Trump and thinking outside the box
To even conceive of Trump as president, and then to vote for him – particularly in 2016 – a person had to think outside the box. That wasn’t a sufficient condition, but it was a necessary one.
Trump himself also thinks outside the box. It may be his most salient characteristic, particularly in foreign policy. That gives him several advantages. One is the element of surprise. Another is that it inspires fear in enemies, linked to that element of surprise. They wonder – what on earth will Trump do next? Hard if not impossible to predict.
The killing of Soleimani was a manifestation of this. For a long time, all the experts had said doing it would be a disaster. Would have terrible repercussions. But Trump didn’t think so, and at least so far he was right about that. Agreements between Israel and the Arab world, between Kosovo and Serbia – to achieve those results, Trump thought of a different approach and he executed it. This has left a lot of people blinking in astonishment.
It’s risky for Trump to act that way. But his track record so far (knock wood) has engendered approval of Trump in those people who are willing to take an objective look at that record.
I remember back during the 2016 campaign, I often said I’d be happy to be proven wrong in my assessment that Trump would be a loose cannon and make a lot of mistakes that would have bad consequences. Well, so far I’ve been wrong, and I’m very happy to say it.
Trump is one of the most unusual men who’s been president in my lifetime. Perhaps ever. In his rallies he’s a combination of cheerleader and stand-up comic, not an orator. But it works. He’s a real New Yorker but far more popular elsewhere. As many observe, he keeps his promises, something quite unusual in a politician.
And he is hated with more viciousness and vehemence than any president I can ever recall, and that includes many presidents who’ve been hated quite a lot. None of that hatred can hold a candle to the truly murderous hatred that has been directed at Trump on a daily basis throughout his entire presidency so far. And if he manages to get re-elected, I don’t foresee that it will stop.
Perhaps it will even grow worse.
Why did he run? Why be president? I think that this is why (1988 interview):
Trump’s basic approach is surprisingly consistent. The details may be different, but the basic principle is the same. This was in 1987:
He’s been the right man at the right time. He wasn’t in my top ten choices for nominee and I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.
Trump is going down in history as one of the most complex political figures ever. There are things I still don’t like about the guy, but there are things I love about him too. I grudgingly voted for him last time; this time I will without grudge.
I watched a biopic of Trump on TV a few days ago. Very interesting. He was a disciplinary problem as a child until his father sent him off to a private military academy. It was there that he came up against a grizzled WWII vet who was the head of cadet discipline. The WWII vet shaped him up. Trump learned to adapt to his new environment. By his senior year he was the top cadet.
His father also had a big influence. Fred Trump was a very tough business man and he was tough on his children. He told them often that there were two kinds of people in the world – winners and losers. Don’t be a loser was his mantra. Donald picked that up and used it. His older brother, Fred Jr., was different. A handsome, very personable man, Fred Jr. could not handle the pressure put on him by his dad. He died of alcoholism quite young. Because of that Donald swore never to touch alcohol or drugs. His childhood taught him to be disciplined, tough, and to work hard. His genetic makeup was such that he thrived on striving to be a winner, willing to outwork, outthink, and outmaneuver all obstacles to his success. His years in the highly competitive New York real estate business and then in the TV entertainment field was a training ground that has prepared him well for his present challenge as POTUS.
Perhaps we voters should start thinking outside the box as well. Polished speeches, charismatic good looks, and Ivy League credentials may not be the best markers for those who can be the leaders we need.
Very well said, JJ!
In an interview in 1980 with Rona Barrett, Trump gives a few lines on about how the US needs better leadership, etc. It’s a very small part of the fluff interview. Text and video is out there.
If all of us grudgingly voted for him before his track record as president, and will happily vote for him again, what are we to expect of those who did not vote for him last time but were on the margins?
And we have heard from some of those here.
Will we have a more than decisive victory that will overwhelm the attempts at fraud?
I think so.
Yes. I’ve previously observed that Trump’s mind is of the intuitive pattern-recognizing type, and hence he cannot be well-understood by people whose minds function only within the constraints of how they have been taught to think. Which includes most politicians, journalists, and academics.
