The strange greatness of Donald Trump

[Cow Poke]

The strange greatness of Donald Trump

I may as well concede up front that, because I'm not pitching wild-eyed hissies and launching a hate-fest against Trump, and I post an opinion that also does not do that, then I am obviously a die-hard Trump supporter in every sense of the word!

[Sparko]

You've convinced me. MAGA.

[carpedm9587]

The strange greatness of Donald Trump

I may as well concede up front that, because I'm not pitching wild-eyed hissies and launching a hate-fest against Trump, and I post an opinion that also does not do that, then I am obviously a die-hard Trump supporter in every sense of the word!

What a load of partisan tripe...

[Sparko]

What a load of partisan tripe...

That's gotta be the shortest post you have ever made! And you didn't chop up his post into a billion pieces. Are you feeling ok?

[carpedm9587]

That's gotta be the shortest post you have ever made! And you didn't chop up his post into a billion pieces. Are you feeling ok?

Post with no real content are easy to respond to

[One Bad Pig]

What a load of partisan tripe...

Congratulations, you just described 99% of posts in this section, as scored by people of a different political persuasion than the poster.

[Sparko]

Post with no real content are easy to respond to

Maybe that is why I answer your posts in short responses while you split mine up into a million parts and turn your response into a novel.

[carpedm9587]

Maybe that is why I answer your posts in short responses while you split mine up into a million parts and turn your response into a novel.

No. I think its mostly because you have really bad arguments.

[Cow Poke]

Post with no real content are easy to respond to

Posts

[oxmixmudd]

The strange greatness of Donald Trump

I may as well concede up front that, because I'm not pitching wild-eyed hissies and launching a hate-fest against Trump, and I post an opinion that also does not do that, then I am obviously a die-hard Trump supporter in every sense of the word!

I am not sure posting wide eyed adulation without qualification enhances your credibility when it comes to being able to objectively identify what constitutes wild eyed hissies etc.

Jim

[carpedm9587]

Posts

[Cow Poke]

I am not sure posting wide eyed adulation without qualification enhances your credibility when it comes to being able to objectively identify what constitutes wild eyed hissies etc.

Jim

Run along, Jim -- go back to your "I hate Trump" threads.

[guacamole]

Humpf.



Awful. Just awful. As in, why do supposedly competent professional writers think they can start a piece using a hack-technique like "Ask an outrageous/thought-provoking question." We teach this to kids in eighth grade so they know how to break through writers block and start a piece, teach them to discard it once they've found a good spot for an introduction, and then build on passing through that whole pre-writing strategy without so much as a pause. The writer cannot even claim to be setting up an extended metaphor for the piece in his cliche sports-ball metaphor in the first line because he doesn't ever come back to it. Not. Once. Horrible.

This introduction gets an F.

What does an effective first paragraph look like that establishes a debatable thesis? Like the next paragraph:

The president, unquestionably, is often appalling in his style. His self-aggrandizing, dreadful treatment of opponents and subordinates, public embrace of homicidal dictators, and rambling speaking style draw a portrait of a leader embarrassing to many Americans. He has been vexing to all sides in Washington. Special counsel Robert Mueller added to this picture in his report on the Russia investigation.

(Unless otherwise stated, all emphasis mine.) This would have been a decent first paragraph. The writer describes several of the issues troubling to a large number of Americans, and it's generally inoffensively written, except for the strange inversion of the final two sentences (surely, the piece would have been better if he had chosen to end on the line "He has been vexing to all Americans).

The bigger grievance here is the subtype of a trope using the rule of three in the seconded, bolded sentence. Consider the following from TVtropes.org, as a useful explanation of this statement, as described in the entry "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking"¹:

When listing three or more things, the comedy rule is to not finish strong, but to list some strong examples followed by a very weak example, for the funny. Sometimes this will stick to the Rule of Three, but sometimes a longer list will increase the humor.

The "Self-aggrandizing, dreadful treatment of opponents and subordinates" and "public embrace of homicidal dictators" are serious enough issues (the "Arson" and "Murder" of the trope). Indicative of the insipid writing, he describes the nations reaction to such as "embarrassment" rather than "moral outrage." But why then throw "rambling speaking style" (the "jaywalking" of the trope) on here? Could the writer not think of anything else serious? Is he stacking the deck with this third pointless inclusion just to have three points? Is he trying to be funny? (Did anyone laugh at any point in this piece? No. No you did not. If you were grading this for humor you'd give it an F--. That's not a real grade, but that's what you'd want to give it.) He's either alluding to the trope, indicating that he doesn't take any of this seriously, or he was writing in a way that is exceptionally clumsy, in which case I'm taking this more seriously than it deserves.



If this weren't just a rah-rah piece for the kool-aid drinking set, we would ask for examples of what he thinks are remarkable successes. Some good examples might be making Mexico, rather than U.S. consumers of imported Mexican goods, pay for the wall. Or taxing China's imports, rather than U.S. consumers of imported Chinese goods, in a trade war that everyone knows is easy to win. Or getting North Korea to actually give up its nuclear program. Or pressuring Russia to pull back from it's war in Eastern Ukraine. Yes, I'm being cheeky and selective; however, It's a lesson of rhetoric 101 that if you leave out any portion of your message, your opponent will spackle the crack for you in the worst possible ways.

