Humble Talent’s Comment of the Day on the post “Another Trump Derangement Update!” is clear, perceptive, and helpful. It needs no more introduction from me, so here it is…
***
I remember during Trump’s first term, I made a Facebook post that tried to explain to lefties the concept of “resistance burnout”…. Basically, if you approach everything Trump does with the exact same amount of action and outrage, then you lose the ability to signal what is actually important, and everything just ends up sounding like an adult from Charlie Brown. I used how Trump muzzled the EPA’s Twitter account and how he appointed a man actively being sued by the EPA as head of the EPA as examples of something very low stakes and something legitimately bad.
Because there is some there there, and a sane resistance has a place. I’ll put it out there: I was absolutely more than willing to talk about how awful Biden was, and how the 25th was probably more appropriate for him than any other President in living memory. See: “Weekend at Biden’s” and “President Autopen”… That wasn’t normal either.
Because Trump isn’t normal, but just saying that is insufficient. “Normal” isn’t a moral state of being. What he does is important, and while I could be annoyed at all the capital projects, particularly during a cost of living crisis (I am), or his instinct to rhetorically pee on everything he can in an attempt to get his name on things (ditto), or his desire to add acreage to the American empire by floating ideas that are just… Never going to happen, as some kind of legacy project (also yes), these things are relatively unimportant. We need to be able to walk and chew gum, and separate the annoying things Trump does from the things that are actually problems.
Ethics Alarms 
I just don’t understand the…. cultish loyalty to him.
In the U.S. it’s: Choose one from Column A or one from Column B. No substitutions. At his worst, who’d a person rather have for four years, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? Simply not having a Democrat administration is manna from heaven and worth celebrating every day.
You could theoretically have the good stuff without the bad.
Not really. With Trump, what you get is what you get.
Oh, I agree. The same orneriness that makes him do stupid stuff is what allows him to be so defiant and bold. I remember everyone was telling me that Trump was insane to get the GOP to block the Biden “illegal immigration fix” that basically locked in regular border-jumpers, because nothing more restrictive was possible.
Very reasonable assessment but I question the statement that the Iranian issue is a result of lack of planning. Plans are a function of the quality of intelligence and the analysis undertaken. Furthermore, we cannot assess at this point if the actions taken this year against Iran will prevent a future nuclear attack on Israel or whether the world will be held hostage by Iran’s belligerency over the Strait of Hormuz.
As for his tariff ploy what something costs while not discussing what what gains occurred can be applied to every policy decision made by every president to render every decision incorrect. Do we know that the anti-poverty programs such as Head Start or SNAP are providing a net positive social benefit? Can we argue public education is valuable when more and more students cannot read or process information as well as children from many years ago who lacked the technologies each child today is provided.
Nonetheless, I can agree that if every decision is condemned then those of us that support the really serious issues like nuclear proliferation by Muslim fanatics, obscene increases in the debt spent on programs and services that cannot prove a positive return on investment and continuing subsidies to health insurance firms to create the fiction that they hard helping reduce household costs will ignore the narcissistic behaviors such as putting his name on things.
This support is not some cultish allegiance to Trump it is a reasonable reaction to the cultish behavior of the left which demands its followers to resist violently if necessary all policies of the administration.
The allegation of “cultish behavior” brings two expressions to mind. One, “beggars can’t be choosers.” Two, “He may be an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”
YB. I find the accusation that MAGA supporters are exhibiting cultish behavior nothing more than propaganda designed to maintain allegiance to their progressive ideals Failure to obey the commandment that anything Trump does is wrong, lawless or just plain contemptible is deserving of being ostracized from the true believers. Because progressives are fundamentally collectivists any penalty that threatens their good standing in the group must be avoided no matter what the cost. We term this TDS.