hating Trump *is* the worldview 😲

For some people.

The MSM and Trump really are a perfect dance.

On some level Trump probably would want to be treated more decently, but that probably wouldn't have made him President. In a weird way he benefits from how it is.

It's like if you imagine there's a pole sticking out of the sidewalk..

And then around this pole there forms a concerted effort to describe how awful it is-- it's cold, it's dirty, it's scary, it's blue, it's made of horse meat, it's the worst thing, you hate this.

There comes a point where there's a divide between the people who hate the scary blue horse meat and the people who are like "hmm looks like a pole".

Something funny that I've noticed with Trump haters is that seemingly petty topics can actually be meaningful and triggering.

For example, I might care that you don't agree with something Ron Paul says about taxes or war or whatever philosophical point. But if it's like "haha Ron looks funny in that suit" 🤷🤷

that wouldn't be a thing I care about or am invested in, or that I'd expect you to care about or be invested in if I said he looks handsome. It isn't meaningful to any belief or idea.

These are the things where you don't really have a horse in the race.

If we googled up a picture of John Maynard Keynes (jack of short-term economics) and you said he has a nice mustache and is a cool guy, same thing-- there's no part of me that would feel bothered by that or compelled to convince you that there exist no redeeming traits about him.

Obviously.

Duh, why would that stuff matter at all?

Yet with Trump that actually isn't the case, lol. At least in my experience it doesn't feel like the case.

The superficial things often actually feel like battleground issues. If you're talking about Trump's sense of humor or the efficacy of the medicine he takes or whatever trivial thing, it's occurred to me that even around these topics it feels like guards are up and interests are entrenched.

Which is weird, because if it were anyone else you know the superficial things wouldn't possibly trigger anyone.

And then it all makes sense. Right, of course. Because hating Trump and finding him despicable at every turn is the worldview.

So petty and superficial things, if they make him a little bit relatable or interesting or funny or human -- are threatening, because they cut into the narrative of how bumbling he is in every way.

They've built up so much energy believing that the pole is blue and scary, and are invested in that, where anything that suggests otherwise is a conflict.

It's like a religion. Except that in regular religions, at least it's positive. You LOVE god. And he tells you to do nice things, like don't steal and don't kill and don't bear false witness (and the warnings about gluttony turned out to be kind of timely too).

Religiously hating seems so weird.

When someone is the President, people will obsess over them. Sure.

But with Obama and George Bush, hysteria surrounding them seemed way more specific to policy.

The left would smear Bush (fairly, really) along the lines of overstepping his Constitutional authority and starting illegal wars etc. (And then wouldn't smear Obama for the exact same story line, but that's beside the point.)

The Obama criticisms were generally along the lines of being a big government liberal, spend spend spend etc.

It wasn't the same form of pettiness or personal vendetta, as far as I can recall it.

Maybe the pole really is blue horse meat etc and they're right?

🤷🤷

Could be, but that's also true of Obama and Bush and everyone before him. You don't actually know what's in their heart or what drives them in their Presidenting.

When someone is distant and a public figure and there's no way to intimately examine them, and especially because there's the meta aspect where you know that they know that what they say is available for public consumption, you have to accept that you don't know them very well and that what level of integrity they're operating with is mostly just a guess.

So you may as well view them as the pole (all of them).

And instead just worry about specific statements and content and ideas, rather than get too hooked on someone personally.

---

In my experience debating with.. volatile people-- it does become personal.

There are different flavors of it and it isn't necessarily uncivil. But it's personal.

If you hit them with specific point after specific point that they don't have great answers for and they feel their position weakening, their focus shifts from the flow of actual statements that are being made to you and anything they can do to feel like they landed a punch or that you're flawed or crazy or ridiculous or whatever.

(It can involve pivoting or strawmans or whatever dirty tricks, or sometimes direct name calling too.)

Just, in general they're focused ad hominemly rather on specific points and actual flow of conversation.

So there's a dynamic between Trump and his haters that really makes me empathize hard with Trump, lol.

It's like ohhhhh, I see.

They feel a certain way and don't have the words.

And for Trump's part..

In a lot of ways this shields him. It creates so much low hanging fruit and so many cases of him and his advocates correctly responding to wrong and misleading statements.

Where (1) now he can actually do things that are bad and there's some degree of desensitization and hesitation to really believe it and (2) it creates something of a righteous character that really shouldn't be available to him (or at least shouldn't be so easy).

It becomes a thing where it almost doesn't matter what's really at his core and what's really going on, because everyone lives in the layers of noise instead.

---

Whatever you think about the role of government (i.e., whether it makes sense to coerce another person's peaceful choice), it doesn't amount to much more than a set of rules.

The best Presidents would probably do a good job with national security issues, and essentially be nondescript. To stand out in some way usually kind of has to involve things that are actually bad, and that people start to realize are bad as time goes on, i.e. Obamacare and the Iraq War.

Or, be brave and battle some of the entrenched corruptions like JFK did.

With Trump, it's like they create a game for him to play where he can stand out and show noble traits just by responding to them and playing back.

When enough people believe there's something controversial or extreme (racist even) about enforcing a border..

And especially when you remember that the last 2 Presidents started wars -- illegally! without a declaration by Congress as was previously thought to be proper (which then involves bombing and killing people of a particular race 🤔)

and they aren't remembered to be particularly extreme or racist..

You have to stop and appreciate how mind-fucked the average viewer can tend to be.

So there's fertile territory and glory for whoever wants it, and Trump picked up the chips 🤷🤷

MSM is probably transitioning.

And eventually will be among everyone else on YouTube etc.

YouTube etc. will come to be thought of as "mainstream", and we'll continue to decentralize further until we're steady and calm and don't get hyped about whatever nonsense.

But for now, fighting with Trump is an easy thing that holds our interest and satisfies a lot of viewers without much effort on their part.

🤷🤷

Perfect dance for everyone.