Let me play “Devil’s Advocate.”

I’ve made no secret of my dislike of Donald Trump – at least as he presents himself in his campaign. When you watch the man acting out his “tough guy” role (he consistently does this) his anger is open and apparent. His word view and his perspective on political life are akin to that of Russia’s Putin.

Trump does not take a philosophical attitude toward politics. Politics is to him like his known view of business: it is war, and war for him demands any and all strategies and tactics in order to win. Winning is everything to Trump. Even if it hurts others badly.

When you see Trump on past non-political TV shows, he is a veritable charmer. When others who have worked with him comment on him, he is identified as capable of charm and style. But in politics, he has clearly mapped out a macho tough act as his method of operation.

I doubt Trump is inherently a mean man. He has, however, accepted and absorbed the American corporate persona of the head butting executive who takes no live prisoners. He has not learned one simple lesson: in business, toughness may (still questionable) get you the best part of the deal; in politics, this is not the case.

Business deals are commonly one-on­-one. Politics requires you remain acutely aware that the entire world is watching you. Tough? Sure, you can’t be the President without being tough, but you can pull off that act better if you do it in style. Jack Kennedy was a good example; he could charm your socks off while taking a lot of marbles away from you.

Trump needs to relearn that all people, except the mentally contaminated, react positively to a more gentlemanly style. You can still repeatedly say “No” in a negotiation, while consistently maintaining a smile. Trump needs to do this to find his way back to a more humane attitude toward life and politics.

And this transformation needs to be a serious internal transcendence. He needs to get this lesson inside his head; so do his followers. Until they do, if they ever do, they are a political enemy to be reckoned with – and to be bettered. We don’t need emotionally and intellectually unbalanced or disturbed personalities in the public arena. Good deals are win/win situations. Both sides pick up some gains.

Trump and his followers’ conceit, their egocentric belief that only their way connotes truth, their racism, and their obstinate nastiness have no place in the life of civilized humans. These are brute attitudes that need to evolve out of existence. We don’t need these kind of people to make the world a better place.

And their insistence they hold the fundamental tenants of Christianity sacred is a particular embarrassment. Even atheists hold the concept of “do unto others” as valid. Trump’s followers clearly do not have this idea fixed in their brain pans. When it comes to any sense of human compassion, they have what I call serious brain cog slippage.

It needs to be repaired.

My last commentary to you was simply a Link to a BBC Video of several of Donald Trump’s personal reactions to people protesting at his various events.

If you missed it, I add it again here. Hopefully, the digital highway will permit you to view it.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35808208.

If you cannot access it, let me know. I’ll send you a copy of the previous commentary.

—————-

Of course it is true that no one likes to be interrupted while attempting to convey a message. One prefers a silent audience, who react openly only in unrestrained applause when one has finished speaking.

However, the entire purpose of political campaigns may be stated in two concepts: (One) To facilitate and encourage the exposure of opposing views; and (Two) To judge the ability of the presenter to handle himself with civility, wit, intelligence, and tact in the management of opposition to his views.

The avowed way for all democracies to deal with opposing views is to debate as rationally as possible their differences. This is historically so in America. In theory, the hope is always that some middle way between extremes will be found to help forward the progress of the human mind in its evolutionary social quest for a better life for all.

In political campaigns this quest is rarely achieved without public disruptions; it is the accumulated style of political debates to excite deeply felt emotions. It is the rare leader who can deal with these passions well. He or she is, however, the nuanced mind we always need to guide the population of a nation toward a means of uniting and dealing with the problems of its day.

Donald Trump is not one who knows how to manage protest with civility, wit, intelligence, and tact. He is a battering ram of uncontrolled emotion. He goes to the lowest possible level in exciting his audience. He acts with the subtlety of a sewer rat.

Some people have compared Trump to Adolph Hitler. Others have said this is an inappropriate comparison. Hitler hired thugs with clubs to attack protesters at his events. No one has said Trump does this.

Note, however, that to his followers who have used physical force against protesters, Trump has supported and encouraged them to continue this tactic and has said he would personally like to join them in physically attacking protesters. He has publicly promised to finance the legal expenses of any who will follow his suggestion that they continue to physically attack protesters.

The line between hiring thugs to beat up protesters and what Donald Trump says and does is a very thin one. This is not a rational man. His followers are not rational people. They are marginal minds who have found a voice for their anxious, tangled idea of what constitutes an acceptable free society.

No well-argued, well-grounded, well-founded, plausible presentation of a future for America is coming from the lips of Donald Trump. This is an illiterate raver of inanities. And a man with a barely suppressed anger at life and the world. He is not under conscious control of himself.

He must decidedly be held accountable for his violence-encouraging rhetoric. His accusing others for his own assistance and abetment of violent actions among his followers is not to be silently permitted to continue. That is what brought Hitler to power.

All of our voices must be heard in this matter. We are all descendants of a firmly established historical democracy. We are all parents of our democracy’s future. We must all be responsible parents.