When making the case for Trump, you must start in a defensive hole.

No. If, to quote the first line of this epic train-wreck, "the Democrats [are] still trying to throw a Hail-Mueller Pass with time out on the scoreboard and with the economy humming", then you shouldn't have to start in a hole. This is now self-defeating, given that he has directly contradicted his opening lines. If you're arguing greatness, then argue greatness.



I can't decide if this is more of a strawman, or tu quoque (in the hamfisted style of Soviet "whataboutism".)

It is a strawman in that people, much like myself, who care about moral leadership from our president, have objects to him based on a well-documented history of immorality, a belief that he has not changed, and the reflection that there isn't some magical anti-immorality force-field created by angels and prayer that are breaking his personal habits. That is to say, it is a strawman because we are not merely concerned with his immorality in office, and we remain skeptical of claims that he is a moral paragon now. There is a small victory here in that we no long have to listen to the imbecilic crap from the likes of Falwell and Graham that he is a good man. Conservatives, it appears, are more and more stopping their self-deception.

It is a tu quoque fallacy in that the hypocrisy of a claimant has no logical bearing on the moral claim of said claimant. Besides, there are enough of us old-line who conservatives repelled by the likes of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, Boss Tweed, Caligula, Nero, AND Trump. This repeated appeal is argumentam ad nauseum at this point. Folks, saying it over and over again will not make it so.



The writer throws away a historical moment with yet another tu quoque fallacy, and a single line, no less. It doesn't matter if Clinton was also corrupt. Trump is still corrupt if he is corrupt. I would have left this line out.



It's hard not to scoff at a paragraph like this. On the one hand, I haven't read much argument that he has stifled a free-press or public criticism. He is certainly tender about it, but no, not stifling. As for the political weaponization of the fourth branch of government, the common complaint from the administration and his supporters has been some kind of shadowy nonsensical "deep-state" which has resisted his efforts to weaponize the functions of government. Thus, he isn't so much laudable for not weaponizing the government as much as being incompetent for not being able to. As for the agency leaders who oten publicly defy him, there is the constant whining and moaning (and subsequent removal by firing or "resignation") about leaders like Sessions, replaced with the sycophantic Barr, who shows no signs of an independent spine. So which is it? Is he allowing people to do their jobs, or trying (and often failing) to make them do the job the way he wants it done?



Lol. The Republicans are suddenly the pro-union, anti-off shoring party. Does anyone believe this? Maybe the writer's finally trying some comedy? Is the writer asserting that that this president has not attempted to use the Fed to drive any of his economic policies? Direct quotes² from the great president suggest not:

This is another appeal to success through incompetence. He wanted to use the same tools Obama used, but couldn't. Pardon me while I pick up my rolled eyes off the floor.



To be fair, even his earliest supporters referred to "economic nationalism". The great President has described himself as a nationalist. Lastly, both the great President and his Jr. have retweeted content from white nationalists. Thus, it's not necessarily his critics who have muddied the waters.

He is divisive.

This is the first accurate sentence in this essay.

But so is the unprecedented rejection of the 2016 election by the congressional Democrats and the Rise and Resist movement and the endless criticism from the media. Trump has shown remarkable personal strength in standing up to relentless attacks.

I'll take issue here with the "unprecedented" here. The sharply partisan ugliness, including rejection of electoral mandates, predates this group of Democrats. At least this time no one's shelling federal forts over it.

Moving from the defensive to the positive side of the balance sheet, despite all of the attacks and resistance, Trump has accomplished more in two years than his four immediate predecessors accomplished in four to eight years.

Absurd. Otherwise, don't spend three quarters of the essay in the defensive hole.



I'm not going to parse out all the claims here because I cannot. My knowledge of economic history is not even spotty. It's empty. I will point out that this last sentence is a bit unclear. The market based approach to American health care coverage will control costs? The prices of pharmaceuticals and medical procedures seems to put that to the lie. Is that the market-based approach will help everyone and it will be accomplished by cost controls? Then that's not market based. I can't understand what he means to say here.



This is a strange ending. This reads partially like some kind of campaign speech (Trump! Strong leadership and real opportunity for all Americans!) that has to nevertheless deal with the negatives (not sad times, there is no crisis). If you have to repeat it, I don't feel like he's made the points at all. In the end, so much of this is just mindless repetition of talking points for the faithful. As much as I'm tired of Trump, I'm really tired of editorials that just reiterate what's already been said, as if to guarantee support through inculcation. At some point, if the pieces don't actually add anything new, then it's just clutter.

fwiw,
guacamole

[One Bad Pig]

I am not sure posting wide eyed adulation without qualification enhances your credibility when it comes to being able to objectively identify what constitutes wild eyed hissies etc.

Jim

I am truly impressed by your ability to read the second graf as "wide eyed adulation."

[Cow Poke]

Maybe that is why I answer your posts in short responses while you split mine up into a million parts and turn your response into a novel.

Are you trying to say Carpe is verbose?