US Politics Gedanken Experiment

Just to preface this experiment, I'll note that Trump makes me cringe at times (actually quite often), and I do wish that he behaved like he had a well-developed id and not like he was a spoiled child. Still, I am very, very pleased with his Presidency so far, and I'm starting to come around to the belief that you need somebody like Trump to make real change happen. As I've said before, Trump is an extraordinarily thick-skinned leader masquerading as a thin-skinned diva. Or perhaps he's a thin-skinned diva, who is so perceptionally-challenged, that he doesn't realize what people must truly think of him. A distinction without a difference from my point of view.

Anyhoo, Ann Althouse, who is one of my favorite bloggers, posed the following thought experiment. I will quote it in full here and hope that the powers-that-be leave it as is, since I think it diminishes the effectiveness of the posited hypothetical to force everybody to go the link:

Quote:

1. Imagine a President Trump whose policies all accord with your own. Substantively, he's like, perhaps, Barack Obama. He'll appoint the Supreme Court Justice who will give the liberal faction a decisive 5-person majority. He's very accepting of undocumented immigrants, committed to Obamacare, etc. etc. — whatever it is that you like. But he has all the personal characteristics of Donald Trump. He entered politics from a successful business career, funded his own campaign using his private wealth, and figured out how to do politics on the fly, making mistakes and correcting his course. He got knocked around in the press and by party insiders who wanted to stop him, but he kept going, overcoming 16 opponents. He had his own way of talking and he took it straight to the people, with hundreds of rallies, and he especially connected with working class people. They just loved him, as the elite shook their heads, because he didn't have the diplomacy and elegance they'd come to expect from a President. Be honest now. How would you like this man? How would you speak about his personal style? 2. Imagine a President Trump with all of the substantive policies of the real Donald Trump — all of them, exactly the same. But this Donald Trump meets your stylistic ideal. He looks, acts, and speaks the way you picture a perfect President. He never seems at all rude or crude or imprecise in his words. His tone — you know the word 'tone'? — is well-modulated. His sentences are the right length, his vocabulary large without verging into show-offiness. He seems confident, but not arrogant. He's nice looking and the right age, perhaps 58, and his wife, who's only exactly as good-looking as he is, is almost the same age. He's got what everyone regards as a "good temperament." He's on task and organized — his administration is up and running like a fine-tuned machine — and putting through all these policies that you loathe and dread. What would you be saying about this Donald Trump?

I'll note that experiment 2 has actually already pretty much been run. That was in 2012, so it's not necessary for anti-Trumpers to use their imagination.

Experiment 1 is more hypothetical, but I think elements were present at the climax of Bill Clinton's 2nd term after he failed to come up with an innocent explanation for how his semen wound up on Monica Lewinsky's dress. At the time I thought it wouldn't be that hard to come up with a satisfactory one, but apparently it was too hard. At least for him.


N.B. This will probably be my last post until the end of March, but I'll still read replies.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2miihJ9