commonsense wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 7:05 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:18 pm
By being a person of questionable integrity himself, Trump may well have played into their game. No doubt, he has. But it was never about that, because they don't care about the evils done by Democrats. They use moral language...and a lot of it...but for them, it was never about morality at all, nor about women, nor even about racism, sexism, homophobia, transism...nor about the whole country. It was about themselves, their ambitions, projects and values. And it was about power...by any means necessary.
As you said, Trump is the bogeyman for the Democrats to exploit.
I don’t think that Reagan filled that role. I doubt that John McCain would have filled the role so readily had he ever been president.
It's hard to say. Of course, that's a "what if." I wonder if the Dems would have gone easier on McCain, or would have been just as extreme...I suppose it would depend on what they thought they could get out of doing that.
There must be something to it involving Trump’s morals or personality.
Well, as I say, I've never been inclined to defend Trump. But I am inclined to point out the hypocrisy of those who may pillory him for speaking crudely, but have no concern about Clinton or Biden doing
much worse. That simply does not make sense.
So we musts conclude: either their concern is the morality of candidates, or that is
not their real concern. They don't seem to have any concern about Clinton or Biden, therefore they have no actual moral concern about Trump; so what they have instead is a strategem, a ruse used to get themselves ahead, rather than some sort of high-minded defense of purity, truth or justice. And we ought not to be fooled by so transparent a ruse, nor fail to mark the extremity of their hypocrisy. We ought to mock, then dismiss them with a wave, actually. But we do not.
Let me just add this: the moral state of our major politicians today is absolutely deplorable. We could look back on the last five presidents in the States, and say that, for sure. But America's not unique in this. We could look at Germany, England, Canada, Australia, France...and we would see them electing morally-reprehensible, ideologically-driven and personally corrupt people. We would also see people lining up for parties, not for leaders of integrity, and excusing the ineptitude and corruption of their elected officials as if it were unimportant.
Perhaps they think, so what if a woman hates men or dissolves her country's borders in the name of Wokeness, or gets her own troops killed and hides evidence? So what if a man locks everybody up and then runs dinner parties during an alleged pandemic? So what if he covers for his coke-head, prostitute-patronizing son and takes handouts from foreign governments, even when we have the evidence in hand? So what if he wears blackface and fires all the competent people in his cabinet, and shields corrupt multinationals against prosecution? So what if a man chases skirt, or speaks like a trucker. So what if he is even a serial predator?
We don't care, it seems: so long as the party in power is ours, we'll ask nothing from the moral character of our leaders.
And maybe we get the leaders we deserve for having such low standards.
