Evaluating Donald Trump, Wendell Krossa
Whatever you think of Donald Trump as a person, and even his strongest supporters over the past have told him to tone down the nasty Tweets and vengeful comments about his opponents. But nonetheless (distinguishing person from policies), I don’t know if anyone else could have done what he did in his first term in courageously pushing back, for example, against the lunacy of climate alarmism and getting important things done like criminal justice reform, lowering business taxes across all sectors of business, deregulating at an unprecedented scale (Kevin O’Leary said the deregulation was more important than lowering taxes in stimulating businesses), and much more.
And contrary to Nancy Pelosi’s repeated assertion that Trump “just made the rich richer”, US government budget agencies noted that the highest percentage median income gains were made in the lowest quintile of the population, among other similar data.
Jordan Peterson has offered one of the best assessments of the man in recognizing his personal peculiarities, but then arguing that perhaps the very nature of the man is necessary in the current political atmosphere, both domestic and international.
Here is a reposting of some previous comment on this site:
“This is a very interesting analysis of Trump by Jordan Peterson, psychologist. Not entirely flattering but very interesting and balanced. I have felt the same. Trump can be upsetting at times (i.e. bullying) but “necessary” for the world that we live in today??
“Note Peterson’s comment on “no wars… the Abraham Accords…” that are still holding up. He asks- Why no praise for these amazing accomplishments of Trump? Most people allowed media to infuse them with such hysterical “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (Orange Monster, Hitler) they could not do any sort of rational analysis as Peterson does here.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo1GfKAKy6I
Add here that over past years, more and more Democrats exhibited increasing integrity in acknowledging the good things that Trump has done with his varied policies- i.e. Van Jones of CNN pushing back against a Jake Tapper rant and admitting that Trump’s policies benefitted minority communities- e.g. the opportunity zones, criminal justice reform, booming economy, low unemployment, etc. Democratic party business leaders also eventually admitted that his policies were helpful to the economy. And others have come (even though grudgingly) to acknowledge that his border policies were good, among other things.
Donald Trump once said something to the effect that he wanted to be considered a great president. I would suggest that key to gaining such status would be to abandon “his guiding ethic” of “eye for eye” retaliation (apparently his statement in one of his autobiographies which I have not read). I would encourage him to take the approach of Nelson Mandela to forgive “enemies” and work toward reconciliation with opponents, rejecting tribalism to include all equally in a better future as per Classic Liberal principles.
Topics in this section:
1. Eye for eye retaliation- Us at our most infantile and subhuman.
2. The central Jesus message- No more eye for eye, but instead, love your “enemy”.
3. True greatness- Win the inner battle against the real enemy inside each of us. Then do a Mandela- “Let us surprise them (our opponents) with our generosity”.
4. Links to varied comments on “bothsideism” and “onesideism” in creating the lethal atmosphere of tribal hatred that incites violence.
Retaliation renders us all petty and subhuman. Like the children in a sandbox throwing sand at one another and defensively pouting- “He started it”. And Trump has at times admitted, regarding the outrage of opponents toward him, that “I guess its the personality thing”. He got close to acknowledging a critical personal weakness. Even Melania Trump formerly chided him (he publicly admitted this in interviews)- “Why do you have to retaliate so harshly against your enemies?”. But she eventually threw up her hands and joined her husband by gloating during a subsequent rally- “My husband says that when we are attacked we hit back our enemies ten times as hard”.
There, I have set the stage to repost what I consider the singularly most profound statement ever made to point us away from petty “eye for eye” responses to offenses from others and toward that more humane future that we all want.
Again, the core of the message of Historical Jesus (this is how we free ourselves from the intense tribal hatred infecting today’s political/social world and the associated urge to punitively destroy our “enemies”):
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full…
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
Retaliation, something we all unleash at times, though most of us try to be more subtle about how we exhibit it, renders us all petty and infantile, not the great human spirits that we all ought to be.
