Trump and the Theater of the AbsurdAmerican Greatness, Jan 12, 2019, Emina Melonic
It is often said that appearances can be deceiving. This is nowhere more true than in politics. Many critics of Donald Trump are intent on criticizing the style of his presidency rather than taking on the substance or the content. We all know the litany: Trump is an oaf, he talks dirty, he fights dirty, he hates women, he tweets too much.
It’s completely obvious why the anti-American Left hates Trump. He and his political decisions represent everything that the Left is against: national sovereignty, a strong economy, and individualism, to name a few. Without a doubt, “Trump Derangement Syndrome†is real and it’s pernicious.
What is curious—and bizarre—is not so much that the Left suffers greatly from this disorder but that many self-styled conservative intellectuals seem to have caught the contagion, too. They aren’t called NeverTrumpers for nothing. According to them, everything Trump does is wrong. Even if they agree with Trump on some issues, inevitably they will find some flaw in his presentation. They hate the fact that such a clear and American thought can come from such a man. In the words of Mollie Hemingway, they are united in their belief that “Orange Man Bad.†That is their mantra.
Focusing either on Trump’s personality or what he tweets is an easy way to dismiss him. This kind of criticism is often presented as a way of questioning his morality as a man versus the morality of his actions as president. Generally, critics of Trump like to invoke the maxim that character matters (Roger Kimball superbly addresses this criticism in an excellent piece here at American Greatness).
Yet the same people who criticize Trump with their moralizing seem to have no trouble themselves engaging in outright hate. As Daniel McCarthy points out, “For all their armchair psychoanalyzing the president, it’s hard not to notice the degree to which many of the president’s haters suffer from the very affections they diagnose in him: pathological self-regard, a lack of empathy, intolerance, incuriosity, and red hot rage.â€
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https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/12/trump-and-the-theater-of-the-absurd/