Welcome friends!
Well, well, well. Looks like conservatives have finally chosen the person they consider most qualified to be the next President of the United States. Donald Trump. I know. I almost feel I should stop right now. I said almost. No, as much as I would like to just stop and marvel at how funny life can be sometimes I feel I should probably address an issue that’s been on my mind a lot recently. How have liberals or if you prefer progressives like me and our conservative friends come to think about the qualifications and suitability of political candidates so remarkably differently? Many people including me of course have written on some of the more unfortunate aspect of Mr. Trump’s personality, ethics, and worldview, such as his rudeness, racism, xenophobia, sexism, egotism, and so on, so I don’t think I need to go there again just now. We get it. Many conservatives apparently don’t really care about such matters or probably some of them find them attractive. He’s one of us! No, what I wanted to talk about today is not the similarity of Mr. Trump’s views to those of your average rural dumb ass redneck but the possibility there’s an even more fundamental difference in opinion at work here, a difference that really goes to the heart of the conservative and liberal world views. Indeed, it occurred to me the other day I wouldn’t see eye to eye with conservatives on Trump’s suitability to be President even if we were to edit the man down to just his two most notable and defining features. No, not his hair and his pout. I’m talking about his vast personal wealth and complete lack of political experience. Just those two considerations alone tap into two interrelated issues that I suspect differentiate liberals and conservatives. I’m talking about distributional issues and in particular the ethical credentials and status of the economic elite of the country on the one hand and the assessment of our more or less democratic system of government on the other. I know there’s been a lot of talk recently about the rather obvious conflict between Trump and some elements of the more traditional conservative elite of the Republican Party and about whether he truly represents Conservatism with a capital C or Republicans with a capital R or anything else with any capital letter whatsoever. Well, I believe that along the two dimensions I just mentioned at least support for a candidate like Mr. Trump is very much in the tradition of conservative Republicanism. Let me explain... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