We have such a corrupted incompetent, and decadent credentialed ‘elite’ (deliberate lower case) at this stage in the cycle of our syphillisational decay that a willingness to ‘Think Outside the Box’ is now obligatory for anyone with the desire to to try to stem the tide.
It could well be impossible at this late stage to avoid a collapse. Even so, survival will depend on thinking outside the present box.
Even simpler, thinking inside the box compels assent to and complicity in the evils of our age. Non Serviam!
@David Foster:
Correct. There is a place for both types of thinkers in a healthy society.
Our unhealthy society gives too much weighting to what Ed Dutton calls ‘The Head Girl Type’ — assiduous test takers, teachers pets, collectors of diplomas, slavish quoters of citations, We all know the type.
Some of these people had never knowingly met a Trump in their entire life until he ran for office. Knowingly… Do they think their plumber or HVAC guy solves household problems by going off and reading up on what Slavoj Zisek had to say on the topic?
I have a little theory about why outside the box thinking is so frowned upon by those who rule over us. Not an explains everything theory, but a little part of it.
https://counter-currents.com/2019/12/ben-novaks-hitler-abductive-logic/
We live in an age that worships Reason.
Reason is a Jealous God.
Truth is that 99.9% (Yes Art Deco, I @#$@ing know) of the time we are NOT reasonable.
Reason is the stucco we slap on over our flashes of insight to pretend to the world that we are good Reasonable Beings. See famous story of discovery of Benzene Ring structure and many other examples.
Trump may not be a Reasonable Man. I don’t see that in and of itself as being a Bad Thing (got 1066 and All that on my brain today). It can be, of course.
When is Unreason a Bad Thing? Perhaps when it becomes the reaction to Excessive Worship of Reason? Hello 1930s. It’s a fine line, this Unreasonable Reaction. Metternich was a Mensch.
Thank you J.J., that was about the best short summary I’ve seen.
Like Ed Bonderenka and many others I only voted for Trump grudgingly the last time, but will vote for him enthusiastically this year. I can’t imagine him losing unless election fraud manages to take him out. If Trump is able to win another term, given what he managed to accomplish in his first term, I can honestly see Trump going down in history as one of America’s great presidents.
“Polished speeches, charismatic good looks, and Ivy League credentials may not be the best markers for those who can be the leaders we need.”
Quote of the week, J.J. Well said.
J.J.-
Alcoholism is not created by external forces or people. It is not thrust upon anyone, ever. Alcoholism is within, with distinct genetic tendencies. Of course there is always the matter of “incomplete penetrance”, meaning that gene X is not automatically triumphant, is not always expressed, but is muted or invisible in some cases. Varies from gene to gene.
Fred Trump Jr. did not succumb to alcoholism because of his father’s paternal leadership and directives. He cratered from within.
I, along with many others have learned that there is far more depth to Donald J. Trump than we had thought prior to his Presidency.
Ed Bonderenko,
I am one of those. I did not vote for Trump four years ago. I was very skeptical, and thought that he would bring chaos to the WH. I voted for Gary Johnson as more of a protest vote.
I am happy to have been wrong. This time, I will vore for Trump without hesitation. He is the first President since Reagan that actually followed through on his campaign platform. The only thing he hasn’t really done is “Drain the Swamp.”
Hopefully, with four more years…
I’ll tip my hat to your expertise Cicero.
The program featured several interviews with friends of Fred Jr. Most said that Fred Jr. felt a deep sense of failure because he couldn’t meet his father’s expectations. Such inner knowledge of personal failure seemed to lead to depression, which he tried to treat with alcohol. If one is genetically inclined to alcoholism (as are many Native Americans) then the self medication becomes disastrous. It certainly was for him. I wouldn’t claim any expertise on the psychology of it, only what his friends believed happened.
J.J.; Cicero:
Nature plus nurture.
The problem with any large and long-lasting system is that the bigger and older it is, the more you find people succeeding by manipulating/managing the system rather than actually accomplishing anything of note. That’s how we get such a vast legion of people who haven’t achieved 1/100th of Trump’s success economically or 1/100th of his success politically or 1/100th of his success in policy but remain absolutely convinced they are Trump’s intellectual superiors.
