If you think Trump is okay, you aren't

 

The legacy of Donald  J. Trump, a project of some Aberdeen high school students

I've recounted the incident a number of times.  I returned to my hometown in Illinois to visit my family and was staying at my brother's house, along with a couple who were with him for a weekend.  She was someone he had worked with for many years in the past and with whom he maintained a close friendship.  Her husband was a retired banker from Chicago who had also served as the head of some important cultural organizations.  My brother was hosting a get-together for the couple, when someone brought up an incident that happened when I was the farm and business editor of the local newspaper.

I have often said it was the best job I ever had, except for the business part. That was because business people are constantly trying to get mentioned in the newspaper in laudable ways and often are not truthful about what they claim.  The newspaper had a stringent policy about not printing false or misleading information in the paper.  Consequently, I spent an inordinate amount of time fact-checking information that came from businesses, and this produced some tense and unpleasant episodes with business owners and executives when we asked for clarifications or refused to print something.  There was an incident in which a well-known executive held a press conference to announce a development for his company.  When checking some of the claims for the company, we found them provably false, so we did a rather small story that covered only the facts of the presentation.  The man went on a public relations rampage, threatening to sue the newspaper and maligning it in general.  This alerted other media to check the facts and make retractions for their coverage.  The tale prompted the banker to talk about the problems of dealing with unscrupulous  business  people he dealt with as a commercial banker.  He cited Donald Trump, who was promoting a book at the time, as an example, and he gave a vigorous account of why he and his associates loathed Trump.

I don't think he had ever actually met Trump but was aware of his reputation in the ethical business community from his associates.  This was early in Trump's career, but he had already established a reputation among business  insiders.  He was known fo stiff contractors who worked for him.  He lied constantly and maligned people behind  their backs.  

Since that conversation thirty some years ago, I have never heard a good word about Donald Trump.  People have acknowledged that he had a knack for asserting himself into public attention and of making money, but I never heard a positive word about his character or the way he did business.  As it turns out. the people from New York where he lived had his number.

A real estate manager said:

People in real estate are afraid to do business with him because he and his family and his organization are not honest people,” he added, referring to, among other things, Trump’s reputation for not paying his contractors

Another business New Yorker was asked about Trump's reputation before he became president.

To answer your question, everybody in NYC had a Donnie story - none of them flattering. All of them involving him cheating somebody, stiffing his contractors, caterers, workmen and how he was “mobbed up” so his cement got delivered when the rest of the building industry was at a standstill. Donnie could build a hotel in Las Vegas but he couldn’t get a license for a casino because of his mob connections. Pity we don’t have such high standards for who sits in the White House.

In the end, he barely got 9% of the vote from New York - we all knew him for what he is. We’re just waiting for the rest of you to wake up.

The big question is, why do so many people support Trump despite his reputation and the malevolence with which he conducted his campaign?  The answer is obvious:  he appeals to them.   The significance is in the nature of that appeal.

Trump is the antithesis of what our democratic republic is supposed to stand for.  He is dishonest, preys on the work of others, lies constantly, disrespects women, and has failed in as many business ventures as he has succeeded.  So what is his attraction?

It is something that goes beyond partisan politics.  It is the primal politics of the dog pack or chicken flock.  

Some years ago a well-respected high school counselor presented a paper on it.  It deals with the matter of bullying.  His premise is that we misunderstand bullying in schools and beyond.  We think of it as a situation in which bullies seek out weak people to inflict themselves on, and we tend to see the problem as a matter of standing up to the bullies.  If we define  the problem in those terms, we miss the crux of it.  What deserves attention more is the people who support or fall in line behind the bully.  Many people see allying themselves with bullies as a way to obtain power and status for themselves.  They form a relationship in their minds that is emotional and impervious to facts and reasoning and, often, standards of decency.  The counselor made the point that if we do not understand this aspect of bullying, we do not understand how the holocaust happened and what World War II over Germany was about.  It was not merely about Hitler; it was about the people who chose to follow and support him.  

Many members in the American dog pack are incapable of dealing with the facts of the character and history of Donald Trump. In their frenzied minds, Trump is elevated as a billionaire hero and they they choose to believe the conspiracies that portray him as good and his opponents as wicked demons.  They are mentally unable to recognize and consider the facts behind the opposition to Trump.  They just dismiss them as as leftist propaganda.

The power of a bully to gain mindless but powerful followers is being written into history by the Federal Elections Commission.  Trump got his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to be quiet about an affair Trump had with her.  Cohen got convicted and sent to jail for violating the law prohibiting bribery in election campaigns.  The evidence against Cohen included canceled checks and the testimony of Stormy Daniels.  But when the FEC considered the payment by Trump, the GOP members said the violation had already been litigated and penalized by  the conviction of  Cohen.  So, the man who approved and benefitted from the bribe was spared any adverse action even though the bribe was made under his authority.  This was not a miscarriage of justice;  it was an induced abortion by dolts who choose to be his acolytes.

The effect of worshippers at the bully pulpit is demonstrated by the reaction to Liz Cheney's refusal to accede to Trump's lie that the election was stolen.  She was one of Trump's most avid supporters in Congress. She voted with his positions 93 percent of the time.  But Trump's lie about the election and his provoking the assault on the Capitol were a changing point.  She has denounced Trump as a threat to the Constitution and the democracy. This has prompted many in her home state of Wyoming to turn against her with a viciousness.  When MSNBC interviewed conservatives in Wyoming about her, their denunciations were angry.  And unhinged.  One man angrily called her a traitor.  Calling someone who calls out the malfeasance of a president a traitor reveals the kind of mentality possessed by what is being called Trump's base.

Some people defer to Trump because they are fearful and think he possesses the strength to protect them from whatever makes them fearful.  Others endorse some of Trump's political stances and are willing to overlook his lies, his betrayals of wives and people who have done business with him, and his abusive demeanor.  They subject themselves to a bully who they think can give them what they want despite Trump's betrayal of his oath of office.  And there are those like the man who called Cheney a traitor.  They are the weak of mind who interpret Cheney's exercise of the First Amendment as an act of betrayal. In their deficient minds, they regard anyone who opposes the false notions that comprise their political and patriotic makeup as traitors.  They are too mentally incompetent to understand the democracy that provides their equality.

The divide in our nation is not fundamentally partisan.  It is actually a divide between the ignorant and stupid and those with enough intelligence to distinguish between the world of established fact and conspiracy fantasies, between the somewhat principled and those who think any means to money and power is fair, and between those who cower behind boisterous swindlers and those who try to assert some integrity of purpose in life.

If you support Trump, you fall into one of those defined categories:  stupidly ignorant, morally coward, or ethically depraved.  There are no other explanations for supporting him.

Your endorsement of Trump labels you as a miscreant in opposition to the fundamental principles that frame our republic. It is not a chicken flock that operates on a pecking order.  It's a constitutional democracy that strives to establish freedom, equality, and justice for all. The division is not between Democrat and Republican. It's between those who work for those principles and those who deny or ignore them.  If you think Donald Trump is okay, you think America can be betrayed.  And to those who understand what the nation is trying to become, that is not okay.