July 17, 2018

How we helped to create Donald Trump

A quarter century ago, your editor wrote a piece - "Global Dumbing - The Politics of Entropy" which raised a little noted issue that helps to explain how we ended up with Donald Trump as president. As noted below, national entropy "is there in the increasingly childish rhetoric of our campaigns and in our own passivity in the face of it. And it is there in the increasingly likely possibility that we will have to choose between a Republican who doesn't know where he's going and a Democrat who doesn't care where he's going . . .


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Entropy? Or purposeful design. Like a marriage made in heaven!

An argument might be made that Trump is what the Republican establishment has work for ever since the early 1980s, or before.

There had been a strong push to get those 'nasty career politicians' out of Politics, and install people from 'Business' into office. Ostensibly because Government wasn't 'making money'? Or maybe that it became almost a necessity to be a Lawyer to survive in Government – and Republicans, particularly, began to promote an anti-'intelligencia' stance. Kinda like the book 1984. No Environmental concerns, No anti-religious stuff like Evolution, No 'liberal' social programs, No government transparency, etc. Nothing that would upset the 'traditional values' applecart.

And corporations want political control.

Anyway, assuming Greed is Trump's greatest attribute, and that Profit is the singular 'ethic' in Business; then we are being led by the epitome of what has been desired by the 'right'. OK, OK, so he isn't exactly “religions”, but he has put on a perfunctory show when it was needed, enough to stay off the Tea Party during the last Presidential Election.

The only “failing” that bothers the Right might be Trump's inability to speak about those less fortunate economically and politically, minorities, the Press, the Intelligence Community, and probably people from other religious groups; without shrouding his comments in a cloak of kind platitudes, technical jargon, or political speak.

We are all busy watching the court jester, while businessmen are 'gettin-er-dun' in Washington.