Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Donald J. Trump Reconsidered.

I was wrong about Donald Trump.  Simple as that. I was wrong.

When, back in January of this year, I gave my opinion about Trump it was derisive. There I described him as, in my eyes, a potential "disaster in the making."

Then my opinion of him slowly started to change  Not just because he started to win.  No, it came somewhat before that as I saw him connecting with working people -- those who had been getting short shrift for so long -- and I decided, quite consciously, no matter what my opinion of Trump the man, to side with them.

Donald Trump, I slowly had come to realize, was addressing their concerns. And he was doing so in a language they understood. Their own language -And, yes, I liked that. And with my ears adjusted to how he was speaking I began, just began, to slowly get the point. That he understood. That he really, really did.

Then a few months back his position papers started to appear. And to my own surprise I found myself nodding my head. And in so doing I realized that it wasn't just their problems -- those of displaced American workers -- that he understood, but our problems. All of ours.

The final "flip" for me came this just afternoon when I listened to his entire press conference -- nearly an hour of free-form questioning by a mostly hostile media -- and saw, yes finally saw, what 'average Joes' had been seeing all along: That here was a man who truly does get it. One who has the courage to say what has to be said. A man willing to go above the heads of America's "leaders" to their bosses -- the American people.

What I was seeing, I finally realized, was an American.  The type of man I had come to think did not any more exist: The American smarty pants. The sort of man who would have dressed as a red Indian and thrown all the King's precious tea into the harbor.

Yes, Trump is a revolutionary.  But his is not a new revolution. No, it's the continuation of that old one. The one that dates back to the 1776. The nervy throwing off  of the shackles of the King, but with its focus on today's problems. With strength. With courage. With confidence. With the classic American can-do spirit.

So yes, I was wrong.

Go Trump!

Let's together make America great again.








2 comments:

  1. Don, I have shared many of your hesitations about Trump along the way. My parents were country club Republicans who would have bristled at his brash demeanor. My son-in-law Jim Dobbs, a typical Central PA working man,however, immediately saw Trump as guy who really got it. He is having a VIP meeting with up in Scranton as I write. Ordinary, salt of the earth people feel they finally have a voice. Kudos to the man!

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  2. Among the various things that make this interesting is the seeming contradiction between those, both as a Party and as individual members of that Party -- the Democrats -- who so often speak of the importance of all the 'common' people uniting together even to the point of putting aside their own personal interests. Yet it is among Republicans that we see this happening. Dems, at the same time, are being encouraged to vote for someone who they see not as representing the interests of the 'common' people at all. And to make matters worse, the one that they looked to -- Bernie Sanders -- just one day after telling them to unite with Hilary -- quietly announced that he no longer is a member of the Democratic Party.

    The best answer, of course, is Lincoln's (Yes, a Republican) when he spoke of his hope that "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

    That, to me, tells us where our duty lies. With those referred to in the document of rebellion that eventually led to the United States -- "We the People"

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