Case of Trump

Donald Trump is coming to Huntsville on Friday for a rally to support Luther Strange.

Alabama is a stronghold of support for Donald Trump.

This week is an opportunity for anti-Trumpers in Alabama to express themselves and possibly be noted in other parts of the nation.

This week is an opportunity for the Alabama news media to show its stuff about Trump, the Senatorial candidates, the national political issues, and the Republican and Democratic parties.

Trump craves being the center of attention.

Trump will be the center of national attention in Alabama this Friday.

Alabamians should spend time this week considering the case of Trump.

This blog entry offers my two cents worth.

I voted for Trump and then very quickly turned against him. There are a number of discrete items I wish to discuss, and I will proceed in a piecemeal fashion in doing this blog entry. Until I have completed the entry, I will leave a notation "to be completed" at the end, and will remove that notation when I am done.

1. What is Trump's nature; why did Trump run for President?
Millions of Americans believe Trump made a great personal sacrifice to run for President in order to help the country.

An alternative view is Trump is the ultimate vainglorious narcissist. All that Trump  has ever cared about in his life is his wealth and being in the limelight. Trump was very successful as a private citizen in gaining wealth, flaunting it, serially marrying trophy wives and getting national attention as a reality show host. In this view, Trump reached the pinnacle of what a private citizen could do to be in the limelight. The Presidency beckoned as an ultimate prize for Trump to soar into the stratosphere and be the ultimate center of attention of the nation and even the world on a daily basis.

While even Trump may have thought it unlikely he could get elected President, the temptation provided to his vainglorious narcissism was irresistible, there was no harm in trying, and just trying could get Trump more of the attention he so craves.

In this view, it is questioned whether Trump has any convictions about any matter of policy to help the country, and it is believed Trump only thought in terms of how taking policy positions could be utilized for winning the Presidency and making himself the ultimate center of attention to satisfy his vainglorious narcissism.

It is of great importance which of the above two views is correct. If the second view is correct, there is reason for concern about whether Trump will help the country or harm the country.

In the 10 months since he has been elected President, Trump has done many things and said many things that can be evaluated to try to reach a conclusion about which of the above two views is correct.

2. Trump's conflicts of interest
Fundamental to public office is that the officeholder has a fiduciary duty to act for the public interest, and not put private interests ahead of public interest.

Strict limitations regarding conflicts of interest are in the law to try to protect against public officeholders acting to serve private interests instead of properly serving the public interest.

Since being elected President, Trump has made clear that he does not consider himself subject to limitations against having conflicts of interest and that he will use his Presidential office to help his family businesses and increase his wealth.

Trump's exempting himself from the norms of public office and using the Presidential office to benefit his personal business interests is detrimental to Trump's ability to carry out whatever agenda he has to help the country.

Among other things, Trump's refusal to conform to public officeholder norms has resulted in strenuous opposition to force Trump to conform to the norms, this opposition will only grow over time, it results in reducing support Trump might otherwise have for what he wants to do, and it diverts time and resources of Trump, Congress and others away the country's business. Further,Trump sets a bad example for other public officials who observe Trump using his Presidential office for his private benefit, those officials may be led say to themselves, "if the President can do that, what is so wrong with my doing it," and public office wrongdoing may get increased.

Trump could have made a personal sacrifice to follow public officeholders norms in order to be better able to carry out his agenda for helping the country.

Trump decided not to make that personal sacrifice and decided he will use the Presidential office to benefit his personal interests.

The millions of Americans who believe in Donald Trump because they view him as having run for President to help the country and having been willing to make personal sacrifice to do that ought take into account how Trump has put himself outside of public office norms and is using the Presidency to further enrich himself and not make a sacrifice.

Such millions of Americans also ought to think about the Trump tax plan to end the estate tax, and ask themselves whether Trump is doing that because he thinks ending the estate tax on balance best serves the interests of the country, or whether Trump is using his Presidential office to end the estate tax in order to benefit himself and his family.

3. Russia
Millions of Americans believe Donald Trump that Russia is a nothing burger the Democrats are obsessively pursuing to make up for their shocking election loss in 2016.

This is in line with Trump's absolutistic view that he Trump never does anything wrong that can be questioned, there is nothing for Trump to be held accountable for, and any contention to the contrary is dishonest and immoral, if not treasonous.

Russia may play out in accordance with Donald Trump's views, and the country will owe him a big apology.

