@hightor,
Just back from a lunch with a group of San Francisco judges, attorneys, union bosses and a few academics & former professional athletes , that meets weekly for some garrulous talk, eating and drinking in a place on Fisherman's Wharf. An interesting mixture of viewpoints on the issues of this thread as well.
hightor wrote:
Quote:You don't here reveal much imagination, reasoning ability or ability to recognize your own limits as an "observer" of Trump's inner motivations.
I know you've expressed some reservations about your president's Twitter habits and occasional lapses of good taste. I think you're a reasonable guy — so I can't understand why you aren't
appalled by his behavior. I know that you're pleased to see some long called for conservative measures being enacted but that doesn't absolve the president from coarsening the political dialog, running on full campaign mode since being elected, and making absolutely no attempts to reach out beyond the resentful and fearful people that make up the core of his base. Wouldn't you rather see Portman, Kasich, Romney, or maybe even Weld leading your party and the country? Assuming Trump runs again, would you think of supporting a challenger in '20?
Outrage among humans is a very strange and often irrational thing. People are outraged by the risks associated with nuclear power, even though the expected outcome ( damage done x probability of occurrence) is as good deal less than four or five skiing trips per year or even simply driving a car regularly.
The outrage to which you refer in Trump's case is mostly about superficial things in his manner of speech; his relentless overstatement and repetition of the same memes, etc.. I would prefer that he did not have these habits, but I don't believe the Republican alternatives you mentioned would have been half as committed and effective in enacting policies that I believe are essential for our country. These include Trump's well known economic successes in stimulating business investment, increased employment and accelerated economic growth, together with other issues like enforcing our laws, restraining the largely unaccountable bureaucratic regulatory state that has grown over the last few decades as lazy Congresses enacted legislation in effect conferring legislative and judicial power in these growing bureaucracies, many of which now have their own uniformed police, "administrative" judges empowered to levy large fines, and in some cases seize property.
These changes will likely last a good deal longer than will memories of Trump's many gaucheries. Moreover I see every bit as much "coarsening of our political dialogue coming from the absurd fashion of group identities and the several "isms" now being hurled about by a liberal establishment that increasingly appears to have lost its ability to detect it's own failures and limitations. Indeed I find the juxtaposition of the evident inability of the liberal establishment to see and recognize its own failures, coupled with its unlimited enthusiasm to invade more and more of the lives of our citizens to be the most dangerous element of contemporary American life.
I generally favor less government (but all of it accountable to the people) , more individual freedom and responsibility, more private (i.e. non government) civic activity in shaping our culture, and a preference for local government over central or Federal government in handling issues. This is more or less the same set of features by which Alexis de Tocqueville distinguished the ( successful in his eyes) American Revolution from the top-down, authoritarian French one in his "Democracy in America".
