Senator Obama, Mrs. Obama and their two daughters were always extremely cordial and appreciative for everything that we provided them. They were engaging with us, asking us about our families and making sure that we were provided for. On numerous occasions, Mr. Obama would ask me how my wife was doing (she was pregnant with our first child), and wished her the best. I never, never saw him belittle another person, I never witnessed him do anything behind his wife’s back….. For all of my political differences with Barack Obama, I will be the first to say that he is a very decent man.
.. Please note, that was prior to his time in the Oval Office. I have not interacted with him since then, but everyone who I worked with who was affiliated with him said that he had not changed.
A Hard Case, For Trump
.. when I read Kevin D. Williamson’s essay, I hear in it the voice of my father. Daddy would take the side of a hard-working man, white or black, in a heartbeat, but a man he judged as lazy, or wanting a handout — they were nothing but trash to him, whatever their race. And if you didn’t live by a code of honor — hard work, self-discipline, respect for self and others — you were no kind of man in his eyes.
.. Life, for him, was about struggle. To win at life was to struggle honorably. That was the main thing. To have to leave your town would be a tragedy, maybe, but better that than to pity yourself and depend on the charity of others. His was a code of honor held by many of the white working class in his day, and he believed in it fiercely.
.. In short, he loved this place and its people, and believed that being a good man meant caring about the common good.
.. There is among a lot of Republicans a contempt for the working poor and working class — a contempt of which that the people who hold it are unaware — that says people not smart enough to be self-contained, successful individualist libertarians kind of deserve what they get. Too stupid to figure out how to invest your Social Security allotment? Sucks to be you.
.. I suspect his view would have been that the best policy is one that makes it easier — not easy, but easier — for people to stay where they were born and raised, and where their family’s roots are. That’s what I think it meant to be conservative, to my dad: to give decent men and women willing to work hard and live honorably — not like common trash, sponging off their neighbors — the opportunity to make a decent life for themselves in their hometowns.
.. He unquestionably shared KDW’s low opinion of “no-count” people whose poverty he saw as largely the result of deficient character. But he reflexively sided with the little guy with the hard work ethic, and he would give people a chance if he thought they were salt of the earth folks doing their best.
.. “I’m glad I’m not going to be around to see much more of this,” he said. The world had long since passed him by. He did not believe America was headed towards greatness, that’s for sure.
How to Cool Down Trump
Hell,” said Alabama’s Democratic governor George Wallace before roiling the 1968 presidential race, “we got too much dignity in government now, what we need is some meanness.” Twelve elections later, Wallace’s wish is approaching fulfillment as Republicans contemplate nominating someone who would run to Hillary Clinton’s left.
.. His supporters like him, not what pass for his “ideas,” so the way to stop him is to show him to be unlikable.
Does Anyone Actually Believe Trump Is Being Audited Because He’s a ‘Strong Christian’?
I don’t care how much money he has. The point is he cares. Specifically, he cares that other people think he’s really rich. In fact, that’s his business model. Most long cons require convincing marks that the con man doesn’t actually need the mark’s money. That’s his schtick to a T.
The thing I don’t find amusing is that he’s an insecure bully. He really does strike me as Biff from Back to the Future (Part II). His cheap macho posturing and boasting is simply tacky. I see him as a sad and insecure man. And what I truly find so depressing is that millions of Americans see the same blowhard overcompensation and mistake it for strength.
.. Reagan was quietly self-confident, largely immune to flattery, and he knew what he stood for thanks to years of thoughtful introspection and deep reading. Moreover, he was a gentleman. Is there anything gentlemanly about Donald Trump? I’ve heard stories that in private he can be a nice guy. Good. But it’s always easy for the richest guy in the room to seem magnanimous, particularly when he owns the room. Regardless, the public Trump is an insecure bully and a boor, and I can’t help but believe that is the truer face of the man.
.. The only remedy is to reveal Trump for the kind of shallow, vain, and bullying man he is.