Essays in Idleness

Several correspondents who berated me (in fairly colourful language) for opposing Trump through the Republican primaries now congratulate me for “warming to him.” I find this odd, since most had said they wouldn’t be reading me any more. Too, I’m not aware of warming to Trump. Nor has my pleasure in the defeat of Hillary Clinton waned. (I did say from the start that Trump would win.) One of the two had to win the election, and while I was willing to concede Hillary’s particular merit — for corruption is a humanizing force, that works against leftish ideology — I could find no other. Perhaps the thought of having to look at her for another four years was another paradoxical plus. She might cure me of any remaining Internet addiction. There might also be peace and quiet, or at least quiescence from the progressive media, who only report on the scandals they invent.

Whereas, I have come to enjoy Trump’s turbulence: fat man waddling on the high wire. He may not represent anything resembling the sort of policies I could sincerely endorse, but he is hated by all the right people. Their gasps of horror suspend him aloft. And while he gives no promise of turning the clock back, in the manner I should wish it turned, his approach to the management of the Nanny State cannot be ham-fisted enough for me.

He is vulgar and offensive. That is my best argument for him. And while I am opposed to the existence of Twitter, I do appreciate his tweets. A surprisingly high proportion of them are true, which is what makes them so outrageous. He has found a way to get entirely around the “mainstream” newsmongers, thus hastening their extinction; and as a bonus he scares the bejeezus out of America’s enemies around the world. This is a happy change from Obama, who scared only America’s friends. As I once had the honour of explaining to one of George Dubya’s senior aides, I have nothing against appeasement: so long as your enemies are appeasing you.

The idea that Putin and Trump are in league is deeply frivolous. One has only to put oneself in Putin’s place to understand this. By all means tamper as well as you can with the Natted States electoral system — one must settle scores for Merican tampering in Ukraine — but it seems he failed to stealthily enter the Republican machine. Whereas Mrs Clinton, Mr Podesta, and friends, left the Democrat gates wide open. I have no idea who got in first — it wouldn’t have required much skill — but if the Russians did, they should have settled for blackmail. By exposing exactly what the U.S. media should have been exposing, for the last many years, they only helped Trump win.

And it wasn’t in the Russian interest to have America “made great again.” Far better to have four more years of Obamishing: of thrilling incompetence, mental enscramblement, and general retreat. Now they must deal with a man who can quite possibly do thuggery as well as they, and with better equipment. Trump they will not want to anger.

His cabinet comes from all over the map. All are big rich power players, who will pull confidently in quite various directions. We’ll have lions jumping through hoops, both ways! His government may not even need an opposition, being able to generate that service within. The Left, bewildered by their own bafflegab, think everyone on the Right is the same. But Trump’s cabinet is all on the Right, and its members sport at least sixteen distinct sets of priorities. My liberal-progressive readers (I seem to have some, weirdly enough) risk missing a chance to enjoy a spectacle that comes just in time to replace the Ringling Brothers; and in which there are still elephants, notwithstanding “animal rights.”

Of course it will all end in tears, but then, it always does. That’s what politics are for: to warn people away from the trite notion that human nature is adaptable. But with the Left determined to repeat all of their characteristic mistakes — such as blind, violent moral preening — Trump may still have a good run through Congress. (The sort of opponents who e.g. reflexively smear you for anti-Semitism, when you are the best friend Israel ever had, are a gift from the gods.)

Trump is a true American thinker, dedicated to the only philosophy we in North America were ever able to conceive. It is called Pragmatism, it denies all paradox, and given the naïve optimism with which it is gassed, real entertainment is fully guaranteed.

The greatest show on earth!

Gleaming and glittering with gold and wondrous surprises for young and old!