| | | It doesn’t matter. He’s not in your life.
Not so fast.
Vance holds a very prominent position in the zeitgeist. Trump had the opportunity to choose someone more normal, someone with broader tolerability if not appeal, someone more wholesome. Instead he picked someone perhaps even more out there than he is. There is an edge to maga, a mean-spiritedness, an ugliness, a disorderliness. He could have mitigated that somewhat with a different VP choice. Instead, he put an exclamation point on the doom and gloom carnage thing. Vance reinforces the all-around negativity and that matters. That's in my life.
Now, you may be uncomfortable with some of the uglier bits. You may be holding your nose wrt them for some rational goal that you consider more important. After all, no candidate is perfect and there are always tradeoffs. Trump and Vance are pigs, as covered earlier today, for example. Well, I could hold my nose and vote for a pig if he had the critical boxes ticked or the other guy was worse. It's a binary choice, after all.
I have spent nearly a decade now trying to find some redeeming value in Trump, either as a person and as a public servant. I have worked hard at it. I ask questions. I read some of the sources you guys post. I spend time analyzing even the wackiest conspiracy theories to make sure I haven't missed anything. It is not in my nature to think ill of anyone or to be dismissive of anyone. I don't want to believe that a large cohort in this country consists of amoral idiots but I can't find a way to see how any decent person with half a brain can support Trump. It's theoretically possible, of course, but I have looked hard and can't find it. I certainly haven't found it here. I get two things back from the Trumpers on this board. One is a plethora of bald talking points, deflection, projection, other forms of rejection; the other thing is distorted or mistaken fact. What I never get are arguments let alone rational ones. Push, misrepresent, never argue.
I understand some of the visceral reaction of Trumpers. For example, no one likes to be looked down on or dismissed. But I have only been able to divine two rational, reality-based reasons for supporting Trump. One is the big money guys who are all about tax cuts and damn the torpedoes. That's understandable if not admirable. The other is fear of the socialists. I recognize the legitimacy of that concern but that's a slowly and haltingly encroaching problem, not an emergency. It may be an alligator but it's not the alligator closest to the boat. There may be a third--that some people actually believe that we would be better served by an autocracy or a theocracy, but they don't ever advocate directly for that but rather deny that things are headed in that direction so I can't tell.
So, back to paragraph three--rational, reasonable, feasible expectations from Trump that are more important than the threat from this ugly zeitgeist. What are they? Are there more than just the two I've been able to divine. You'd think that by now, in these millions of words, someone would have offered up a coherent argument or two--here's why Trump's downside is worth it, not in comparison but absolutely. You'd think.
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