Mike
The other day I saw my first MAGA rally, a small celebration on a highway overpass entering Massachusetts. Otherwise, from New York to Maine, all I’ve seen are BidenHarris, BLM and hate-has-no-home-tm sternly scolding from multiple lawn signs. Yet, quietly, silently, with growing glee, I am going to vote for Trump.
Chris B (8:18 pm) concludes, “. . . I can honestly see Trump going down in history as one of America’s great presidents.”
Even accepting all the premises preceding that half-sentence I quoted above, it depends very heavily on who gets to write the history. Given the present and likely future (at least near-to-mid term, if not much longer) of our education factories and the “historians” that are produced by those factories, I’m not optimistic.
I can’t see how anyone here [Montage?] could be.
>He’s a real New Yorker but far more popular elsewhere.
I wonder how native NYCs view Trump compared to those who are transplants.
It’s been said, most recently about Judge Barrett, that Trump has a particular talent for making his opponents show crazy, and vile, and dishonest. Not that they weren’t, but that he forces them to show it.
For various reasons including being vicious and deceitful, not to mention forced by their base–ditto–and what they can’t help, they’re going to have to Kavanagh Barrett.
Some of their base is going to be gratified on a level most of us would prefer we not even have. And some on the fence are going to be appalled. Nobody is going to be attracted to the dems if they weren’t already fans of the Kavanagh technique.
“…SHOW crazy…”?
Yer much too kind.
Anyway, the insanity continues. The fact that it is expected may diminish or even eradicate any feelings of surprise but it doesn’t diminish the horror of having to witness such unremitting, unceasing and unrepentant evil in all its grotesque perversity..
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/403076/
…but I guess the “good news” is that Biden got through this particular teleprompter session without making an utter fool of himself. Oh wait….
Barry. Okay, “emphasize crazy” with trumpets and kettle drums. How’s that.
Biden. I despise his near half century of corruption and self-dealing and slander and his kid Hunter and…… And there isn’t much he wouldn’t deserve, no matter how bad. When you beef a dozen mill here, and two more there, somebody, some anonymous individual, is going to get screwed. And maybe very badly. Likely a lot of them, one way or another. Somewhere, somehow, it comes out of somebody’s budget.
But that was then. Today, it’s a different story. It’s elder abuse. Whatever punishment Biden deserved for his life of legal crime is no long valid since….he’s gone. His handlers, particularly his wife…..can’t say this but…..I hope very bad stuff happens to them and it lasts a long time.
Trump approaches the world from a reality perspective, a common sense perspective.
Is a particular policy good or bad for the American citizenry?
If good, he will attempt to implement and/or maintain it.
If bad, he will stop it.
On the flip side, “intellectuals” (and esp. those who think they are) , academics, bureaucrats, make decisions based upon an idealistic notion of how the world should be and they will pursue policies based upon that sort-of utopian vision. If this produces policies that hurt the American citizenry, so be it; they really do not care how it hurts the average Joe and Jane.
What matters is the “higher calling” of implementing a more “noble” policy; a policy that aims for idealistic goals.
A recent example is sending off a few billion $$$ of cash to Iran.
Whose bright idea was that?
What was the motivation that led to that decision?
Well, the intellectual elites in govt. decided – in their ignorance and stupidity and blinded by their idealistic ideology – that extending a friendly hand to an enemy that wants you dead, will have them want you not dead.
This can be true, but not on any planet in our solar system.
Another example of this idealistic stupidity is Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points; in his arrogance he actually believed he could impose his world view upon the world. Wilson literally set the stage – conceptually speaking – that has informed US foreign policy until Trump came along.
And this idealistic worldview also affects domestic policy as regards to trade and commerce and its affects on job loss/creation here in the USA. The pursuit of free trade (in which ONLY the USA oft times pursues the “free” part of free trade) is also a noble endeavor.
For the “intellectual” , the bureaucrat, and his worldview, this is the end game. That it creates job loss and loss of the knowledge to produce certain products here in the USA is a sacrifice they are more than happy for the “other guy” – the American worker – to make.
Trump has revealed to many Americans, and most significantly to the bureaucratic, intellectual class, that we have been governed by and have had policies established by the Wizard of Oz; a bunch of phony, smooth talking, “intellectual” sounding incompetents.
And this they cannot abide; which is why they want him dead.