At the moment, no one knows how Russia is going to play out.

It could play out with significant culpability on the part of Trump.

We know Trump asked Russia to interfere in the election to help Trump.

Under Trump's "always complain, never explain" mentality, Trump has provided no explanation about why he asked Russia to interfere in the election and thereby violate United States election law that prohibits foreign agents and foreign governments from making expenditures to influence United States elections.

We know Trump did not release his tax returns. Trump gives every evidence he believes his business, Russia or otherwise, is none of the country's business, and he will not be forthcoming about anything.

We have no idea of what Trump is hiding or not hiding about Russia, and Trump is not going help us out. It may turn out there is a lot that is nefarious, and maybe criminal about Russia. This extends to associates, such as Paul Manafort, about whom Trump has some knowledge the rest of us don't have but that Trump is not going to tell us about voluntarily.

When he ran for President, Trump knew all about his past, and he knew that it would come under intense public scrutiny if he became President.

Trump made a decision that, whatever nefariousness or criminality is in his or his associates' past, he Trump could keep a lid on it if he became President.

So, let's be clear. Trump knows what's in his past and what was in his campaign.

Trump is adamant Russia is a witch hunt.

The country has been mired in Russia for months, and the mire is impairing Trump in carrying out whatever agenda he has in mind to help the country.

If Trump has been lying and hiding, and that comes to light, that should be very telling for the millions of Americans who believe Trump ran for President to help the country.

4. Lies, dishonesty, insults, hyperbole and double standards
We know politicians lie and are dishonest and hypocritical to some extent. Those things, however, can have adverse consequences for politicians, and they limit their lying, dishonesty and hypocrisy accordingly. If they are called out, they sweat and squirm in trying to evade the adverse consequences. This can be extremely difficult for politicians, such as what happened to Hillary Clinton in her lies related to her private server.

Donald Trump, during the campaign and since being elected President, has astounded us with his shameless mendacity, hyperbole, gratuitous insults, and double standards.

Various possible explanations for Trump's behavior can be considered. One possibility is that, during the campaign, Trump thought his behavior was what would work best for winning the election, and, as President, Trump thinks his behavior is what will work best for carrying out his agenda for helping the country.

There is credibility to Trump wanting to win the Presidency and he chose behavior he thought would work best for achieving that.

Whether Trump thinks his behavior since the election is that which will help him best achieve an agenda to help the country is debatable and needs to be delved into.

It is fair to say that Trump does and says virtually anything he wants to, and he is indifferent to consequences growing out of theses he says and does.

It is also fair to say that Trump's doing and saying whatever he wants allows Trump to generate great controversy, controversy is very effective for getting attention, Trump craves attention, and Trump's behavior can possibly be explained that his behavior is solely for its attention getting, and other things don't matter or are not a deterrent for Trump. In this case, Trump is indifferent to things like whether he believes what he says, whether what he says is true or false, whether he believes a policy is right or wrong, whether he keeps or breaks promises he makes, and whether it helps or hurts his ability to carry out his agenda. Under this view, the only limitation on Trump is that he wants to remain President and does not want to be impeached or lose in 2020 if he runs in 2020, and that may affect his behavior to a small extent.

If Trump is all about himself and his being the center of national and world attention on a daily basis, that is likely not good for the country.

Take the national debt. Trump may be indifferent to the national debt so long as its consequences do not affect his term as President. The same goes for Social Security and Medicare entitlements, and Trump may indifferent to future problems of Social Security and Medicare that will happen after his term of office.

Trump may or may not believe the Wall is needed. His continuing to tout the Wall may be solely in the name of keeping his base in order to remain in office.

Trump promised the coal miners the industry would come back and they would regain their jobs. Trump may not believe that, but he made the promise because he thought it would help get him elected, and he believes he will be able to manage the situation if it becomes clear to the coal miners they will not be getting their jobs back.

The above examples should show the immense significance of the extent to which Trump is all about Trump, his vainglorious narcissism, and craving to be the center of national and world attention, and the extent to which Trump does not care about anything else.

To the extent Trump is all about Trump, his lies, dishonesty, insults, hyperbole and double standards that are only to help himself should be troublesome because of their detrimental effect on the country.

The millions of Americans who believe in Trump may be increasingly confronted with evidence that Trump is only about Trump and he is indifferent to harm he may be causing the country.


[to be completed]