The Donald
The Relationship Between Ignorance and Knowledge
Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th
century prime minister of the UK, wrote, "To be conscious that you are ignorant
is a great step to knowledge." Disraeli's assumption is that a true
leader will be able to lead based upon knowledge, especially of history.
Thus raises the central question of whether the Donald is or can be a leader.
Is he conscious of his ignorance?
There is another aspect to Trump
from his new senior advisor, Paul Manafort. Manafort contends that Trump
is merely playing the part and will soon be seen as more presidential.
After campaigning for nearly a year, Manafort is convinced that Americans will
see a new Trump soon. In the past, Trump was merely playing the part but
soon will be acting the part by being presidential.
Finally, I have another
theory. I think that the Donald's forté
is math. He employs his mathematical prowess to his leadership
style. He is able to engage his followers by appealing to their lowest
common denominator. Whether it is racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., Trump
has uninformed opinions that parallel that of the worst opinions of
Americans.
As we patiently await the
transformation of the Donald into a presidential candidate, what will be the
issues that he will have to walk back and restate? Here is a partial
list.
This is Trump's stance on Mexican
immigrants, "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their
best.... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're
bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing
crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Trump wants to ban Muslims from
entering the US, which was the result of the San Bernardino terrorist
episode. He demands that "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims
entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out
what is going on."
Moving to foreign affairs, Trump
promises to deal with ISIS quickly. "ISIS is making a tremendous amount
of money because of the oil that they took away, they have some in Syria, they
have some in Iraq, I would bomb the sh-- out of them."
The Donald is rattled by the NFL
beginning to change rules to avoid concussions and brain injuries. Beyond
his not wanting the NFL to change the rulebook, Trump said that "football has
become soft like our country has become soft."
Carly Fiorina's face leaves Trump
less than impressed. "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for
that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!"
Megyn Kelly did not fare any
better as a woman than Fiorina did. During the debates, the Donald's
contention was that "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes,
blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base."
On the other hand, Trump thinks
that "Women have one of the great acts of all time. The smart ones act very
feminine and needy, but inside they are real killers. The person who came up
with the expression 'the weaker sex' was either very naive or had to be
kidding. I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye
— or perhaps another body part."
Trump also has issues with John
McCain. He disses the notion that McCain was an American war hero during
the Vietnamese war. Trump's view is that "He was a war hero because he
was captured. I like people who weren't captured." He maintains this even
though McCain spent 5½ years in the "Hanoi Hilton."
This is the Donald's view
regarding replacing Andrew Jackson's face on the $20 bill, "I think Harriet
Tubman is fantastic. I would love to — I would love to leave Andrew
Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do
the $2 bill or we do another bill."
Trump has some issues with a black
ex-slave who helped other slaves escape slavery and was a spy for the North
during the Civil War. He would prefer Andrew Jackson, who was a slave
owner and relocated the Cherokees resulting in the Trail of Tears in which
several thousand died.
Manafort assures us that Trump
will change soon. The question then haunts me is that the Donald will
have to rescind all of his truly dumb notions about nearly everything.
The
Boston Globe published a front-page edition a year in advance
after Trump's election as president.
