Trumps Gonna Trump

Video here.

I have a few thoughts:

1, I'm trying to get away from that Internet Outrage thing, where everyone screams because someone said something impolitic about a Privileged Group (and on the right, at least, veterans are privileged -- you just can't mock them as a group, as you could on the left).

2. But while I'm trying not to flip out about this, I also have to recognize it's a dumb, crude thing to say. This joke -- I guess it's a joke -- is like dropping the word "fag" or "retard" about someone. You can say the target deserved it, but that's not the real question -- the real question is about all the people you didn't mean to target who are insulted by the slur, because slur includes them (or their loved ones).

One of the more difficult type of comments I have to respond to is from people with mentally-challenged children asking me why I have to use the word "retard." They're not objecting, obviously, on the target's behalf -- they're objecting because every such scattershot insult inflicts a lot of collateral damage to non-targeted persons.

I still use that word -- used it yesterday -- but I try to use it less.

Trump's comment doesn't just target McCain -- who I don't care about -- but all POWs. "I prefer the guys who don't get captured" -- oh, so those lousy POWs are incompetents and not classy and deserve their captivity because they were just too dumb not be superheroes, I guess?

So while I won't flip out about this and claim it's instantly disqualifying, it is deeply dumb and deeply offensive to many. Deeply impolitic -- and, if there's such a thing, deeply thoughtless.

3. And the problem is not just this comment; the problem is that we see now that this is a habit. Someone claimed to me yesterday that Trump had "balls." I countered: He doesn't have balls, he has Money -- he's a rich guy surrounded by favor-seekers and yes-men who hasn't been contradicted since he first spat the silver spoon out of his mouth. He has the arrogance that college athletes get sometimes, that lead some of them to do horrible things -- the arrogance of knowing there will never be consequences.

I don't call that balls. Balls -- courage -- is taking on an important fight knowing there will be consequences.

This is just an elderly rich kid with a big mouth.

4. People might say, "But he can learn." I disagree. For this reason only: In order to learn, one must wish to learn; and to wish to learn, of course, one must believe that there is something important yet to be learned, something that isn't already known to one's Big, Throbbing Wonderful Ego.

To wish to learn is an act of self-abasement; it is a brave act saying "I am incomplete, I am less than I should be."

Very egotistical men do not like learning. Learning is for the weak, or the young.

Trump went to Wharton, he's always eager to tell you; he did his learning then for a couple of years. He's all done now. Now, he will be giving lessons.

5. And that last bit -- the part about a man who has little knowledge of government, except in the favor-bank sector of it -- who actively despises learning about it, well, that could be a problem.

We just had one Know-Nothing Know-It-All Princeling as President; I'm not sure I'd like to see a different variation of the breed.

posted by Ace at 02:49 PM

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