Below is the incomplete draft of the post. It is also sic. I got tired and stopped at the last bracketed entry. I was working on it when it just got too long. I decided to publish Mr. James' post uncorrupted by me. I will finish up the commentary manana in a Part II.
After reading it through this morning and beginning to write I was struck by how schizoid it was. As I think back on it now it strikes me as even more schizoid. It really is like two posts and the halves written by different people. And yet, it is not even paragraphed. There is no compositional transition. Haven't encountered that much. I have written some long paragraphs and almost always go back and break them up even if there really is no natural break, just as convenience to the reader. And I excerpted James' post! I didn't publish the whole thing. But it is not just a big run-on sentence or run-on paragraph. The writing is good. The thoughts flow. The thoughts flow until the break and then without a compositional break he really does undo in the second half so much of the first half. It is difficult to reconcile the two as part of one man's thought, it really is! This very long post is reduced, as I say immediately below in the draft, to making what should have been a very short point: treasure the message but kill the messenger. That really does not follow!
.......................................................
This is from Bill James, baseball analytics pioneer. It is sic, there really are no paragraphs. I have underlined the transition and bolded his main points.
Mr. James has important things to say about Trump's appeal which he styles in the alternative as "Trump supporters," the "morons" of the first half, and James says in the second half that he wishes to speak "for Donald Trump or at least Trump's supporters," the "morons." Which is odd. James point devolves to this: applaud the message, despise the messenger. Which is odd.
Trump, as in Rump.
Trump, As In Rump Let me begin by telling you, if the title does not make this clear enough, what I think about Donald Trump. I stress that I am not trying to tell you what YOU should think about The Donald; I am merely telling you what I think, how I react to him. I have despised Donald Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes President. Of all of the people who are running for President or have now dropped out of the race, Donald Trump is absolutely the last one that I would vote for. I could summarize the reasons for this in five bullet points: (1) I believe that Trump is more interested in what is good for Donald Trump than in what is good for America, not that the same could not be said about many of the other candidates, but it seems to me that this has to be more of a concern in the case of a man who has spent 30 years plastering his name to everything he could put his name on, (2) I don’t think Trump’s background in business prepares him for the challenges of the Presidency, (3) I think Trump’s hard-ass approach to problems, in the Presidency, would be very dangerous for our nation, and might have terrible consequences for all of us, (4) I dislike self-promotion. I intensely dislike self-promotion. Donald Trump is the nation’s most notorious self-promoter—and was, before he decided to run for President. (5) I don’t believe that Trump is sincere in 99% of what he says. I think almost everything he says is either an outright lie, or something he is merely saying because it is convenient for him at the moment. We haven’t had a President since Harry Truman who mocked people, a President who was openly rude and vulgar, and I am not anxious to bring that back to the oval office. Also, although I stress that I don’t know, I doubt that Trump is likely to win the election. I would like to see the Republicans nominate somebody who could actually win, not that I necessarily am going to vote for him; I would just like to have better options, just as I would like to have better options in buying an automobile or a gallon of milk....I don’t think that Trump can win, frankly, because I don’t think there are enough morons to elect him. A certain percentage of the American public is just morons; that’s the way it is. When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the “lead” under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons. I hope we will; I hope Trump will lose because I hope that he runs out of morons to vote for him...Now, having said all of that, having hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage;
[Sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that pass. Trump is a bully and a bully is not courageous.]
not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating. I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think that Donald Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Donald Trump has had the courage to say things and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that, in a President.
