With just weeks to go before Election Day, this election has
quickly devolved into one of the nastiest and most brutal in decades. Both sides are hurling insults all over the
place, and, even more disturbing, most of them are fairly accurate. Clinton and her supporters claim that Trump
is a racist, sexist, xenophobic buffoon who cannot be trusted to be president;
at least three of those claims are proven true by his own rhetoric. Trump responds by blasting Clinton for being
untrustworthy and for being mired in numerous scandals throughout her career,
some of them illegal. Again, these
claims are largely true. But, beyond all
the rhetoric and insults and childish behavior, there lurks something far more
insidious, something that makes Trump far more dangerous than Hillary ever
could be.
One of the common themes present in this election is that
Trump often seems to live in his own world.
Most rich people and politicians are guilty of this, but Trump has taken
this to an extreme. The bigger problem
is that the rules in his perverted form of reality are the inverse of those in
the real world, particularly when it comes to responsibility and accountability. These are things that just don’t seem to
apply to him, things that are to be avoided like the plague. Most people, even most politicians, no matter
how hard they fight against these things, will eventually give in. Not Trump.
He fights it tooth and nail, outright attacking anyone who points out
his failures or says something that paints in even the slightest amount of
negative light.
Take, for example, the way he performed in the first debate
against Clinton. The overwhelming consensus
is that he clearly lost. It isn’t that
Clinton necessarily outperformed him, but that he stood there acting like a
petulant child for 90 minutes, which, in these scenarios, is akin to shooting
yourself in the foot multiple times. But
instead of accepting that he screwed up, he began making excuses about
defective equipment (one of his microphones did turn out to be defective, but
it was the one that broadcast within the hall; the one that broadcast to the
television audience was perfectly fine) and attacking the debate moderator for
“treating him unfairly.” He even went so
far as to deny reality by insisting that the constant sniffling that everyone
noticed never happened, despite the fact that tens of millions of people saw
him do it for 90 straight minutes (Note: I don’t actually care much about his
sniffling as it is probably just seasonal allergies, but the fact that he would
deny what we have clear video evidence of is just bizarre. What is the logic in denying that you have a
case of the sniffles anyway?) This was
hardly new behavior, as Trump has spent most of his campaign claiming that the
entire election is rigged against him, from the news media to the actual
voting. While there is certainly
evidence of tampering with some elections, there is no evidence to support his
specific claims. Nonetheless, he has
continued echoing these claims for months.
The question is why?
The answer, really, is quite simple. Throughout his entire life, Trump has been a
man incapable of accepting or admitting failure. Every time he failed, he blamed it on someone
else and found a way to weasel out of it.
This is no doubt largely from being the son of an extremely wealthy man;
statistics and studies going back decades very clearly show that people raised
by very affluent families are more likely to exhibit such behavior (some, such
as the infamous Affluenza kid, have even used this as a legal defense). But being raised in such an environment
doesn’t guarantee such behavior; countless people were raised in environments
very similar to Trump’s, and they have no problem admitting and accepting
failure. As such, this is in no way,
shape, or form an excuse for Trump’s behavior.
The problem is that he has continued this behavior for decades, both
personally and professionally.
A quick look at his business career shows dozens of failures,
including at least six bankruptcies. The
only reason he was able to continue his business ventures is because his father
bailed him out numerous times by giving him loans amounting to tens of millions
of dollars. In almost all of his
failures, he blamed other people or economic problems. Regardless of the circumstances or veracity
of his claims, the theme was always the same: it wasn’t his fault. He worked tirelessly to distance himself from
every failure because he didn’t want it to taint him.
This refusal to accept responsibility for failure extended
to his personal life as well. The best
example is the disintegration of his first marriage to Ivanka Trump. The marriage largely fell apart due to his
affair with Marla Maples, who he later married after divorcing Ivanka. But he never accepted any responsibility for
what he did (especially prudent is the fact that the reason cited for their
divorce was his “cruel and inhumane treatment”, which he refused to ever speak
of, and certainly does not seem to have ever even apologized for). Moreover, when Ivanka published a book about
their marriage, he successfully sued her for violating a gag order in their
divorce agreement. The fact that he
would even have such a clause in a divorce agreement is already proof positive
that he is far too thin-skinned to be president, but that he would use it to
sue the woman he cheated on is simply vile.
The fact that he glories in successes (even when they aren’t
his) and refuses to accept responsibility for failure makes him dangerous, but
there’s another facet to this. Many of
his supporters actually buy his rampant rationalizations. They have concluded that the establishment is
so corrupted that everything is rigged against him. As such, any time someone says something
against him or brings up evidence of his multitudinous flaws, they are attacked
with claims that they are simply trying to discredit him. Every time he screws up, they refuse to blame
him, instead following his logic of blaming everyone and everything else.
To illustrate this, let’s look at his performance in the
first debate again. Both Trump and his
supporters claim that Hillary won the debate for a myriad of reasons, none of
which are Trump’s fault. The most
commonly repeated claim is that Lester Holt, the moderator, was simply treating
him unfairly by interrupting him over 40 times and attempting to fact check
things on the fly. I would argue that it
is the moderator’s job to try to ensure that candidates are being truthful, or,
at the very least clear, especially when discussing points that others have
spent a great deal of time researching and fact-checking. On the surface, it might seem rude that Holt
so frequently interrupted Trump, but isn’t it possible that he only did so
because more of Trump’s statements and claims were in some way wrong than
Hillary’s were? A quick look at any
reputable, objective fact-checking site shows this to be the truth. Most of what Trump said that night was not
only false, but had been disproven multiple times before he stepped onto the
stage. That isn’t to say that Hillary
didn’t lie, but, again, the statistics are in her favor on this one because
most of her statements were rated as being fairly accurate. But his supporters insist that Holt’s
interruptions are evidence of some kind of bias against him, despite the fact
that he interrupted Hillary more than Holt interrupted him (a total of 51
times, as opposed to her mere 17).
