[ExI] GOV _ TRUMP

[Dave Sill]

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 1:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ​> ​
>> Like most thinking Americans, I've been struggling to understand the
>> Trump phenomenon. I don't think it's got anything to do with entertainment
>> value:
>>
>
> ​I strongly disagree. The Apprentice was a entertainment show, millions of
> people enjoyed the show and they inferred from that that they'd enjoy a
> Trump presidency too. They certainly didn't reach that conclusion through
> reason.
>

Yes, we are in strong disagreement. Trump's celebrity certainly helped him,
but I don't think the vast majority of Trump voters said to themselves,
"Well, this should be entertaining..." Reason/entertainment is a false
dichotomy: just because it wasn't reason doesn't mean it was entertainment
value. It could have emotion/fear/frustration/etc that led them to vote for
Trump.

​> ​
>> I think he's tapped into a large pool of frustrated and angry people by
>> echoing their concerns and saying he'll fix them.
>>
>
> ​The gargantuan gap between rich and poor that is growing and accelerating
> would make anybody on the poor side of that canyon angry,
>

Yeah, but, sadly, Trump voters weren't largely poor or even largely
uneducated. Any anyone who thinks Trump is going to soak the rich or do
anything to redistribute wealth to the poor is delusional.

and it's easy to see why they'd think setting loos a bull in a china shop
> would be entertaining, until they realize the china that is being broken is
> their own. Unlike many liberals Trump at least realized that the wealth gap
> is the defining political issue of our age, and he managed to sell millions
> of bottles of snake oil as a cure for this problem consisting of equal
> parts anti-free trade, anti free markets, anti-immigrants, higher military
> spending, lower taxes on the rich, and less health care for the poor. Yes
> Doctor Trump's patented cure is pure triple distilled extra virgin crap,
> but it sold.  However Trump will never be stopped if his opponents pretend
> that the wealth gap isn't a problem.
>

Yes, like I said, he's tapped into a large pool of frustrated and angry
people by echoing their concerns and saying he'll fix them.

-Dave
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