[1. James conflates courageous and outrageous. It is not courageous to insult John McCain, Megyn Kelly, the handicapped, or Mexicans, it is outrageous. James rebukes Harry Truman for mocking people but finds "courage" in Donald Trump's mocking. Weird. 2. James equates courage with rule-breaking, "doing things people tell him he can't do." There can be courage in rule-breaking, courage even in insulting, if those you insult are more powerful and if you knowingly accept the consequences but to insult the less powerful is mere bullying. 3. James approves of this Trumpian "courage," elevating it over wisdom. Not every act of this kind of courage is wise: "Donald, you CAN'T touch a hot stove." Donald touches a hot stove and gets burnt. Stupid, not courageous. "Donald, you cannot run through a stone wall headfirst." Donald runs through a stone wall headfirst, gets paralyzed from the neck down. Stupid, not courageous. It is rule-breaking for the purpose of rule-breaking that James finds courageous in Trump. That is stupid. 5. Sometimes, there is wisdom is rules, sometimes there is morality. "Thou shalt not kill." is a rule, something we are all told we "can't do." Donald kills. That is immoral as well as stupid and is frequently cowardly, the ultimate in bullying. 6. "We need that in a president." We must not have that in a president. James did not want that in President Harry Truman. WEIRD.]
We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.”
[That is surpassingly weird. Anarchic, narcissistic, amoral, frequently immoral.]
I applaud Trump for being that person. Also, Donald Trump is advocating real democracy
[That is truth in that. Trump is advocating direct democracy, mob rule, "voting with our middle finger," rather than representative democracy, which the Constitution constructed. Trump does not seem to feel subject to the Constitution, it may be just another set of rules to him that were made to be broken by him and him alone. Ideas of checks and balances, separation of powers--Trump doesn't give the sense that he wants his power as president checked and balanced, that he wants governmental power separated, he gives the sense of wanting all governmental concentrated in him as president.]
in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the Talking Head class to understand.
[There is truth in that too. I don't think the Talking Head class saw this strain of the "authoritarian personality" as such and I don't think they saw it as appealing as it is in America.]
We have in this great nation, blessed by God but not uniquely blessed by God, and not chosen by God to stand ahead of other nations. . . .
[Totally right. I stand foursquare with James on that.]
we have a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules.
[Query. Besides all of the above, query: If we have all been forced to comply by the rule-making do-gooder class, how has Trump not been forced to comply?]
These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to, but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about, I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us. I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point, and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit. That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying, mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion, but that’s the kernel of it. I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something. Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
After reading it through this morning and beginning to write I was struck by how schizoid it was. As I think back on it now it strikes me as even more schizoid. It really is like two posts and the halves written by different people. And yet, it is not even paragraphed. There is no compositional transition. Haven't encountered that much. I have written some long paragraphs and almost always go back and break them up even if there really is no natural break, just as convenience to the reader. And I excerpted James' post! I didn't publish the whole thing. But it is not just a big run-on sentence or run-on paragraph. The writing is good. The thoughts flow. The thoughts flow until the break and then without a compositional break he really does undo in the second half so much of the first half. It is difficult to reconcile the two as part of one man's thought, it really is! This very long post is reduced, as I say immediately below in the draft, to making what should have been a very short point: treasure the message but kill the messenger. That really does not follow!
.......................................................
This is from Bill James, baseball analytics pioneer. It is sic, there really are no paragraphs. I have underlined the transition and bolded his main points.
Mr. James has important things to say about Trump's appeal which he styles in the alternative as "Trump supporters," the "morons" of the first half, and James says in the second half that he wishes to speak "for Donald Trump or at least Trump's supporters," the "morons." Which is odd. James point devolves to this: applaud the message, despise the messenger. Which is odd.
Trump, as in Rump.
