January 21, 2021
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“Assessing the Trump Presidency” Revisited

“Assessing the Trump Presidency” Revisited

A friend reacted to my essay,ย โ€œAssessing the Trump Presidency,โ€ย and that reaction led to a lively exchange of texts. Following are the most significant parts of that exchange:

FRIEND: I read your essay โ€œAssessing President Trumpโ€ and found it interesting. Even so, I have some points of disagreement with you.ย While it is appropriate for you to applaud his accomplishments, I think you understate his offenses. I am disturbed by Trumpโ€™s enjoyment in making very derogatory statements that he simply must know are offensive and divisive.

VRR: As you know, I agree that he has some troubling faultsโ€”I spent over 40 percent of my essay discussing them. Yet as I pointed out there, the question is whether those faults are more or lessย importantย than what he has done for the American people. I believe a careful examination reveals that what he hasย doneย is far more important.

FRIEND: He comes across to me as a very bitter and angry man who is stirring up his base for a very bitter, divisive and hate-filled campaign which no other leader has done before in the US.

VRR: To be frank, I think youโ€™ve been watching too much CNN or MSNBC. I say that because the very language you useโ€”โ€œbitter,โ€ โ€œangry,โ€ โ€œdivisive,โ€ โ€œhate-filledโ€โ€”has filled their reporting for three years. People who watch only those networks naturally absorb that point of view and consider it to be the truth. In time it becomes an unthinking default response whenever his name is mentioned.

FRIEND: I agree the press have not been on his side, but I am not referring to what the press has said, just what he says, states and writes. After all, media opposition doesnโ€™t make him speak the way he does. All they do is report what he says in his speeches and in his tweets, and judge him accordingly. If he didnโ€™t say and tweet as he does, the media wouldnโ€™t be able to report it. Trump is who he is, and they are simply holding a spotlight to that reality.

VRR: More like a large magnifying glass than a spotlight. But that aside, you seem to be suggesting that he has behaved in a vacuum and his statements have had no context. But that is not the case for him or any of us. People can be angry for no good reason, to be sure, but they can also beย provokedย into anger.

Letโ€™s put ourselves in his place for a moment. How would we react if hour after hour, day after day for two years we were falsely accused of having traitorously colluded with Russia and stolen an election?  Would we remain silent or proclaim our innocence at every opportunity? Then when our accusers added the charge that our responses were too loud, assertive, and rude would we apologize and be silent or raise our voices even more to defend our reputation? And when the charges continued to be leveled even after the Mueller Report proved them wrong, would we be more or less upset and combative?

Unless we have a saintly level of self-control, it is more than likely we would be just as outraged as the President and our responses just as angry as his.

FRIEND: But itโ€™s not just his anger. Itโ€™s his divisiveness. Anyone whose aim is to divide is dangerous. We have seen this throughout history. I am not sure Trump has a moral compass to guide him; he certainly does not seem to be rooted in the Christian faith.

VRR: Again you accuse the President of dividing people, only now you claim he does soย intentionally. Furthermore, you suggest he is amoral and unchristian. I find those accusations stunning.

To call an action immoral is legitimate; to claim the person acted intentionally is not legitimate without clear evidence of intentionโ€”for example, the personโ€™s direct admission. And to equate acting immorally (even habitually) with having no โ€œmoral compassโ€ is presumptuous. As to whether Trump is โ€œrooted in the Christian faith,โ€ I donโ€™t know, nor do you. That determination is Godโ€™s to make. Christians are expressly forbidden to speculate about the matter.

I find it curious that Trumpโ€™s Christianity is often questioned but no one has raised a similar question about Kathy Griffin posing with a (fake) bloody Trump head, Robert DeNiro expressing the desire to punch Trumpโ€™s face, Madonna saying sheโ€™d like to โ€œblow up the White House,โ€ or Hillary Clinton calling fully half of Trumpโ€™s supporters a โ€œbasket of deplorablesโ€ and characterizing them as โ€œracist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobicโ€”you name it.โ€ Not only do legions of liberals call him and his followers those names; they also defame his wife, his grown children and his young son.

As if all this were not sufficiently provocative, these people (who apparently donโ€™t own mirrors) blame Trump for being negative and spawning divisiveness! In turn, rather than pointing out the absurdity and hypocrisy of that chargeโ€”not to mention its uncharitablenessโ€”the mainstream media repeat it ad nauseam and far too many of their readers/viewers dutifully join the chorus.

Little wonder why Trump has gotten angry and his supporters have become increasingly exasperated with Democrats and the media.

Copyright ยฉ 2019 by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. All rights reserved.

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Vincent Ryan Ruggiero
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Vincent Ryan Ruggiero
1 comment
  • Thank you for saying everything I have pointed out about President Trump. As an American of Mexican father, I have been called a racist and a self-loathing Mexican because I support our President. When I counter their accusations about the President and the double standard given to other Democrat leaders, their immediate reply is “That is irrelevant or I don’t care about that guy/girl. President Trump’s tweets do not upset me because the Democrats have been rude, condescending and whenever they accuse others of the wrong doing that they themselves are doing. When I hear other’s complain about how un-President-like Trump’s tweets are, I just smile. Because finally someone is willing to fight back and defend himself. The news media is not reporting unbiased and accurate reports, in my opinion, they have many times left out important details in stories creating a slant to support their views.