The American Candidate

When it comes to presidential candidates I’m a fan of Trump. Barring any radical shifts to my worldview, he’s getting my vote. One of the reasons: he seems to look at “democrat” and “republican” the same way I do. The only reason he’s running as a Republican, imo, is because you can’t win unless you pick one of the two major parties. You just can’t. And that fucking guy, when he sets his sights on something he plays to win. He’s close enough to Republican cliches that it’s the sensible party to go with, but he’s not bound by those, or by the failings of the party.

His appeal isn’t from being a republican.
It’s from being competent, and from being American.
He appeals to people in every group across the board.

Less in some and more in others, sure, but almost exclusively he’s the one with the most support from all the different segments of the populace the political analysts and politicians like to divide us into. Largely, I think, because he’s a pragmatist. Because love him or hate him, you know where he stands. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s led a successful life in the real world. He hasn’t spent his whole life performing and pandering under false pretenses.

Career politicians don’t know how to do much of anything except make speeches and play to the crowd. They don’t think for themselves, and even if they did it wouldn’t matter. They’re bought and paid for. They wouldn’t use their own reasoning to make decisions even if they could think, because they would also be thinking about the interests of their contributors, and the perception the general public has of him or her. Donald Trump, in contrast, is paying his own way.

He doesn’t have to pretend because he’s already famous (and widely respected) for who he is. Some folks like to poke fun, sure, but not in any meaningful way. You can make fun of his hair, but for the most part no one’s stupid enough to go after a guy like him with 2nd grade quips about how he looks. Hell, the only ones even in a position to take a shot have tried far more effective tactics and failed to slow him down.

• Megyn Kelly tried to smear him as a misogynist and it didn’t work.
• Most major media outlets tried to paint him as a joke, soon to implode, and it backfired.
• Critics tried to cast him as a racist and they failed.

Probably because he’s none of these things. Every attempt to say he is has been a twist of facts, a deliberate misinterpretation of statements he’s made, or else outright lies. All you have to do is a little bit of research. Ramos being thrown out? He broke the rules of conduct for a Q&A session. At the expense of every other reporter in the room no less. Watch the footage yourself on YouTube, it’s not hard to find, and decide for yourself what happened there.

The one about him going bankrupt four times? He answers candidly when asked about it. They were companies he controlled, four out of who knows how many. He himself has never been bankrupt. The type of bankruptcy was for restructuring purposes, declared to exploit loopholes in the local legislation. In Atlantic City if I’m not mistaken; some of them might have been in other places, but the point is if you look into it even a little the facts bear out his side of things.

Not just with this, but with almost everything critics have tried to use against him.
From his supposedly sexist remarks to his supposedly racist assertions.

If you dig into it, it’s pretty clear he’s not a racist or a sexist, he’s never been bankrupt, and the laws he used to his advantage weren’t created by him. Ethically, exploiting the weaknesses in local legislation doesn’t bother me. It just goes to show he’s smart enough to take advantage of loopholes and blind-spots, something I think would be great in an American leader. Something I think would be an invaluable skill in a President, especially since he’d be likely to appoint people with similar qualities as members of his cabinet and unafraid of tossing them if they sucked.

I’ll take that over a continuation of the political charade that’s gone on for decades.

And you know…

I’ve got to say, I don’t particularly like talking about political bullshit here. I care enough about what’s left of our system to stay informed and to cast a vote in every election, whether it’s local or national, but beyond that I tend to keep it to myself. This election cycle is a little different though. The political discourse isn’t purely bullshit this time around, thanks in large part to Trump. More than that though, this time I actually see someone running who I can believe in.

That we can believe in.