Trump, As In Rump Let me begin by telling you, if the title does not make this clear enough, what I think about Donald Trump. I stress that I am not trying to tell you what YOU should think about The Donald; I am merely telling you what I think, how I react to him. I have despised Donald Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes President. Of all of the people who are running for President or have now dropped out of the race, Donald Trump is absolutely the last one that I would vote for. I could summarize the reasons for this in five bullet points: (1) I believe that Trump is more interested in what is good for Donald Trump than in what is good for America, not that the same could not be said about many of the other candidates, but it seems to me that this has to be more of a concern in the case of a man who has spent 30 years plastering his name to everything he could put his name on, (2) I don’t think Trump’s background in business prepares him for the challenges of the Presidency, (3) I think Trump’s hard-ass approach to problems, in the Presidency, would be very dangerous for our nation, and might have terrible consequences for all of us, (4) I dislike self-promotion. I intensely dislike self-promotion. Donald Trump is the nation’s most notorious self-promoter—and was, before he decided to run for President. (5) I don’t believe that Trump is sincere in 99% of what he says. I think almost everything he says is either an outright lie, or something he is merely saying because it is convenient for him at the moment. We haven’t had a President since Harry Truman who mocked people, a President who was openly rude and vulgar, and I am not anxious to bring that back to the oval office. Also, although I stress that I don’t know, I doubt that Trump is likely to win the election. I would like to see the Republicans nominate somebody who could actually win, not that I necessarily am going to vote for him; I would just like to have better options, just as I would like to have better options in buying an automobile or a gallon of milk....I don’t think that Trump can win, frankly, because I don’t think there are enough morons to elect him. A certain percentage of the American public is just morons; that’s the way it is. When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the “lead” under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons. I hope we will; I hope Trump will lose because I hope that he runs out of morons to vote for him...Now, having said all of that, having hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage;
[Sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that pass. Trump is a bully and a bully is not courageous.]
not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating. I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think that Donald Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Donald Trump has had the courage to say things and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that, in a President.
[1. James conflates courageous and outrageous. It is not courageous to insult John McCain, Megyn Kelly, the handicapped, or Mexicans, it is outrageous. James rebukes Harry Truman for mocking people but finds "courage" in Donald Trump's mocking. Weird. 2. James equates courage with rule-breaking, "doing things people tell him he can't do." There can be courage in rule-breaking, courage even in insulting, if those you insult are more powerful and if you knowingly accept the consequences but to insult the less powerful is mere bullying. 3. James approves of this Trumpian "courage," elevating it over wisdom. Not every act of this kind of courage is wise: "Donald, you CAN'T touch a hot stove." Donald touches a hot stove and gets burnt. Stupid, not courageous. "Donald, you cannot run through a stone wall headfirst." Donald runs through a stone wall headfirst, gets paralyzed from the neck down. Stupid, not courageous. It is rule-breaking for the purpose of rule-breaking that James finds courageous in Trump. That is stupid. 5. Sometimes, there is wisdom is rules, sometimes there is morality. "Thou shalt not kill." is a rule, something we are all told we "can't do." Donald kills. That is immoral as well as stupid and is frequently cowardly, the ultimate in bullying. 6. "We need that in a president." We must not have that in a president. James did not want that in President Harry Truman. WEIRD.]
We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.”
[That is surpassingly weird. Anarchic, narcissistic, amoral, frequently immoral.]
I applaud Trump for being that person. Also, Donald Trump is advocating real democracy
[That is truth in that. Trump is advocating direct democracy, mob rule, "voting with our middle finger," rather than representative democracy, which the Constitution constructed. Trump does not seem to feel subject to the Constitution, it may be just another set of rules to him that were made to be broken by him and him alone. Ideas of checks and balances, separation of powers--Trump doesn't give the sense that he wants his power as president checked and balanced, that he wants governmental power separated, he gives the sense of wanting all governmental concentrated in him as president.]
in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the Talking Head class to understand.
[There is truth in that too. I don't think the Talking Head class saw this strain of the "authoritarian personality" as such and I don't think they saw it as appealing as it is in America.]
We have in this great nation, blessed by God but not uniquely blessed by God, and not chosen by God to stand ahead of other nations. . . .
[Totally right. I stand foursquare with James on that.]
we have a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules.
[Query. Besides all of the above, query: If we have all been forced to comply by the rule-making do-gooder class, how has Trump not been forced to comply?]
These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to, but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about, I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us. I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point, and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit. That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying, mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion, but that’s the kernel of it. I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something. Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
