David Brooks : No, Not Trump, Not Ever

[Rob L 3,811]

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST No, Not Trump, Not Ever

David Brooks

MARCH 18, 2016

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The voters have spoken.

In convincing fashion, Republican voters seem to be selecting Donald Trump as their nominee. And in a democracy, victory has legitimacy to it. Voters are rarely wise but are usually sensible. They understand their own problems. And so deference is generally paid to the candidate who wins.

And deference is being paid. Gov. Rick Scott of Florida is urging Republicans to coalesce around Trump. Pundits are coming out with their “What We Can Learn” commentaries. Those commentaries are built on a hidden respect for the outcome, that this is a rejection of a Republicanism that wasn’t working and it points in some better direction.

The question is: Should deference be paid to this victor? Should we bow down to the judgment of these voters?

Well, some respect is in order. Trump voters are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else.

Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.

And yet reality is reality.

Donald Trump is epically unprepared to be president. He has no realistic policies, no advisers, no capacity to learn. His vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he’s uninterested in finding out. He insults the office Abraham Lincoln once occupied by running for it with less preparation than most of us would undertake to buy a sofa.

Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes. All politicians stretch the truth, but Trump has a steady obliviousness to accuracy.

This week, the Politico reporters Daniel Lippman, Darren Samuelsohn and Isaac Arnsdorf fact-checked 4.6 hours of Trump speeches and press conferences. They found more than five dozen untrue statements, or one every five minutes.

“His remarks represent an extraordinary mix of inaccurate claims about domestic and foreign policy and personal and professional boasts that rarely measure up when checked against primary sources,” they wrote.

He is a childish man running for a job that requires maturity. He is an insecure boasting little boy whose desires were somehow arrested at age 12. He surrounds himself with sycophants. “You can always tell when the king is here,” Trump’s butler told Jason Horowitz in a recent Times profile. He brags incessantly about his alleged prowess, like how far he can hit a golf ball. “Do I hit it long? Is Trump strong?” he asks.

In some rare cases, political victors do not deserve our respect. George Wallace won elections, but to endorse those outcomes would be a moral failure.

And so it is with Trump.

History is a long record of men like him temporarily rising, stretching back to biblical times. Psalm 73 describes them: “Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. … They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.”

And yet their success is fragile: “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly they are destroyed.”

The psalmist reminds us that the proper thing to do in the face of demagogy is to go the other way — to make an extra effort to put on decency, graciousness, patience and humility, to seek a purity of heart that is stable and everlasting.

The Republicans who coalesce around Trump are making a political error. They are selling their integrity for a candidate who will probably lose. About 60 percent of Americans disapprove of him, and that number has been steady since he began his campaign.

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Worse, there are certain standards more important than one year’s election. There are certain codes that if you betray them, you suffer something much worse than a political defeat.

Donald Trump is an affront to basic standards of honesty, virtue and citizenship. He pollutes the atmosphere in which our children are raised. He has already shredded the unspoken rules of political civility that make conversation possible. In his savage regime, public life is just a dog-eat-dog war of all against all.

As the founders would have understood, he is a threat to the long and glorious experiment of American self-government. He is precisely the kind of scapegoating, promise-making, fear-driving and deceiving demagogue they feared.

Trump’s supporters deserve respect. They are left out of this economy. But Trump himself? No, not Trump, not ever.

[smilesammich 10,727]

This week, the Politico reporters Daniel Lippman, Darren Samuelsohn and Isaac Arnsdorf fact-checked 4.6 hours of Trump speeches and press conferences. They found more than five dozen untrue statements, or one every five minutes.

derp.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

I can smell his fear..

"tht tht tht tht... that would go good with some fava beans and a nice chiante"

[OriZ 3,157]

There's a never Trump camp, and there's also a never Clinton camp. They're both bad.

[Rob L 3,811]

There's a never Trump camp, and there's also a never Clinton camp. They're both bad.

One of the most respected Conservative writers said this about Trump:

"Donald Trump is an affront to basic standards of honesty, virtue and citizenship. He pollutes the atmosphere in which our children are raised. He has already shredded the unspoken rules of political civility that make conversation possible. In his savage regime, public life is just a dog-eat-dog war of all against all.

As the founders would have understood, he is a threat to the long and glorious experiment of American self-government. He is precisely the kind of scapegoating, promise-making, fear-driving and deceiving demagogue they feared."

He has not had this level of threat assessment for any other candidate, including Hillary

[eieio 1,594]

For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.

The guy is clearly very angry and upset that Trump is in the lead. Anyways….I was listening to MPR on my way home from a hard day of fishing(i.e....no fish caught and ice breaking up) and this alleged self described genius has been predicting that Trump would never get anywhere in the primaries,time and time again. He did admit how wrong he was and how often he was wrong….so I will give him that. So he now predicts Trump has no chance against Clinton. So now he thinks he has a clue…when he has been wrong all along? He's like a dam 10 day forecaster. Just keep on making predictions no matter how wrong all of the other predictions have been.

This guy hasn't learned a thing. I think he confused himself with Trump. Only way I can explain it …..other than he is retarded.

I will still let him into the club though…..he has our passion to talk about Mr. Trump

[Rob L 3,811]

The guy is clearly very angry and upset that Trump is in the lead. Anyways….I was listening to MPR on my way home from a hard day of fishing(i.e....no fish caught and ice breaking up) and this alleged self described genius has been predicting that Trump would never get anywhere in the primaries,time and time again. He did admit how wrong he was and how often he was wrong….so I will give him that. So he now predicts Trump has no chance against Clinton. So now he thinks he has a clue…when he has been wrong all along? He's like a dam 10 day forecaster. Just keep on making predictions no matter how wrong all of the other predictions have been.

This guy hasn't learned a thing. I think he confused himself with Trump. Only way I can explain it …..other than he is retarded.

I will still let him into the club though…..he has our passion to talk about Mr. Trump

[ready4ONE 5,400]

The guy is clearly very angry and upset that Trump is in the lead. Anyways.I was listening to MPR on my way home from a hard day of fishing(i.e....no fish caught and ice breaking up) and this alleged self described genius has been predicting that Trump would never get anywhere in the primaries,time and time again. He did admit how wrong he was and how often he was wrong.so I will give him that. So he now predicts Trump has no chance against Clinton. So now he thinks he has a cluewhen he has been wrong all along? He's like a dam 10 day forecaster. Just keep on making predictions no matter how wrong all of the other predictions have been.

This guy hasn't learned a thing. I think he confused himself with Trump. Only way I can explain it ..other than he is retarded.

I will still let him into the club though..he has our passion to talk about Mr. Trump

This post has to be the most convoluted way to get to calling Trump a retard, which is, of course quite a politically incorrect word to use. Very Trump-like.

[ExPatty 502]

With the republican party could have been this joined together in the past to get something done. Too little, too late, guys.

Trump is basically a third party candidate and has usurped the republican party with the blessing of many of its members (just not the ones who drive around in limos in DC).

Trump is a huge liar but it doesn't matter anymore. He is the anti-establishment, anti-Hillary. Whining about him hasn't worked yet, something else needs to be tried. Sanders wasn't a terrible effort, Clinton is. I think the democrats deserve to lose this election to Trump with her as their nominee. It's undeniable now she broke serious federal law with the use of her email server, but still the democrats blissfully keep voting.

I did hear good rumor about Trump yesterday. A child in fourth grade had been told by somebody that if Trump was elected he was going to push all the kids back to kindergarten because he would remove common core and that would invalidate their accomplishments to date.