The fortuitious timing of Ginsburg’s death is being used by Trump in this case, I think, to invite a Kavanaugh sequel from the Dems right before the election. That potential scenario – millions of mothers across the country saying “that could be me” to themselves as they’ll watch it just a couple of weeks before the election, and they’ll vote (hopefully not too early) with it burning freshly in their minds – Trump really is setting the Dems up for Super Cannae, isn’t he? I’m sure he and Judge Barrett (are we going to do the initials thing? if not, I’m fine with that, too) have gamed this all out as much as they could in advance. The effect of the next few weeks could be really amazing.
Part of me dreads what the Democrats might do, but another part of me is kind of looking forward to this in the sense of lancing a boil or something – ugly, but ultimately it’s good for the patient. This is essentially what Richard Aubrey said.
Yes. Let it be Cannae.
Here come the elephants.
Terrific interview of Trump by Larry King! For starters it seems like an alternative universe now where someone identifies himself as a “Republican” and the interview is not wall-to-wall propagandistic narrative-driven gotcha questions but simply an honest attempt to dig into the subject’s beliefs. And I was never a big Larry King fan.
I loved Trump’s response to “free trade” because it was exactly my thinking for a long time though I was not an original Trump supporter. Yes, free trade is a great idea, it’s just that the other countries don’t practice it. Even “good-guy” allies.
I am currently in Anchorage, Alaska, visiting from Seattle to figure out What To Do About Pop’s Dementia, and in my spare time I’ve been driving around the city of my birth to visit old haunts and explore all the expansions since I left town for good in 1989.
Anchorage proper seems to have very few Presidential-election signs (although very many for state politicians and ballot issues) but what there are are mostly Biden. Get just outside of the built-up city, though, and it’s all Trump all the way. Yesterday I was up around Wasilla and there was a several-hundred car Trump parade on the main highway. For an area with about 90,000 people, that seems like a lot.
Bryan, I am a musician, still have it as a hobby but used to play for a living. I had a one-month gig in Anchorage in the 1970s at a club called “The Fancy Moose”. Seriously.
Wow, Neo – thanks so much for these great shots of Trump in ’87-’88, before Japan’s HUGE Tokyo property balloon burst in ’89.
Trump hates, Hates, HATES when other countries laugh at the USA. That’s kind of the “Shame culture”, NOT the “Guilt Culture”. Here’s one quick explanation of the difference:
https://warthroughouthistory.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/shame-culture-vs-guilt-culture/
(Maybe Neo could consider a revisit of her earlier posts on this?)
The BLM college indoctrinated are virtually all part of a Guilt culture – and are “guilty” of benefitting from the success of American Whites in history. A success not fully shared by Blacks.
Hating being a loser is part of the Shame culture. Most who are in the Guilt culture feel Morally Superior to those who are in the more primitive Guilt cultures.
Also, Trump hates that America is being ripped off. Free Trade is actually globally better, but US with no tariffs trading with other countries in “managed trade”, where the other countries have both higher tariffs against US products (our exports, their imports) AND they have trade surpluses.
America has long been getting “ripped off” — but it was working-class, non-college non-managers who were losing out.
All workers should be voting for Trump, and I’m sure most will be.
It’s great that so much Trump history is available — but I don’t like listening to him. I still don’t like his style.
His policies are great.
The alternative is Revolution.
Like the 4 Non-Blondes pray for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc&list=RDiArXv64tCJA&index=22
(over 900 million views; haven’t seen it recently, came up on my youtube playlist)
Sincere feeling.
But feeling somewhat divorced from “facts”.
“What’s going on?”
Life is not perfect.
But when humans cooperate they can solve specific problems for individuals, which slowly makes general society better.
Altho no solutions are free.
Hating being a loser is part of the Shame culture.
Tom Grey: My personal anecdote about the Shame culture.
I had a friend in Boston who married a Japanese woman. Once, while they were picnicking with others in the Boston Commons, it was a hot summer day and my friend took off his shoes and lo! he had holes in his socks.
His wife totally lost it. Holes in her husband’s socks! Others could see! What would they think? She couldn’t believe it. She was mortified. My friend, an ex-hippie, couldn’t believe that and he started laughing.
Well, that marriage didn’t last long.
