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FROM MY CORNER: The Puzzle of Trump

Howell Hurst 2020 Presidential Election, American News, Defining Trump, Presidential Election, Trump

The handful of my colleagues who for whatever reasons admire Donald Trump puzzle me to the core of my being. They consist of at least one semi-professional lover of the madcap digital culture, two are private businessmen, and a handful of others are, I have decided, simply simple.

The presidential debate impressed me as almost the last straw in the decline of rational thinking in the United States of America. I understand that our country is split into two camps: those admiring Mr. Trump and those, including myself, who consider him the crudest, most ill-educated political figure ever to have emerged on the American scene.

Mr. Biden is not the first preference I wanted to win the Democratic nomination; but he is, despite his personal human faults, clearly to my vision the more rational, courteous, down-to-earth human being in this bipolar presidential race.

That my few Trumpian colleagues still exist amazes me. So far, I’ve retained them as colleagues, although I despise the man whom they admire. What I despise in Mr. Trump is his crudeness. I could almost forgive his lack of knowledge of American history. But I cannot forgive his ungentlemanly crudeness.

The debate was a blatant example of his utter inability to treat Mr. Biden or the moderator with any sense of respect. Trump’s comprehensive avoidance of the established rules of the debate were as blunt as a Pitt Bull’s bite.

From FOX News to NBC, ABC, CNN, AND BBC, both sides of America’s and the world’s political divide agreed that Mr. Trump was incapable of allowing Mr. Biden to speak without insistent, endless, forcible interruptions.

Trump the Bully was clothed in the full regalia of a rabidly afflicted, mean-spirited aggressor. He ignored Fox’s commentator’s requests that he follow the rules of the debate and allow Biden to speak uninterrupted.

He proposed repeated arguments on many subjects that public media figures on both sides of the Left/Right split agreed today were factually untrue. He was truly by any measure of civilized people about as uncivilized as one can be without landing punches on one’s opponent’s nose.

Mr. Biden admirably in my opinion generally held himself silent as Trump spoke, When he did break in it was when Trump exceeded all limits of congenial self control. His own self control under Trump’s crude assaults spoke well of his character.

It is time for a president who, at the very least, can be rational and courteous. It is clear who that person is in this election. What I cannot understand is why my colleagues who admire him continue to do so. Their devotion to him endangers the few attaching bonds between them and myself that still exist.

I sincerely hope that before this contest ends they will learn how to grasp again the importance of human decency necessary for a president to possess to deserve the  position of leader of our country.

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