Comments Loosely Based on Waters and Ellwanger's "Trump is a Monument"

Hoo boy.

Dunno what to think about this...there's substantial truth in it...but...

   Well, lemme dodge the question to some extent by repeating myself yet again:

   Trump is a man of great strengths and great weaknesses.

   I'm inclined to say, inter alia:

The progressive left didn't create Trump (obviously), but it opened the door for him. In fact, it made him (roughly) necessary. It created the conditions that made his ascendance necessary...or at least possible.

   By going batshit crazy, and cowing opposition by shrieking NAZI RACIST at all who opposed their madness, they made it imperative for someone to step forward and oppose them openly, publicly, prominently--and in the context of national politics. One of Trump's greatest strengths is that he cannot be cowed. He knows he isn't a NAZI RACIST, and, so, unlike many or most other Americans, he just doesn't give a damn that people call him those things. And, not caring, he is freer to oppose the shriekers. Someone had to oppose them--the Woketarian cultists. The PC Reavers. Which is why the cult put so much hysterical energy into suppressing dissent. If you can win the argument, you argue; if you can't win the argument, you find another way... Of course many people did publicly dissent anyway...but Trump is the one who did so most prominently.

   Now, you may have to be a little crazy to stand up to a huge, powerful, crazy social movement screaming YOU ARE EVIL at you... Or maybe you just have to be kind of an asshole. I think I speak with a little authority on the subject, as I've opposed the cult in my own small way, openly at my university, with this blog, and by e.g. helping to reactivate the National Association of Scholars in my own state, by co-authoring some very politically incorrect public reports and the like... And, speaking for myself, I suspect that some of my character defects--e.g. contrarianism and, well, being kind of an asshole...and maybe being a little nutty--helped push me along in that direction. I was the loudest "voice" (I dislike that terminology, incidentally) against political correctness in my graduate program ca. 1990, and I've been kind of a loudmouth against it at my current university. A big mouth in a small pond...but at least I kind of know what it's like...

   Anyway.

   I've got things to do, but I'll just end by saying again that Trump's weaknesses concern me a lot. I've long thought that civil public discussion is extraordinarily important. And so I think Trump's tendency to fan the flames of conflict and discord is a very serious weakness indeed. Though, not to dodge the point overmuch: the left is worse. They started it by routinely shrieking NAZI RACIST at us all... And since I think truth is of the utmost importance, Trump's tendency to bullshit and spin and otherwise deviate therefrom is a very, very serious defect. However, I also think that his problem with the truth is small potatoes compared to the progressive left's powerful, widespread, in-principle political correctness / Lysenkoism. So I think our only real option is to get behind Trump--who I think of as our Patton--until we've whipped...well...the enemy...recognizing that he (thus we) will do some damage...including some unnecessary damage...in the effort. Then we'll have to deal with him, and with the damage that he (and we) have done in the effort. I've never felt like I'd like Patton--I'm more of an Omar Bradley fan, myself--but you can't argue with results. Not too much, anyway.

   But, to not-quite-quote the Great and Terrible Donald Rumsfeld: you go to war with the general you have, not with the general you might want or wish to have at a later time...

   Of course we might be wrong, the collateral damage may be too great in the end... But the die is cast...

   Well, make of all that what you will.