I have not watched CNN in a long time. David Gergen is one of the reasons. Pompous ass, closed minded blowhard, so so self-important. I do still scan the CNN website, however, and I had almost forgotten how much I loathed looking at his face until I saw his name on the screen.
“Trump: History in the making, by David Gergen” was the click link. Oh shit, I thought. But I could not stop the mouse. I clicked and gritted my teeth.
Half of it was typical David Gergen, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him just as disgusted as the rest of the elephant suckers. These are the good parts:
Too often these days, we in the media like to proclaim that an event is "historic" when, in truth, it is a mere footnote. But after the Indiana primary, it really is true that historians will long be wondering whatever happened to American politics in the Republican presidential race of 2016.
We all know what happened, those of us with working open minds. Barack Obama drove ‘em crazy. A black man in the White House was the final straw that blew over their confederate house of cards. Fox News, and CNN, and now MSNBC, became totally dedicated to riling up the masses for ratings instead of actually reporting news. The Tea Party legitimized public racism, Donald Trump ran a test balloon with the birther campaign, and we inched closer to becoming an official Idiocracy as a nation. Back to the article:
No one understood as well as he did that the Republican field was relatively weak, not strong, and he has an instinct for the jugular that is unerring. Hillary Clinton's camp must surely have noticed how he spotted a key weakness in each of his GOP rivals and put them to the sword without breaking a sweat. Machiavelli could take lessons from this guy.
Now watch David Gergen retain his status as a real Republican. The Machiavelli stuff turned him on! The next sentence starts with yet! I had to rub my eyes to make sure he was really ready to pivot:
Yet there is much about Trump that scares. Roosevelt thought the two most dangerous men in the country were Huey Long and Douglas MacArthur. Why? Because he saw in each of them a demagogue who would lead the nation in terrible directions. Similarly, a good number of my academic friends think Trump could be today's Mussolini. I am not yet persuaded he is a new Mussolini, but he clearly bears resemblance to former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a buccaneer who was a pretty awful leader for modern Italy.
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There are other aspects of Trump that trouble me just as much. In recent weeks, I have had the opportunity to talk to a good many business leaders in New York who know Trump well. To a person, they tell the same story: They often enjoy social occasions with Trump and his wife, and they respect the way he has built his personal brand. But they say they would never, ever do business with him. Bankers and lawyers seem especially wary. In every business encounter, they say, the real negotiations don't start until the initial deal is struck. Then, according to their accounts, he begins haggling over every detail and insists on paying less than he promised. If you don't like it, he tells them, sue me. Then he can counter-sue. "It's always a nightmare," said one acquaintance.
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What Trump thinks are mere exaggerations in business, they frequently see as falsehoods. Perhaps their accounts are self-serving or wrong; in my limited dealings with him, he has never lied to my knowledge. Indeed, in a meeting with my students once in New York, he was gracious and charming. But the country needs a clearer picture of Trump as businessman.
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Another deep, personal reservation of mine is how casually he treats the arts of public policy making and diplomacy. A president of the United States is called upon to make extremely tough, complicated decisions that shape the lives of literally billions of people. Bringing good judgment to those decisions requires not only a sense of history, but also a mastery of detail and a steady, disciplined temperament. Trump has an excellent capacity to cut through a problem and see its essence. But he shows a disdain for the hard work then required to make wise decisions. He acts like he -- and he alone - -is blessed by the Creator to be able to do it all on the fly. You can't call it in as president.
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As best I can tell, that same casual disregard for past traditions makes him oblivious to how he should talk about other political leaders and about other countries. Who else other than Trump would believe that his smear this week of Ted Cruz's father was OK -- never mind that he
tied Cruz's father to the assassin of John F. Kennedy. That attack, based on no hard facts, was straight out of Joe McCarthy's playbook. But that didn't stop Trump, and many of his supporters on Twitter cheered him on. Sorry, but in my book, a future President of the United States owes more to standards of decency and good judgment.
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In short, we have seen this week history truly in the making. But what we make of it from here will be a serious test of our democracy.
I have no doubt that we are up to the challenge. We will pass this test. I was pleasantly surprised at the huge outpouring of Republicans actually leaving the party because of the tragic outcome of their primary. Twitter was ablaze with a political party burning, and it was a beautiful thing. We will destroy the monster, and the sight of David Gergen actually removing the ten foot pole from his intestines long enough to make sense for once? That’s gravy.