During every presidential election cycle, both Democratic and Republican talking heads trot out the same tired conventionalities that they predictably use to promote their preferred candidates and undermine those whom they dislike.<\/p>\n
Given the Big Bang that is Donald Trump\u2019s candidacy, the political props posing as species of reason have been particularly visible this time around. Let\u2019s look at some of them, and how they\u2019ve been used in connection with Trump.<\/p>\n
Candidate X lacks the experience to be President.<\/strong><\/p>\n The old argument from experience (or inexperience) is patently disingenuous. And notice, it\u2019s always and only the other guy\u2019s candidate <\/em>who allegedly suffers from a deficit of experience in regard to the office of the presidency.<\/p>\n Yet the cold hard truth is that no one who hasn\u2019t already been President of the United States has the requisite experience for this office. <\/em><\/p>\n To be more exact: That an individual has been the CEO of a company; established a business empire; served in the military; or served as a US Senator or Congressman does not in the least qualify that person for the presidency.<\/p>\n However, neither does the fact that a candidate has years of experience governing a state<\/em> bestow eligibility.<\/p>\n That\u2019s right: There is no parity between governing a state of 8 million residents<\/em>, say, and governing a country of well over 300 million<\/em>.<\/p>\n None of this, of course, is meant to imply that such backgrounds are disqualifiers. <\/em>What it does mean is that the only way to acquire the requisite experience for the presidency is by being the President<\/em>.<\/p>\n The presidency is not unlike any and every other activity in this regard: Knowledge and skill\u2014i.e. experience\u2014comes from practice.<\/p>\n There is one other fact that exposes this phony argument for what it is. The argument from experience would have us think that the President is like the Wizard of Oz, a lone individual who spins ideas from his own noggin and effortlessly imposes them upon the world.<\/p>\n But no one knows better than those who tirelessly appeal to this argument that nothing could be further from the truth, for the truth is that every president is surrounded by an army of advisers.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Candidate X is \u201ctoo extreme.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cExtremism\u201d is one of those catch-all charges that mean nothing other than that the accuser dislikes the person against whom he hurls it.<\/p>\n When some version or other of it is used against Trump\u2014as it is leveled against him incessantly\u2014it is particularly perplexing. And it is even more preposterous when his Republican <\/em>opponents brand their party\u2019s presidential frontrunner with this label.<\/p>\n Notice, because of, say, his remarks on illegal Mexican immigrants, the Mexican government, and his desire to build a wall along the southern border for which he\u2019ll make Mexico pay, Trump\u2019s GOP critics treat him as \u201cdivisive,\u201d as too immoderate\u2014too \u201cextreme.\u201d<\/p>\n This is rich for more than one reason.<\/p>\n For starters, Trump\u2019s popularity continues to soar precisely because large numbers of Americans agree<\/em> with him. In stark contrast, over the last decade, Republicans suffered dramatic reversals of fortunes exactly because large numbers of Americans have disagreed, <\/em>and disagreed vehemently, with them over their party\u2019s positions on, among other issues (including immigration<\/em>), the Iraq War.<\/p>\n Yet Trump <\/em>is the \u201cextremist,\u201d the \u201cpolarizer,\u201d the \u201cdivider.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s critics blast him for comments <\/em>that he\u2019s made about some brown people\u2014even though Trump never so much as laid a finger on anyone. At the same time, his Republican (and <\/em>Democrat) objectors are responsible for launching a war<\/em> on false<\/em> premises that, besides costing Americans trillions of dollars <\/em>and the lives of thousands of her children and thousands more crippled, has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands<\/em> of brown people\u2014men, women, and children\u2014throughout the Middle East and the destruction of their communities.<\/p>\n Incidentally, this catastrophic foreign policy decision Trump opposed.<\/p>\n But Trump neither harms nor, much less, kills anyone, yet it is he, <\/em>and not his critics, who is the \u201cextremist\u201d of sorts, the \u201cracist,\u201d the \u201cpolarizer,\u201d the \u201cdivider.\u201d<\/p>\n Candidate X is not really <\/em>a Republican or \u201cconservative\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Obviously, this accusation has been leveled at Trump with all of the fury with which his critics have charged him with being an \u201cextremist.\u201d And for more than one reason, there can be no question that this allegation is just as bogus and just as hypocritical coming from them as is the latter.<\/p>\n First, when Trump\u2019s Republican critics claim that he\u2019s not a \u201cconservative,\u201d they mean to imply both that they are <\/em>conservatives and that Trump is really a \u201cliberal\u201d Democrat.<\/p>\n Their rhetoric notwithstanding, the first implication is patently false: Trump\u2019s GOP rivals and detractors are most decidedly not <\/em>conservative. The Republican Party is every bit as much a champion of Big Government and the Politically Correct ideology that it\u2019s been used to promote as is its counterpart (To anyone who takes issue with this judgment, I pose one simple challenge: I defy you to identify a single government program<\/em>, let alone an agency or department, that Republicans have cut. I\u2019ll even be generous and allow you to go all the way back to the Reagan years. I guarantee that you can\u2019t do it).<\/p>\n And as I\u2019ve shown, Trump\u2019s detractors among his rivals in the presidential contest are hardly conservatives. On most, virtually all, issues\u2014immigration, social engineering (both here and abroad), war, affirmative action, tax increases, government spending, socialized medicine, the criminalization of drugs, NSA spying, etc.\u2014their talk aside<\/em>, they have proven themselves to be indistinguishable from Democrats.<\/p>\n Second, Trump certainly has a checkered record that lends itself to the charge that he\u2019s more of a \u201cliberal\u201d Democrat than anything else. But as I\u2019ve just noted, the histories of his Republican opponents <\/em>are at least as <\/em>checkered on this score and, truth be told, probably worse in some respects.<\/p>\n At any rate, Trump hasn\u2019t spent years and decades manipulating voters into thinking that he was a \u201cconservative\u201d only to repeatedly betray those voters upon getting elected and reelected.<\/p>\n Finally, and most tellingly, Republican \u201cexperts\u201d and commentators are forever preaching to the hayseeds that compose the base of their party that only those candidates that can appeal to \u201cmoderates\u201d stand a chance of being elected to the presidency. Though they never say as much, what this means is that only \u201cmoderates,\u201d or those who are perceived as \u201cmoderates,\u201d can get elected.<\/p>\n And what this<\/em> in turn means is that only \u201cliberal\u201d Republicans, or those who are perceived as \u201cliberal\u201d Republicans, can get elected.<\/p>\n Take note: By Trump\u2019s Republican critics\u2019 own lights, the objection that Trump is really a \u201cliberal\u201d Republican contradicts <\/em>their objection that he is an \u201cextremist,\u201d for if he really is a \u201cliberal\u201d Republican, then, by their reasoning, he is the <\/em>\u201cmoderate,\u201d the one politician who can \u201creach across the aisle!\u201d<\/p>\n If they\u2019re not careful, in their desperation to discredit Trump, his Republican critics will only discredit themselves\u2014if they haven\u2019t already.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During every presidential election cycle, both Democratic and Republican talking heads trot out the same tired conventionalities that they predictably use to promote their preferred candidates and undermine those whom they dislike. Given the Big Bang that is Donald Trump\u2019s candidacy, the political props posing as species of reason have been particularly visible this time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n