How acceptable would "sane Trumpism" be? (not to you, but to America)

[Sage_Rat]

@Velocity

IMHO, there isn’t that much public outrage over Trump’s policies - that is, from moderates/centrists - it’s more the packaging that causes the outrage than the product. The packaging is Trump himself - someone who tweets dozens of childish-sounding, petulant Tweets per day, comes from an outrageous reality-TV background, etc.

Suppose that a sane, calm, dignified Republican president were endorsing every single one of Trump’s policies - building the wall, caging kids, trade war, appointing right-wing judges to the courts - but did so without a single Tweet, spoke and wrote with a lot of gravitas, released all his tax returns, had no skeletons in his closet, etc. - I think such a president would have approval ratings well upwards of 50% and, in fact, be coasting towards an easy reelection victory right now. He would be considered “acceptable” by most of America - not Dopers, and not to many Democrats, but he would certainly be considered more palatable than Trump, despite espousing all of Trump’s policies to the letter.

Here on the Dope, people object to both Trump’s persona and his policies - but IMHO, much of America, and many swing voters, wouldn’t mind Trumpism if it were a different, more dignified person preaching them instead. What say ye?

You’re ignoring competence.

Personally, I don’t care about the majority of Trump’s tweets (except the ones where he gaslights the idea of becoming President for Life) or that he’s crass.

High level policies like “Illegal immigration is illegal. Let’s actually do that.” I’m fine with. Locking kids in cages, morality aside, is stupid. A competent President wouldn’t do it as part of an anti-illegal immigration agenda, so it’s moot to talk about it being a policy point of someone more acceptable than Trump. A polite and quiet incompetent who ruins everything he touches still is still going to be hated.

At a high level, Trumps policies are fine. Many of them are, in essence, the same policy that Obama had: Taking on China, reducing illegal immigration, etc. Trump’s version stands out not because it’s evil so much as that it’s undertaken in moronic fashion that does more harm than good. That these measures also contain evil is just icing on the cake.