technically every eligible citizen of any democratic country can go for that, but that does not happen in reality. Each and every candidate must have unofficial support of some of those influential groups who have lot a say in establishment/governance.

I am neither a US citizen nor have any way of confirming that, but it looks to me that he is intentionally put in the GOP nomination race by some Clinton support group to ensure the her victory, both in nomination and later actual election as well.

I can agree with the basic idea, but not those solutions which he puts forth.

All true. As he is playing a given role on the stage, thus sometimes makes a mistake of overplaying.

Ray Donovan. Get the job done anyhow.

He and his scriptwriters are well aware of the fact that a good majority his addressed audience (Us citizens and voters) is mostly ignorant about the facts, thus if the presentation/rhetoric would be good and appealing, nobody is going to look beyond that at the actual issues.

In other words, if the actor will act well and the sets/locations also would be appealing, the film would be liked by the audience, even if the story of the film would be lame.

Again, the very qualities of Ray Donovan.

But, US needs a fixer like Jack Bauer of 24 fame, not Ray Donovan. Both believes in getting the job done anyhow, but there is a lot of difference between the two when it comes to the intention of deciding what is there to be fixed.

with love,
sanjay

7

My list is much shorter:

Pros:

  • Isn’t Hilary Clinton
  • Isn’t Bernie Sanders

Cons:

  • Isn’t Adolf Hitler

Oh well, that’s 2 to 1, pros obviously win. Go Trump.

8

Outsider, you think that it would be good to elect Adolph Hitler?

9

You forgot his blatant contempt for women.

I think this one is significant because it will be the major contributor his downfall. More women vote than men is the US, and over 50% of them have a ‘highly unfavourable’ view of Trump. He isn’t going to win with those figures, and as its a real contempt that he’s struggling and failing to hide, its only going to get worse.

It’s true, though, that he’s one of the few politicians in America to argue that America’s debt problem is actually a big problem that needs sorting out.

10

Despite females having obvious privileges in the current society as a consequence of technology replacing male sexual roles (protection/provision) but not female, there is still talk of ‘contempt for women’. This goes to show how women don’t give a shit about reality, truth, or even the claimed “equality”, they always just want more, and more power, though to be fair males would likely behave the same under equivalent circumstances (if female sexual role was replaced by technology but not male).

Apparently somebody who has been married and has a daughter has contempt for women because… he doesn’t agree with the feminist nonsense of equality and blah blah blah?

How much will American men allow themselves to be emasculated before (if?) they explode with anger?

votetrumpgetdumped.com/

Female sexual beast has been released, and they are using their advantages fully… I say we release the masculine beast in response.
But of course, everything associated with masculinity is regarded as ‘evil’ and ‘immoral’, while feminine tactics are permitted and considered ‘normal’. Men using advantages of masculinity = bad, females using advantages of feminity = ok.

I predict a lot more of mass killings ending in mass suicide as last cries of masculine men who cannot stand their imposed domestication anymore. Hopefully they take out as many degenerates as they can before they perish.