Symptom. To call him a cause is to relieve certain individuals of responsibility for their own actions.
Actually, I’ve come to think of him more as a medical exam than as a symptom. People have always been more or less how they are, but Trump’s ascendancy has encouraged certain previously under-observed elements to step out of the shadows. So we’re halfway through our Trumpscan with Penceium enhancement. And I think ultimately it’s a good thing (if we can survive the scan) because whether you like someone or not, it’s never a good thing to ignore them for very long.
Fox News and similar have played a pivotal role in driving the US towards a dictatorial government. Fascism, if you will.
Controlling the masses with really stupid stuff: one bad example means a whole section of government must be eliminated, unbelievable contortions of logic, ignoring facts, making up “facts”, etc.
It was inevitable that a “strong man” type would win a Republican nomination. They just didn’t expect it to be someone like Trump who fits into their narrative better than they dreamed. Except for the issues of competence, lying, etc.
Note that they also sowed the seed for getting friendly with Russia with their propaganda techniques. But again, Trump is taking that far farther then they wanted.
In particular, the way social media can be exploited by the infamous “Bad Actors” to push the right wing narrative put it all into overdrive.
So he’s a symptom gone wrong. If there was only a well known example from literature where someone tries to create a thing and the result is something that goes out of control.
Obviously Trump’s ideology is not wholly original. But the fact that he was elected is a symptom of right wing extremism/ignorance/clownery run amok. If he hadn’t been elected, he wouldn’t be in a position to be a cause.
Nah. A person with true conservative credentials (e.g. not a life-long democrat), who also wasn’t an execrable human being on a personal level would have been a better strongman.
He is both, but if the US didn’t have a sizeable minority of ignorant hayseed rubes and racists he would never have gotten off the ground. So he is a symptom of a dysfunctional society but also a bit of a cause because he enables racism.
People like him have always been around. In the past, they had zero chance of becoming president of the country, because no reasonable thoughtful person could vote for them. Trump is now president because (and only because) of the huge contingent of unreasonable thoughtless people the US has developed. Every individual who voted to get him elected, including all the members of the general public who voted Republican, all the members of the Republican party who decided to back him anyway (even if just because he was the candidate from their party), and each member of the electoral college who voted for him, is an irresponsible moron. Individually, not collectively.
Not hayseeds. Not ignorant. Well-groomed, knowledgeable, and morons. Ignorance can be fixed by knowledge; these people already know, but are too stupid to make use of it.
And thats the problem. Maybe the next amoral strongman the GOP put out there won’t be so grossly incompetent.
What if the GOP learn the wrong lesson from all this and appoint someone who hates democracy just as much as Trump does, but who actually knows how to manipulate the levers of power to achieve that goal.
He was a cause of division even before his election and candidacy, what with his position at the front of birtherism. But he’s still more of a symptom. In the world as it should be, an angry old bankrupt rich man spouting off racist conspiracy theories would have been ignored.
He’s a rolling snowball. He may be made of smaller individual flakes but, now that he’s moving, he’s increasing the amount of damage far more than the original snowflakes could.
Which shows how stupid the “proles” who voted for him are, since he is a claimed billionaire who has shat on them his entire career. He gets a tax cut through, which mostly goes to the rich, he is busy fighting a trade war which is going to raise their prices, and his “charitable” foundation funnels money back to him.
But since he has no shame, he is quite good at conning them into believing he is on their side.
Not just this, but the very preachers of chastity and purity are just fine with this piece of scum who brags about his adultery and who brags about assaulting women.
If Jesus were in the audience he’d go up to the pulpit and punch these holier than thou types right in the nuts.
Symptom. The Democrats and mainstream Republicans governed badly, decade after decade. Some voters decided they wanted option C, rather than more of A and B.
In Spring of 2015, the corporate donor glass was gearing up to give us a choice between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. That’s why Trump became President.