Added notes:
Further on points above, along with Van Jones’ “We don’t give him enough credit for the good he has done”, give Donald Trump the credit he deserves for no wars during his presidency. And contrary to the hysterical claims made today, he did not go after political opponents with lawfare. He was not a “tyrant and a dictator” because he did the very opposite of what dictators do- he lowered taxes (i.e. state coercion in taking people’s income which is taking away their freedom of choice over the use of their assets). And he decreased regulations which is state intervention in people’s lives, bureaucratic elites using state agencies to control the lives of citizens through the trend toward ever-increasing regulatory burdens. Tyrants don’t reduce the mechanisms of intervention and control of citizens- i.e. taxes and regulations. They do the opposite to control people more.
On the critical point of no wars during the Trump presidency- Note that for protesting endless wars you get smeared with the McCarthyite claim of being a “Russian asset or agent”. So also, Tulsi Gabbard suffered that McCarthyism smear from Hilary Clinton and “The View” ladies.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/18/politics/hillary-clinton-tulsi-gabbard/index.html
https://x.com/theview/status/1192150773141889024
Suggestion re another aspiration attributed to Trump: Wendell Krossa
I would suggest to Donald Trump that if you want to be considered “a great president” then put a picture of Nelson Mandela on your desk with the signature caption that epitomized his life- “Let us surprise them (our opponents) with our generosity”.
If you can do this, even later in life, then you will be considered a great president, a great human spirit.
Mr. President, if you can win the inner battle against the inner enemy and monster, then you will be considered great because your policies are among the best ever in terms of Classic Liberalism principles.
We all need to grasp that the real battle in life against the real enemy and monster is inside each of us, the inner battle against those inherited animal drives to tribalism, to domination of others, and to punitive retaliation against differing others. This is the real “righteous war against evil” that all of us have to fight and win before we can properly contribute to making life better for all.
Solzhenitsyn expressed this well in stating: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts”.
So move on from personal validation of “eye for eye” responses to Jesus’ repudiation of that primitive response and then stand firm in rejecting Paul’s retreat back to supreme eye for eye in his re-establishment of the theology of retaliatory deity- (see, for example, Romans 12:17-20, “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”).
As stated often here- Go to the core issue in human narratives- i.e. the theology or Ultimate Reality that is the ultimate ideal that functions as the cohering center of human narratives, the supreme idea around which all the other narrative ideas cohere. Over the history of humanity that cohering central ideal has been some version of retaliatory deity (i.e. deity as ultimate tribal judge favoring true believers, excluding unbelievers, God as dominating Lord/King, God as exercising punitive, destructive justice toward enemies).
Two millennia ago we got the profound rejection by Historical Jesus of those primitive myths of retaliatory deity for a stunning new theology of a nonretaliatory, unconditional God. But then early Christianity, within a generation, rejected the Jesus theology for Paul’s retreat to re-enforcing the old retaliatory theology again and that now dominates our ethics, justice, and overall narratives today. See James Tabor quotes below on Paul’s influence on Western consciousness and society.
Another:
My evaluation is that part of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was that he mirrored back to us publicly one of the ugliest parts of our spirit- the urge to retaliate, to seek revenge against our enemies and we all sense the pettiness of this. But whereas most of us try to hide this urge to retaliate, or to exhibit it with more subtleness, more passive aggressively, Trump exhibited it with braggadocio, boasting of his “ten eyes for one eye” which most of us found cringeworthy.
Bob Brinsmead explains how most of us have learned to be more subtle in how we express the retaliatory spirit: Bob notes, for example, that if one spouse feels the other spouse is not showing them enough affection, then that spouse will also withdraw affection. Kind of passive aggressive retaliation. Ah, the infantile pettiness in this human experience, eh.
And more…
Good comment on stepping back, stop despising one another. Yes, we have our differences but we are still one family, so don’t descend into hatred, poisonous vitriol, demonizing, vilifying one another.
First, good analysis by Vivek Ramaswamy on the political climate that led to this assassination attempt and how to heal the country…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B0feYEyXWc
Then, Democrat (now more independent) Robert Kennedy who has been denied Secret Service protection by Biden even though under threat, he comments on the vitriol that led to this outcome… cautioning both sides about this vitriol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2HAedyPyvg
Another…
Numbers of us, who identify as “independent” or centristish, like to do the balanced “bothsideism” thing as Kennedy does in the linked clip above. But we also keep in mind that today “far left” Woke Progressivism dominates public messaging and narratives through its domination in education, social media (evident in Google AI and algorithms that favor the left over other’s viewpoints and speech, even downplaying the presence of differing others- deplatforming- on such forums, or censoring outright- demonitizing).
