“Can no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

As Reagan might say, there you go again.

Take a look at what I actually wrote [emphasis mine]:

My focus here, and in many other posts and comments, is on the fact that you (and many others) continue to trivialize or mischaractize those objections of Trump critics and/or fail to even mention them when you (and others) are setting up what I consider a falsely simple dichotomy between Clinton and Trump.

You wrote in reply:

Calling it a false dichotomy assumes your position is correct and ours isn’t.

Take a look again at what I wrote. (1) I was talking about the dichotomy you use when you talk about Trump opponents’ objections (2) I didn’t say a “false dichotomy,” I said a “falsely SIMPLE dichotomy,” meaning you describe the choice for Trump’s opponents as more simple than they actually are. (3) I was careful to use the phrase “what I CONSIDER a falsely simple dichotomy,” making it clear through the phrase “what I consider” that I was stating my opinion only.

In my earlier post I was trying to answer the criticism of us trivializing by answering the ones you listed from our point of view. In the future I will try to avoid comments that make it seem like anti-Trump arguments are only the trivial ones, but I reserve the right to evaluate the non-trivial ones as less important than the presenter thinks they are.

I believe that you are well-intentioned. Nevertheless you use strawmen quite a bit. I think you need to take more care in reading what other people are actually saying, and more care in trying to tailor your responses to it.

And I never suggested you or others don’t take the more serious arguments of the Trump opponents seriously, although you do dismiss them and/or disagree with them. My focus here, and in many other posts and comments, is on the fact that you (and many others) continue to trivialize or mischaractize those objections of Trump critics and/or fail to even mention them when you (and others) are setting up what I consider a falsely simple dichotomy between Clinton and Trump.

The objections to both are very serious, and it’s insulting to Trump opponents to pretend that they are objecting merely because they don’t like Trump’s language, or style, or boorishness, or for other relatively minor reasons, particularly when the more serious objections have been outlined over and over again.

I don’t know why Trump supporters so often do that. But I’ve noticed it over and over. One theory I have is that it’s easier that way—easier to make the choice between Hillary and Trump seem easier by making the objections of other people to Trump seem much more trivial than they are.

It seems to me there’s been in the mainstream media a focus on things like, what were called under Clinton, bimbo eruptions and Trump’s crass personality traits and very little focus on policy. What I meant was that often Trump supporters are responding to that even if it wasn’t the exact point.

In the comments section of this blog there is a certain amount of that type of criticism mixed in with the serious. Perhaps because of the focus on it in the mainstream media we have a tendency to see it everywhere. Again, sorry for that.

At any rate, all I was trying to do was answer the comment to the effect that pro-Trumpers so often trivialize and mischaracterize others’ objections. I tried to do it by taking the things listed and answering them one by one from a pro Trump point of view.

I was trying to say that we see these characteristics/traits in a different light. What many see as threatening to the country we see as not so threatening or easily thwarted. It’s not an attempt to trivialize objections, it’s an evaluation of them from a different point of view.

I’m sure many of my pro Trump arguments seems trivial to you in light of your evaluation of how serious your points are. It doesn’t mean we take them lightly, it means we have evaluated them and find them not as persuasive.

When we are accused of trivializing the objections it says to me you don’t think we take them seriously. I can assure you that is not the case.

Yes, you are indeed free to ignore the danger signs that I believe are crystal clear with Trump—who has never been in power and has therefore never had the opportunity to give political vent to them.

If Trump becomes president, I hope you are correct. I see no reason to think so at this point, however.

You seem to have a habit of setting up strawmen and arguing against them. You haven’t just done this one time; you have done this quite a bit, and you just did it again.

It’s either unconscious and unintentional, or it’s purposeful.

In your comment you wrote:

The reasons we’ve focused on what you call the trivial case against Trump is that that is what you hear most in the news and most of the anti-Trump crowd.

No, it’s not. That’s the strawman you’re setting up. I don’t focus on them here, and you are writing on this blog. Other commenters who are anti-Trump on this blog don’t focus on them either. I read a lot of blogs and comments elsewhere that are anti-Trump, as well as periodicals such as National Review that are against him, and I see very few of these objections that are of a trivial nature. Very few. You are simply incorrect about this.

You also wrote:

You’ve [neo] listed a number of what are to you non-trivial cases against Trump and I’d like to say we’ve considered them as well…[then you go on to list some and respond to them]…

So you see, we don’t just dismiss the things you consider serious. We just have a different take on them than you do. Remember the saying — I’m firm, she’s stubborn and he’s pigheaded.

We interpret his failings in the best light and you seem to interpret them in the worst. That’s fine but don’t say we haven’t considered them.

“Don’t say we haven’t considered them”? But I did not say that you yourself had not considered them. So that’s another strange strawman of yours. What I said was (and I said it quite clearly) that you characterize the people who object to Trump in ways that ignore those non-trivial objections of theirs, not that you yourself had never considered those objections of theirs.

Here was my comment. Nowhere in it do I suggest that you, or other people mounting the same arguments that trivialize the objections of Trump critiques, were not aware of those objections and had not considered them themselves (although you don’t agree with those arguments, of course). I wrote [emphasis mine]:

As I’ve written many many times, Trump supporters seem to have a habit of trivializing and mischaracterizing the objections of non-Trump supporters. I wrote a comment to “meh” earlier on Saturday that said as much; I refer you to it if you haven’t seen it.

But seriously, why do you do this? Why do so many Trump supporters do this? I certainly don’t object to Trump because he is merely “vulgar, boorish.” Would that that were all he was, it would be a great relief.

I’ve written literally hundreds of posts on Trump’s propensity for tyranny, retribution, his profound and potentially extremely dangerous combination of ignorance and arrogance in foreign affairs (and many other affairs as well), his juvenile character and lack of judgment and impulse control, his narcissism, his constant and pathological lying and his con man personality, and his big government liberalism in many areas. That’s just some of it, but if you’re read this blog (and you are a regular here, so I’m assuming you have) you would know that my objections to Trump are far far more profound than vulgarity and boorishness, and that is also true of 99% (perhaps 100%) of the commenters here.

I think that is crystal clear.

Why should I see “Trump as a stomach flu, Hillary as stomach cancer”? I see them both as equally fatal, and believe me I’ve studied the guy in great great depth, both now and in his past statements.

I do not see him as a loud mouthed clown at all, and I think those who do so are seriously underestimating him. And I don’t mean that in a good way.