Moreover, most of his interruptions were to insist that Hillary was
wrong about him, despite the fact that, again, fact-checking shows most of her
claims about Trump and his policies (or lack thereof) to be, on the balance,
correct.
While the above claims of bias are already disturbing in
what they show of Trump and his supporters, they really are only the tip of the
iceberg. A particularly bizarre example
of this lies in a conspiracy theory that started spreading only hours after the
debate. Using clips from the debate,
several of his supporters have suggested that Hillary was signaling Holt by
scratching her nose so that she could get a barb in. Is it possible? Theoretically, yes, but their argument falls
apart due to the fact that the shortest time between a scratch and her speaking
is nearly a minute. That doesn’t
disprove their theory, but there is also no evidence to substantiate it. Regardless of the lack of anything even
resembling evidence, this too caught on amongst Trump’s supporters.
This kind of behavior should scare anyone, regardless of
their political affiliation or beliefs, because it shows such blatant disregard
for personal responsibility. It’s even
more dangerous because it has spread beyond Trump into his supporters. Instead of accepting that he could have
screwed up a debate, they started searching for wild conspiracy theories to
explain it away. Instead of accepting
his fallibility, both he and his supporters cling to the belief that the entire
election is rigged against him. I do grant
that the major news media is on a pretty blatant and shameless crusade against
him, but that doesn’t inherently mean the election is rigged. The news media in this country is controlled
by the two big political parties, meaning they only have as much influence over
elections as the parties want them to have.
This is why we haven’t seen a third party candidate in a debate in over
twenty years; they use their influence to quash competition. I do find it a bit suspicious that so many
media outlets have outright endorsed Clinton, but that still doesn’t prove a
rigged election.
Ahem. I’m getting
off-topic here. Back to the discussion
at hand.
There is a rather sordid kind of irony in all this, and that
is that most of Trump’s supporters are opposed to Hillary because they see in
her the exact same problems that I see in Trump. They seem someone who eschews accountability
like the plague, a person who has spent her career weaseling her way out of
sticky spots. But that is true of nearly
any politician, especially a career one.
The key difference between Hillary and Trump is that she has been
willing in at least a few instances to say “You know what? I screwed up, and I take full
responsibility.” Trump has never uttered
those words with any degree of sincerity because he doesn’t believe he’s
capable of screwing up. Sadly, many of
his followers seem to have bought this.
I know that most of Trump’s followers are good, intelligent
people (despite the horrid comment Clinton made about them), and that most of
them really only support him because they detest Clinton. As I also detest her, I certainly understand
their logic. But they are making all the
same mistakes that Clinton and her supporters do. They are never even willing to entertain the
idea that Trump could have screwed up or lost legitimately because they have
become convinced that everything is rigged against him (yet they frequently
opine that Hillary’s supporters do the exact same thing; regardless of the
truth in this, it is the definition of hypocrisy). But even if that is true, it isn’t an
excuse. It doesn’t mean that he is
infallible. All it means is that he must
work harder to win.
Trump has certainly been treated unfairly by the media in
some instances, as well as by politicians on both sides of the aisle. But this is irrelevant because most of the
claims made about him are completely true.
The real problem is that he truly believes himself to be
infallible. He honestly does not believe
that he is even capable of making a mistake.
That is the real danger of Donald Trump.
How can a man that is egotistical and narcissistic to the point of being
blind to his own fallibility possibly lead this country?
The answer is that he can’t.
His supporters must open their eyes to this fact because they otherwise
risk becoming exactly what they hate. If
this country is ever to recover and be the land of freedom and opportunity it
was supposed to be, we need a leader who doesn’t just make excuses for himself
because that shows the people that such behavior is acceptable when it
isn’t. In a prime example of irony, most
of Trump’s supporters are the same people who voice legitimate concern over the
fact that younger generations aren’t being allowed to fail, instead being
shielded and coddled. I agree with this
assessment because I have always considered failure to be one of the most
powerful teachers we can have. Failure
teaches us how to pick ourselves up and keep going. It teaches us how to avoid repeating the same
mistakes over and over. Most
importantly, it teaches us about responsibility and accountability; if we can’t
admit we screwed up, we can’t prevent it from happening again. Trump, being human, is flawed. He fails and makes mistakes just as much as
anyone else. But the difference is that
he runs from his failures instead of learning from them. He avoids accountability like the plague. This is exactly what his supporters fear will
happen to our children because we refuse to let them fail, yet they seem to be
blind to it in their chosen candidate, choosing instead to make excuses for him.
Simply put, if Trump cannot accept his own fallibility, he
is not capable of leading this country.
I’m not saying we should all just vote for Hillary (frankly, I can’t
stand her either, and, as of this writing, am officially undecided on how I am
voting), but we must see candidates for any office for exactly who they
are. Just as Trump is a xenophobic,
misogynistic, egomaniac that believes himself infallible, Hillary is
cold-hearted, power-hungry, and has the blood of countless innocent people on
her hands. Trump supporters frequently
complain that Hillary supporters don’t see her for who she is, yet they make
excuses for Trump every time he fails and every time a new allegation
surfaces. As the adage goes, the sword
cuts both ways; Hillary supporters may indeed try to explain away her scandals,
but Trump supporters are guilty of the same charge.
Christ once said “Let he who is without sin cast the first
stone.” Trump and his supporters have no
right to cast a stone when they do everything possible but accept that he could
have screwed up.
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