Jim Picht:
Donald Trump has a problem with style. The media and his critics hate his and love to make fun of it.
Trump is widely dismissed as a vulgarian (and a short-fingered one at that), a boor and a dangerous narcissist (a charge often leveled at President Obama). Let us stipulate that those modifiers, excepting “short-fingered” and “dangerous,” are all accurate when applied to Trump. They prompt the response, “so what?”
The vulgarian rap is just ugly classism. Trump likes the flashy and the loud. He likes bling, he likes to splash his name across everything he owns. Vulgarity is a matter of taste; it’s not even a character defect, let alone a crime. The defect is in treating matters of taste as matters of personal worth.
When the Reagans moved into the White House, the Washington establishment of Ivy League, old-money families sniffed at Hollywood style. It wasn’t just fashion that fueled their contempt, but Reagan’s vulgar belief that ideas matter and that our beliefs should compel action. Washington treats its beliefs like a club tie, an affectation that demands nothing of you but only identifies you as a member of a club. Conservatism is like religion: important as a means of identifying your affiliations and your people, but embarrassing if you act as if you really believe it.
When the Clintons moved into the White House, the establishment smirked that they might want to swim in the “see-ment pond.” Bill was a Rhodes Scholar with an Ivy League education, but an Arkansas drawl and a likely affinity for trailer trash. When he left the White House, it was easy to believe he’d take the light fixtures and computer keyboards with him.
When George W. Bush moved into the White House, the establishment had one of their own—old money, connected family, Ivy Leaguer—but he came out of Texas, sounded Texan, and even pronounced “nuclear” as “nucular.” “Anyone who says ‘nucular’ is just a hick who shouldn’t be trusted with the codes,” grumped one academic patrician, revealing a hitherto disguised contempt for Jimmy Carter, another southerner who said “nucular” and who had even studied “nucular” engineering at Annapolis.
Taste is what we mock when we despise someone and see no reason to explain ourselves. Anyone who’s in will understand. “They’re parvenus; it’s obvious in their ticky-tacky manners and their ticky-tacky dress.” We do it among the like-minded as a bonding exercise. “My Gawd, did you see her dress?” asks one, and the others screech in gleeful shared contempt for the outsider.
Trump is undoubtedly a narcissistic monster of ego. Scratch a presidential candidate, and you’ll find a narcissistic egotist. You almost have to be one to run for the office.
Humble people with a clear sense of their own failings and limitations don’t put themselves under the public microscope and make absurd promises about “fixing Washington” or “fixing America.” They don’t try to order other people around and organize their lives for the greater good.
They don’t pretend to be as wise, as knowledgeable and as competent as God.
You have to be an egotist of the highest order to run for the presidency and then good at self-deception in order to convince others that you aren’t. “God wants me to run.” Blessed art thou among men and women. “The people want me to run, and duty compels me to serve.” If the White House thing doesn’t work out, can we expect to see you spending your days working soup lines?
Now we have Obama giving decrees to all schools in America, ordering them to allow people to use the bathroom of their choice. Our country has officially gone mad! The President of the United States has no such power. The Constitution enumerates presidential powers in Article 2 and handing down decrees or executive orders to the American People is not there. Determining where people can urinate is also not a federally enumerated power.
The Decree Obama issued is long winded and tyrannical. Obama says, “Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment that allows them to thrive and grow.” Of course this only means sexually deviant children with deplorable, liberal parents, not Christian children. They deserve no support. Support for the religious freedom of Christians is banned from school. Obama goes on by saying, “The guidance explains that when students or their parents, as appropriate, notify a school that a student is transgender, the school must treat the student consistent with the student’s gender identity.” Must? Who is Obama to tell anyone what they must do? Obama is not a king.
His Royal highness decrees:
Dictates that boys who self-identify as female be allowed to use girls’ locker rooms and shower facilities, and vice versa
Specifically states that making a gender-neutral, single-stall bathroom available to transgender students is insufficient. If a girls’ bathroom or locker room exists, boys and men who identify as female must be allowed entry, and vice versa.
Dictates that students must be allowed to play the sport of the gender they self-identify.
Specifically states that a student may self-identify his or her gender to the school without parental permission or knowledge.
Forbids any medical requirements as a prerequisite of new gender identity.
Dictates that on school field trips, boys who self-identify as female must be allowed to sleep in the same hotel rooms as female students, and vice versa. Providing a private hotel room for a transgender student is not allowed unless all students are lodged in private rooms.
Know what? the King can go to hell
The states should resist this unconstitutional royal decree while giving him the 1 finger salute.
If Obama can get away with this, what the hell would the Donald try or any other tyrannical populist the well informed never swayed by the media population put into office?
Sorry for the long post, but I needed the rant.
@kitt –
If I were to tell you about what’s going on here in Colorado about this crap, my comment alone would use up all of FA’s bandwidth. It is sheer lunacy.
Your observation about “what the hell would the Donald try” should be a concern to his supporters since he’s now saying everything he’s said to date have only been suggestions. But, of course, they will say it is of no concern – the Donald just needs maximum flexibility (the same maximum flexibility Obama is practicing).
@David: From what I could gather 6 States are telling Obama what to do with himself and Obamacrap (new bathoom guidelines)The COS is gaining momentum, States are getting damn tired of being bullied by unaccountable federal departments. Those that fear Article 5 are those that depend on the government to choose what lightbulb to buy, self governance scares the hell out of them.
A System that chose our candidates for over 200 years is now rigged? Just because Don said so. I say it needs to be rigged, new rule needs to be added you cant be a candidate unless you qualify as a delegate. The media has way too much sway over the ill educated and keeps them poorly informed and dumbed down.
@kitt: That’s just one of them there Dimocrats that you are supporting.
Since you don’t like Trump, and you seem to be keeping up with all his evils. Some retarded congressman from Kansas, Huelskamp, said on Fox News Sunday that he can’t even let his 14 year old son watch Trump on tv because of all of his vile profane language… and his family can’t watch him on tv because of all his terrible treatment of women. so if you can, link me to any profanity by Trump on tv, or link me to any example of his ‘mistreatment’ of a woman. I don’t believe anyone here can do either.
@kitt:
Wow, so you’re saying that you can’t be a presidential candidate unless you can be certified to be a scoundrel? A delegate is defined as someone that is not committed to do what he is selected to do.
And, of course, you are relying very heavily on that very media to spoon feed you all the crap you spout about Trump. Maybe you should take your own advice.