GOP

A review of my article on Donald J. Trump written on the eve of the 2016 U.S. election, previewing this one

I shall attempt to briefly review the article I wrote on the eve of the last U.S. presidential election in 2016, and see how my expectations of candidate Trump compare with president Trump. It was difficult to understand why I titled it "There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly...". However, it didn't take me long to realise that I was in the phase of titling all my articles after Bible quotes. That didn't last long, sadly, but I might well pick it up again.

The quotes seem to have been directed at the U.S. bishops, for their attempts to muddy what should have been quite a clear option between a candidate who professed a preference for very many good things and had no intrinsic evils in his campaign platform, and one who promised all sorts of intrinsic evils in her campain, with none of the goods that Trump had.

Everything I wrote about Hillary Clinton applies equally to Joe Biden, except with Biden we have the extra scandal of him being Catholic. He is, of course, not Catholic in any meaningful sense, but as he has not been excommunicated and was baptised Catholic, we have to live with the fact that he can identify as such, as indeed can Bergoglio. That is what makes both Biden's and Bergoglio's preferences for perversions and evils that much more condemnable, and damnable.

In the article was a list of top 10 reasons to vote for Donald J. Trump. He won the elections, as it turned out. I rather expected him to do it, and truth be told I am even more confident that he will win it this time, once again defying the polls which seem even more fake this time than they did the last. As little enthuasiasm as there was for Clinton, there virtually none for Biden. At least she had the novelty of being the first female presidential candidate. With Biden, all they can muster is "At least he's not Trump." I do not dismiss that those who hate Trump do it fervently, but it is difficult to see how it translates into waiting in line possibly for hours, and possibly in the rain, in order to vote for a man one more than likely finds distasteful. In just over a day or so, we shall see if the disgust for Trump among the anti-Trumper's translates into votes for creey Joe and his ghoulish running mate.

For full disclosure, I must preface this by writing that I am not a particularly big fan of Donald Trump, though I do find him amusing. I am definitely not a NeverTrumper, but nor am I an AlwaysTrumper. I am, however, a NeverBiden, and cannot fathom what would ever possess me to vote for a man as morally distasteful as Biden. In other words, I think I can offer a relatively dispassionate analysis of Trump's record.

So, what will follow is a walk-through of my 10 points with grades on how right I was compared to Donald Trump's actual record. Given Trump's erratic nature and lack of interest in details, it can be difficult to know just how much blame or credit we can give him for his record. Still, he appoints his underlings and signs off on the checks, the bombings and the priorities. His record belongs to him, and if nothing else, it allows us to see where his priorities lie, whether he has met success in his endeavours or not.

The points will be in bold text, with the score next, and the analysis below. Mind you, this is an analysis of how I predicted, or thought I understeood, candidate Trump's versus how president Trump has actually done. Of course, my analysis has do do with his campaign pledges, so it cannot be entirely divorced from what he actually pledged, but still, it is not a grade of how president Trump has succeeded versus some impeccable standard of perfection.

1. Donald Trump  is not a career politician. He is a man who has built a fortune on hard work and taking risks, and done a good job at it. In fact, he has managed doing what I would argue 99.999% of the world wants to do in a much better way than 99.999% of the world has managed. (7/10)

More of a statement of fact than anything else and hardly gradeable. I would define a career politician as someone willing to do anything and rid himself of any principle to get to the very top, regardless of whether it is good for his country or not. That would score a 0, so 7/10 means I think Trump has not behaved as a career politican would. Sadly, however, on many of the big decisions - big banking, military-industrial complex, continuing wars - he has toed the line of the political schemers.

He has still managed to incur the wrath of many of the right people, and often by being unconventional, so I'll give him a pretty high grade and conclude that I was right in claiming that he didn't behave as a career politican.

2. The man seems genuine. When he speaks, one gets the impression that he means what he says, and not that he is saying it because pollsters told him it would be good to do so. (5/10)

If Trump had not shut the country down in March, he would probably have got an 8 on this point. However, shutting down a country on account of a 'pandemic' he obviously did not believe was going around simply because he thought it more politically expedient to do so will in many ways come to become his defining moment - at least of his first term, if he should lose the re-election bid.

The one good thing about Trump is that he is not a particularly convincing liar when reading off a script. It has therefore been quite easy...

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