> But it's not something that works in politics
The first rule of politics is to win elections. He's currently the most powerful politician in the world. Of course it works in politics.
Governing on the other hand...
That was my impression before the election, when I didn't pay any attention. I thought he was a successful bully, which wouldn't necessarily be the worst combination for a President.
After learning about his actual business history (Thanks, Trump Inc.! podcast) I think the 'succeeded' part is pretty arguable. He was born unbelievably wealthy, had a string of some unbelievable business failures, and was subsequently bailed out by some known (Deutsche Bank) as well as unknown shady actors and practices.
Now that I understand his business history, I wouldn't consider him to have succeeded in business. He could have been vastly more wealthy today by doing nothing other than invest in index funds, which to me counts as largely unsuccessful.
... Well you start out with 100 million!
Isn't that unknowable without knowing how much he has spent along the way?
- Case A: Donald Trump runs his companies starting at year X and meanwhile leads a lavish lifestyle, ending up with N1 dollars.
- Case B: Donald Trump puts all his money in index funds and spends nothing, ending up with N2 dollars.
As far as I can tell, you are saying N2 > N1, therefore he would have been better off investing in index funds. But you are comparing apples to oranges if you have different spending habits between the cases. It could be that running his private plane or plating things in gold or whatever would have drained his index fund investment totally.
I think Trump has been successful. Many people born into wealth lose it or at least don't grow it. So he deserves some kudos here.
I think people don't like to give him credit for anything, but if you "only" grow your fortune at the rate of the market, then you're really tracking the average success of American business. That's by definition better than 50% of public companies and in the top few percent of individuals. That's successful in my books.
This post is attracting quite a bit of negative attention, but I stand by my assessment as fair. If you disagree, maybe you want to point out how it's not fair? I think people just hate Trump (which I do as well, but I can separate concerns.)
People who can't stand Trump have taken the bait. Deplorable is not a popular word anymore but the reaction to the President's inconsequential meandering does, happily for some, imply that Trump fans are gullible, poor and idiotic.
note that empathy here refers to the facet that let's you tease out how people are feeling and what's causing those feelings (to your point), not the one that makes you genuinely care for other people.
with that said, it's unlikely that the election tipping point was honing in on the biggest weakness of an opponent. that's incidental to his real strength in this area, which is honing in on the central fear of--let's not beat around the bush--large blocks of white people.
this is how you make sense of seemingly disparate issues like immigration, nationalism, tax breaks for the wealthy, and anti-abortionism that the trump campaign championed (even if he doesn't personally care about immigration or abortion policy, for example).
trump won by using his sales-honed empathy to zero in on this central fear and then beat that drum relentlessly to victory. clinton, on the other hand, empathized in the other sense of the word (to some extent), but failed at understanding the basic motivations of the populace.
This depends on what you mean by "works in politics"? He won the presidency after all, and then went on to beat a resistant republican party into submission. He lowered taxes on the rich, packed the supreme court, and is in the process of handing out 6 trillion dollars to wall street. His approval ratings have been constant through impeachment and pandemic [1] and he still has a good shot at reelection.
Assuming you aren't a supporter, I think there is a significant risk in underestimating his political successes. We shall see if Biden and the DNC can "outsmart" him in 2020.
[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
All they had to do, arguably, is advance a viable candidate with no glaring weaknesses, and they utterly failed. It's going to be another 4 years of Trump.
Some people love these things about him. And some people don't care. That's why he's president. Not because he has no glaring weaknesses. A turnip has no glaring weaknesses compared to Trump.
He is a D-minus tabloid trash celebrity clown act. Always has been. Always will be. For three years as president, as candidate, before he was in politics, and while he flipped multiple times between being a registered Democrat and Republican, when he wasn't in politics at all. He was always a clown act. He is the most exquisite representative for both his supporters and the people who are non-participants, and in some hilariously perverse sense he's evidence that democracy does work still in America. He properly implicates American culture. Even the fact he lost the popular vote yet still is president, is representative of American culture where you can be a dipshit loser and a bad person, but still make lots of money and be famous, and that's what makes you a winner.
This thread is exactly why Trump is so dangerous to the democratic party. Look at the level of vehenemence and aggression in your post directed at a potential ally.
Is there actually a codified set of instructions on what is "presidential" and what is not? Otherwise we descend into the domain of things being verboten and the retort of "well it's common sense" and so forth.
E.g. when Trump says there were "very fine people, on both sides" of a white supremacist rally, what should we make of that? Should we quibble over implausible re-interpretations of his words and conclude that maybe he meant something other than what's obvious? Should we say hey, okay, maybe Nazism and white supremacist movements deserve another look because, like, everything's relative, man, you know?
When Trump uses racist and sexist dogwhistles (e.g. "a young woman governor") to denigrate to his political opponents, what's the takeaway there? Is that okay? Is that a man worthy of respect, of sitting in the Oval Office?
When Trump suggests that we should inject ourselves with "disinfectant" to cure COVID, am I supposed to conclude that he is so smart I just can't possibly understand the genius behind his words (it's so simple!) or should I throw that on the pile of evidence that he's an ignorant person with no capability and/or inclination for understanding complex issues?
If I thought everything was relative, I'd have to think nothing mattered more than anything else, and the logical next step would be to lay down in my bed and wait for the sweet release of death. We live in a world that is not black and white, but we have to do the best we can to be better people and hold our leaders to high standards. Intellectual honesty is the first step, and it's what the GOP and their more intellectually accomplished adherents lack.
Not that it actually mattered, given the way the US electoral process works, but the premise that Clinton was overwhelmingly unpopular is an exaggeration. She just wasn't popular enough in the right states.
It's true that a lot of Democrats wanted Bernie Sanders, but I suspect more of them flipped to Hillary Clinton than to Donald Trump.
That's basically what he did during the election. He honed in on the single worst characteristic about the other candidates, "Low Energy Jeb", "Lyin' Ted", "Crooked Hillary", etc. And it worked.
The problem is that he's a salesman, he's not an intellectual. So a lot of the stuff he says is off the cuff and colloquial which is dangerous and unpresidential. He succeeded in business by bullying his opponents and using his power against them by squeezing them. But it's not something that works in politics, because his opponents are generally much smarter than he is.