No, I guess such a marriage wouldn’t last too long.
But Opposites attract!
Yet they don’t always find that the attraction grows into comfortableness.
Being comfy with your spouse is not very photogenic, thus not seen so much in movies, nor really even much in books. A bit boring.
But very important to most real relationships.
We’re not gonna marry Trump – we just have to live with gov’t policies.
I was NeverHillary.
Now – Trump 2020 all the way, baby!
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”
“Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser”
Vince Lombardi, ’60s coach of Green Baby Packers.
(OK, Green Bay)
Trump is NOT a good loser. But most elites think all sophisticated folk are, and should be; or at least pretend to be, eg in anon leaks to NYT about how terrible Trump is, or how his (illegally leaked) tax returns show he’s not so rich.
FOAF —
I remember newspaper ads for the Fancy Moose. A few years later that location was The Flying Machine and then a few years after that it was “Mr. Whitekeys’ Fly By Night Club”, with the motto “Going out of business regularly in the same location for over 30 years”.
Ironically, the Mr. Whitekeys incarnation stayed in business until 2006, although the original building was demolished in 1984.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Whitekeys
Final note on winning (tonite – 3:40 am) from Don Surber:
In 2018, 4 Democrat senators who voted against the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh lost re-election — the most incumbent opposition senators to lose in a president’s first mid-term election in 84 years.
Democrat incumbents are in close races in Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.
Just saying.
How will this play out on November 3rd? People usually go with winners, not losers.
“America loves a winner. And will not tolerate a loser” George C. Scott as Patton
I talked to a Democrat friend in Alaska this morning and got a lengthy lecture on how Trump had openly said that if he loses he will not leave office and how Mitch McConnell had defended the constitution and said that the election and the inauguration would go ahead as as per the constitution. I have no idea how accurate or inaccurate those MSNBC kind of claims are, so please, don’t put a lot of energy into straightening me out. What interests me is that some Democrats see Trump as a threat to the constitution and don’t seem to notice that the Democrats have been going outside the usual rules since 2016 when they called on the electoral college delegates to be unfaithful and vote for Hillary. Not to mention the use of the three letter agencies to to try to stage a coup, the Muller investigation and the empty impeachment. As well as repeated vows to not accept losing in 2020, and change the constitution if they do win. BUT I’m not just saying that as a form of ‘whataboutism’ but trying to point out that many on the left think quite sincerely they are defending the constitution. I and many here would think that have it wrong. What I AM saying those Americans are very different from the neo Marxist agitators who, I think it entirely fair to say, genuinely hate America. I said not a word in response to my friend. I am content to wait for election day and accept the judgement of the American people. That’s the fork in the road we are facing – and I’m with Yogi – when you come to a fork in the road you take it. And all of us will have to individually take the fork, on the day after election day, that is collectively decided (hopefully decisively). I will keep my powder dry until then and if Biden wins I will react to that actuality, and if Trump wins I will react to that reality. Que sera, sera.
Most of these successes are not due to Trump but due to the Deep State Alliance backing him and providing him the tools to fight another faction in the Deep State, the child pedo trafficking cabal. Aka Hillary Clinton’s camp.
Geoffrey Britain on September 26, 2020 at 9:09 pm said:
I, along with many others have learned that there is far more depth to Donald J. Trump than we had thought prior to his Presidency.
There always is to Ymar types.
Why did he run? Why be president?
Mostly because he was briefed on what the Deep State had been doing to America and the world. ANd he couldn’t live a life knowing he could have fought child trafficking and did not. Not the kind of Mars he is.
And of course, he was told that if he did’nt run, it would likely be a coup de tat against the Cabal in the USA< led by military leaders, who may or may not die or get others killed in a straight out war.
The Deep State has existed for a very long time. Assuming there are traitors inside out to get Trump… why not figure out what the patriots are doing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdEf-0IeAww
Listen to your President, America.
Don’t like Trump? Listen to Ymar
Don’t like listening to Ymar? Listen to Trump.
I voted for Trump in 2016 as brick through the window of the Ruling Class as described by Angelo Codevilla. I have been pleasantly surprised at what he has accomplished and I do think he will be re-elected. I hope the GOP is now prepared for the avalanche of phony ballots.