David Quinn wrote:It is certainly not masculinity as traditionally defined by this forum, which has always tied masculinity to consciousness and wisdom.
The "forum" has defined nothing in particular to my knowing, nothing like a consensus on anything. But yes, you are often tying it to purpose, courage and rational, single-minded persistence, to endurance and so on. Which is great but it should have been clear, in terms of psychological matters, that greed, self-absorption and having a temperament do not have to be its opposite either.
To boil it down further: Trump has a lot of purpose and endurance, he's been trying to become president since 1988 with his first serious run in 2000 (Reform Party). As for courage, well, he certainly takes a lot of risks, pissing off knowingly the amount of people and organizations he does, including very powerful ones. The only thing he does not demonstrate very well is any rational image.
It's not different from many masculine people who chase illusionary stuff and do not start the journey inwards and discover the mirrors. It ends like getting stuck with increasing amounts of karma, illusions and lies, all to prevent the insight that it was all a lot of fuzz about nothing, no real substance. It's a poor man's life after all.
Trump transcends the womanly urge to herd with others not by heightening his consciousness, but by diminishing it. His power, his ability to ride roughshod over others, comes from the fact that he is both thoughtless and shameless.
You seem to attribute as many negative attributes to him as his fans might be heaping up the praise. He's so many things, so many labels! To be all that, and so cunning and deceiving, so manipulative as you are implying, he must have
superman powers! It would be unnatural at least. And that's exactly the interesting thing about him: your reaction and that of the liberal, feminine, political correct, equality loving and those overly attached to some "reasonable" image. Sometimes his most vocal enemies make me want to side with Trump. And perhaps you should also consider who is shouting the loudest against The Donald. Why side with
those obvious products of the feminization of society?
You write as if Trump never said anything wise. But there are a couple of things I find impressive. First his strong efforts to stress he wants to get along with Russia in a times where
everyone tries to do exactly the opposite. All the while when hearing Russia commenting on foreign policy for the last years, they sound to me like the
only rational voice left amongst the big nations. And to want to approach a rational partner is a
good thing. Further I personally like his appointment of Pruitt over EPA and generally his scepticism over man-made global warming. In my view, environmental activist and doomsday preaching has gone way too far. So far it has become a real danger (for energy prices, for development, for poverty, for lethal debt ceilings). Trump goes against the stream here and
changes US policy already. And what's more? For a moment I hoped he'd put Tulsi Gabbard on State but although they seem to agree on a lot it became for now Rex Tillerson, who is perhaps not a bad pick but he also needs to go against the grain of a whole (rather delusional) State Department.
And all the Tweets, the gossip, the character traits of one guy, it just doesn't worry me that much although I cringe just as well. But all the focus on a skilled show man I find mostly old wife's gossips. And all those fears it will ruin or wreck the world: all void and meaningless. We've been there already too many times before.
Perhaps young Jup is right though and are you just talking like an older Aussie with a romantic out-of date view of the wider world where somewhat rational forces still organize everything. Or you refuse to believe that politics has become a
show, a make belief, of a world which has already passed. All the clowns and narcissists we see now are perhaps just our own, Western, ideological mirror images? Anyway, just to make it clear, I don't support Trump the person but I do happen to believe he somehow has understood the world and its decline in places better than many in America right now. He does not have a good solution though but at least he's saying the truth: America is
not great now. Which is exactly the main reason there was a hissy fit at Liberal side and they started campaigning "America is already great". Trump was certainly right here, his opponents dead wrong and in denial.