Author Topic: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson  (Read 1504 times)

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 The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump
He grasped that what voters cared about were the very issues politicos were disdainfully ignoring.
By Victor Davis Hanson — December 20, 2016

The American middle classes, the Chinese, and Vladimir Putin have never been convinced that Ivy League degrees, vast Washington experience, and cultural sophistication necessarily translate into national wisdom. Trump instead relies more on instinct and operates from cunning — and we will soon see whether we should redefine “wisdom.”

But for now, for example, we have never heard a presidential candidate say such a thing as “We love our miners” — not “we like” miners, but “we love” them. And not just any miners, but “our” miners, as if, like “our vets,” the working people of our moribund economic regions were unique and exceptional people, neither clingers nor irredeemables. In Trump’s gut formulation, miners certainly did not deserve “to be put out of business” by Hillary Clinton, as if they were little more than the necessary casualties of the war against global warming. For Trump, miners were not the human equivalent of the 4,200 bald eagles that the Obama administration recently assured the wind turbine industry can be shredded for the greater good of alternate energy and green profiteering.

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Offline Cripplecreek

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2016, 02:52:51 pm »
Nothing cunning about it.

He told people what they wanted to hear whether it was true or not and he played on their emotions.

Offline Fishrrman

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2016, 04:25:52 am »
Excellent piece.

Victor Davis Hanson concludes:
===========================
Finally, Trump sensed that the proverbial base was itching for a bare-knuckles fighter. They wanted any kind of brawler who would not play by the Marquess of Queensberry rules of 2008 and 2012 that had doomed Romney and McCain, who, fairly or not, seemed to wish to lose nobly rather than win in black-and-blue fashion, and who were sometimes more embarrassed than proud of their base. Trump again foresaw that talking trash in crude tones would appeal to middle Americans as much as Obama’s snarky and ego-driven, but otherwise crude trash-talking delighted his coastal elites. So Trump said the same kinds of things to Hillary Clinton that she, in barely more measured tones, had often said to others but never expected anyone to say out loud to her. And the more the media cried foul, the more Trump knew that voters would cry “long overdue.”

We can expect that Trump’s impulsiveness and electronically fed braggadocio will often get him into trouble. No doubt his tweets will continue to offend.

But lost amid the left-wing hatred of Trump and the conservative Never Trump condescension is that so far he has shattered American political precedents by displaying much more political cunning and prescience than have his political opponents and most observers.

Key is his emperor-has-no-clothes instinct that what is normal and customary in Washington was long ago neither sane nor necessary. And so far, his candidacy has not only redefined American politics but also recalibrated the nature of insight itself — leaving the wise to privately wonder whether they were ever all that wise after all.

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2016, 04:44:15 am »
Nothing cunning about it.

He told people what they wanted to hear whether it was true or not and he played on their emotions.

Actually, that is exactly what cunning means. Skill in achieving ones goals by any means necessary. It does not involve honor or truth.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2016, 08:22:30 am »
Actually, that is exactly what cunning means. Skill in achieving ones goals by any means necessary. It does not involve honor or truth.
Well, by that definition, it sure fits.
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Offline Cripplecreek

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2016, 11:00:31 am »
Actually, that is exactly what cunning means. Skill in achieving ones goals by any means necessary. It does not involve honor or truth.

Well I see Newt Gingrich is calling for changes in ethics laws because he thinks Trump is going to get into trouble.

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2016, 11:46:09 am »
Well I see Newt Gingrich is calling for changes in ethics laws because he thinks Trump is going to get into trouble.


Pretty disgraceful IMO. Newt may be the biggest swamp creature in DC and this just proves it.

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Re: The Animal Cunning and Instinct of Donald Trump. .By Victor Davis Hanson
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2016, 02:07:06 pm »
Whether one agrees with him or not, VDH is always a compelling read.
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