[FRIAM] Trump as a victim

[jon zingale]

"Trump seems to have nothing in his portfolio but a string of ghastly public
failures where *he* slips out from under the crumbling building just in time
to go on to slap a fat T on another one and start dismantling it from the
foundation up like a hungry termite."

Animals are an approximate solution to the simultaneous problems of
a given environment, and for us humans, the social component of that
environment weighs in heavily. It is clear that our politics selects
for an ever more distilled charisma in whatever form solves those
simultaneous problems. I am not sure how we can begin to imagine that
constraining the office of the president further, along the lines of
charisma-centric contests, will give rise to a more compassionate,
contemplative, and competent solution to the kinds of problems the
office actually poses. We exactly select individuals unfit for the
position we expect them to serve and ultimately we will suffer and they
will suffer if we do not take responsibility, learn from this apparent
flaw, and modify the process of selection accordingly. We run the risk
of only treating symptoms. The president, as with any office, operates
in a social context and it is clear that he has been enabled along his
entire catastrophic trajectory. Enabled by his citizen supporters, his
party, the "opposition", everyone. If any fool and I mean a classic
fool, were to find themselves propped up in his position and enabled to
carry out this tragic drama, I would feel the same way. I dislike it
when I see exploitations of this kind at even smaller levels. When
friends of mine with Down's syndrome are exploited by the neighborhood
bully, it makes me angry and I feel empathy. Surprisingly, not just
for my friend, but also for the bully. I don't know why, though
probably something most similar to how Nick put it above. Empathy is
something I feel and justify feeling later.



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