Woke Progressive leftism dominates mainstream media, state agencies (“Deep state”), intelligence agencies, even militaries and elsewhere throughout our societies. Hence, the dominance in media of the climate alarmism narrative, and the DEI and ESG collectivist ideologies (though now experiencing some pushback), etc.
Both sides have extremism elements to guard against, but leftist extremism clearly dominates today in the resurgence of Marxist collectivism. So yes, bothsideism warnings apply, but there needs to be more caution about the totalitarian impulse coming from the left today. See again, for example, Christine Brophy’s “Narcissism Behind Left-wing Authoritarianism”…
https://www.public.news/p/christine-brophy-narcissism-and-agreeableness
Along with others, like Jordan Peterson, the above is good on the perversion of compassion in the psychopathology of left-wing authoritarianism.
What do you think about this? Bothsideism or more Onesideism?
Scalise notes the difference in the messages of both sides- going after policies versus the personal demonization…
“The left’s ‘hyper-charged,’ violent rhetoric ‘needs to stop’: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise blamed the left and the media’s rhetoric for energizing the suspected Trump shooter”, Steve Scalise, July 14, 2024
https://www.foxnews.com/media/steve-scalise-lefts-hyper-charged-violent-rhetoric-needs-stop
Quotes: Is it just going after policies on one side but going after the person on the other side?
“STEVE SCALISE: Everybody’s got to look at the rhetoric. But, you know, it’s one side that is going after Donald Trump in a way to demonize him personally. You know, when we talk about the policies of the Democrats and the progressives, it’s those policies that need to be front and center. But the left seems to have targeted Donald Trump as a person. They don’t talk about how they don’t like his tax and border policies. They just go after him personally.
“They demonize him. It’s a weaponization that is dangerous. The mainstream media does it, too…. I saw this myself when the shooter went out on the baseball field to kill all of us as Republicans.
“The rhetoric from the left was what charged the shooter. And it was very violent rhetoric. It was rhetoric that’s not even true about Republicans.”
Others argue that bothsideism applies…
“Maybe Joe Biden should stop saying Trump will destroy democracy: Democrats and Republicans are far too comfortable with apocalyptic rhetoric”, Terry Glavin, July 14, 2024
Taibbi on the lethal atmosphere that incites hatred…
“The slow-motion assassination: Self-described guardians of democracy spent years creating a lethal atmosphere around Donald Trump”, Matt Taibbi, July 14, 2024
https://www.racket.news/p/the-slow-motion-assassination
Quotes:
“When a populist movement built on frustration over decades of misrule began having electoral success, they created a legend that the backlash was irrational and the fault of one Donald Trump, building him into a figure of colossal art, a super-Hitler. It became cliché that he was the embodiment of all evil and needed to be stopped “at all costs.” By late last year, mainstream press organizations were saying legal means had failed, and more or less openly calling for a truly final solution to the Trump problem…
“He and his supporters have been dehumanized as part of an induced collective madness that’s a bigger crime than the coverup of Biden’s incapacity:
“After the 2016 election, Trump began to be described as a new kind of American villain, someone not quite entitled to normal rights — the political equivalent of an “enemy combatant.”…
“Most of the early madness surrounding Trump expressed itself as religious worship of special prosecutor Robert Mueller and his investigation. Solemn readings of the Mueller report by actors like John Lithgow and Annette Bening really happened. The failure of that Great Deliverance to come to pass seems to be when officials shifted their tone toward the current posture that Trump needs to be stopped “at all costs.”…
“As documented over the years Trump opponents went after all his constitutional rights, almost in order: censored, surveiled, unreasonably searched, dealt excessive fines, etc….
“The theme for eight years has been the derangement of the self-described patriotic insiders who planned Trump’s ouster…. Kagan described Trump as a deadly meteor headed for earth, which needed stopping by every “conceivable” means…
“Even as I type this, commenters are on air somewhere, blaming Trump for his own attempted assassination….
“To say this is a critical moment in American history is an understatement. Everything is on the line, which means no lie will be out of bounds, no move too treacherous to try. Madness incarnate, and nowhere near over.”