COULD THIS BE THE TRUMP CARD?
Having sat through those two mind-numbing Conventions and wondering at the utter futility of all that talk, insults ad hominem/ad nauseam, spewing through the mouths of the candidates, their supporters and media spectator pundits – thumbs up or thumbs down as in the days of ancient Rome – I figured that Trump has probably got it made. We should resign ourselves to the fact that he will probably be the next occupant of the White House. Our loss is that we cannot then continue to poke fun at him in the way we’ve enjoyed doing. (Here I must reveal my secret admiration of him: that he financed his own campaign.)
But relax, take a swig or a puff or a snort, or whatever best opens your mind, and listen up.
He may amaze us all yet because he is not a conventional thinker, and his lack of politically engineered experience may clear the landscape, like a computer reboot, a format, or a system upgrade.
I don’t think he looks for wars. He looks for solutions. If he’d been there in 1939, he might have done a deal with Hitler to look East instead of West. Thus, Hitler would have had the challenge of containing Communism instead of us, there’d have been no Battle of the North Atlantic, no U-boats, and the deaths of 70 million scapegoats might not have had to be mourned by their grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters and children. Of course, we’ll never know.
But that’s in the past. Move on. How about the future?
How might he deal with today’s fears from terrorism, and ISIS? The U.S, UK, France, Germany, and the rest of Europe seem to be out of ideas on that score. The ideology of PC thinking paralyzes the U.N. and its members. Would Trump do any better? Well, he’s perfectly capable of thinking the following. He might say
“Pay mercenaries. Hire headhunters. Professionals seeking bounties, and motivate them with lots of cash. Attract Gurkha warriors, who would know what to do with decapitating the enemy with their curved kukri weapons. Torture? Brutality? They would do as ISIS does, and make money while doing it. Any person wearing a black hood gets it.”
Countries would look the other way. They’d say ‘Deal with it, don’t tell us how.’
Most people can’t think like that. Certainly not Hillary or Obama. But if it worked, then the billions currently spent on security could be spent creating new businesses and jobs.
One might care to notice that America gained its empire by buying with cash, not killing and conquering. Alaska? California? Louisiana? St. Thomas? Purchases all.
So, I’m leaning more towards the novelty of Trump. I think he’d be up for the challenge of true Democratic Capitalism. He could even be exciting. Yes, it’s all about the money, yes.
Remember, it was the Bard who said “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise”. Perhaps the time has come.