This page was created on 2024-10-24, shortly before the election to find the next post-Biden POTUS. My main purpose was to give some pointers to literature, and to discuss (a) how all too many have an all too one-sided and misleading image of Donald Trump, (b) how my own image has changed to something more nuanced.
In this, I was torn between various decisions, including whether to create a page with a more narrow scope and whether I should create an entire Trump category—and found myself in the bind that (a) I cannot make an informed decision before the election but (b) really want to publish the main discussion before said election. (If Trump regains office, the likelihood that there will be enough material to justify a new category is considerably higher than if he fails.)
As a compromise, and factoring in how much easier it is to add than to remove a category, I went with a more generic single page for now. However, the original contents will be more specific than a generic page calls for.
Removing a category, with the setup that I use, is easy from a technical point of view. However, I also have to consider factors like preservation of external links and how to ensure some type of redirection that does not leave other parties with link rot or highly misleading links. (A problem, sadly, that most websites ignore, with the effect that link rot can occur even the contents linked-to are still available.)
However, this page will not contain any and all new mentions of Trump, as other circumstances might make another placement relevant. It will certainly not be adapted to include the very many old mentions, for which I suggest using a search service on this site and my old Wordpress blog. A separate page deals with the assassination attempt(s) on Trump. Frequent mentions have been made in my various and sundry category on politics. (Some other links to past contents are made below, but these form a very small subset of the overall.)
While I by no means consider Trump a perfect POTUS, he did well relative the standards of the office that have applied since no later than Kennedy, and he is likely the second “least bad” within my own life time, trailing only Reagan—and “least bad”, “the lesser of two evils”, or a similar take, is realistically the best that we can hope for. (And, no, Reagan was not perfect either.)
My lifetime contains, almost to the day, two years of Ford, and I admit to not being able to judge his performance at all. However, in the combination of special circumstances and length of time involved, this might not matter much.
Looking past my own lifetime, I also often lack enough insight for fair comparisons. Sometimes, I have it (Johnson, e.g., was a very poor choice); sometimes, I do not (e.g. Eisenhower).
Vice presidents, mentioned below, are naturally even harder to judge.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, shows every sign of being the same type of, or an even worse, disaster as/than Joe Biden is: She proposes far-Left policies, appears to have no grasp at all of many central topics, including Economics, shows great signs of general incompetence, and is otherwise problematic. Indeed, she is a strong candidate for worst vice president within my own lifetime—despite the low mark set by Biden under Obama. Indeed, her political pre-VP record is very dubious. Indeed, her record of own accomplishment, in general, is unimpressive (by a POTUS standard).
Moreover, the critical point of the election is that the far-Left takeover and insanities, in particular various variations on the “woke” theme, must be stopped. For instance (!), freedom of speech must be safe-guarded and restored; Leftist “lawfare” must be stopped; the turning of schools and colleges into tools for indoctrinating future generations into far-Left drones, and at the cost of educational quality, must be stopped and reversed; the thinning of electoral integrity must be stopped and reversed; attempts to destroy the integrity of the SCOTUS must be blocked; hiring/promoting/appointing by sex or race instead of suitability must be stopped; individuals must be viewed as individuals and not just be defined by race, sex, sexual orientation, whatnot; ...
(Not to mention the many other issues of another character where Trump is likely to be a far lesser evil or, just maybe, a good, including the economy and immigration.)
Correspondingly, it is vital that Trump wins—and that the Republicans do well in the parallel elections for Congress and the general “down-ballot”.
In the early days of Trump’s 2016 candidacy, my own impressions of him were very much dominated by what media pumped out—and to a degree that I did not myself realize, at the time.
My own writings from that time include the misguided idea that Bernie Sanders was a lesser evil (despite my strong stance on topics like Libertarianism and free markets, and despite knowing how far apart Sanders and I were on such topics), largely based on the media portrayal/distortions of Trump’s personality, priorities, competence level, whatnot. (Both Trump and Sanders, however, were lesser evils than Hillary—both in my estimate then and my estimate today.) In some text, I even used a formulation along the lines of Trump appearing to be “off his meds”.
Some outright pieces of disinformation (of a more factual character) had also made their way to me, including, repeatedly, that Trump would have inherited billions from his father and would be a billionaire by dint of that. (Sometimes, accompanied by a claim that made me more sceptical—that he would have less money now than when he inherited those billions.) In reality, he does appear to have been given a major leg up by his father, but he does also appear to have earned the clear majority of his money through own business efforts and to outshine his father in terms of success. (I am not aware of enough details to be more specific, but the step from millionaire to billionaire was his.)
Regardless of respective (un)truthfulness, claims like “Trump is evil”, “Trump is racist”, etc., move on a different level than claims of a factual character, e.g. “Trump inherited his billions”, “Trump conspires with Putin”.
Since then, my estimate has changed for two major reasons:
Firstly, the proof of the pudding is in the eating (as the saying properly goes). Whatever impression Trump might have given in advance, he did reasonably well in office—especially, when considering what uphill battle he had to fight because of RINOs, recalcitrant civil servants, disingenuous impeachments, and similar. (See excursion for a very brief discussion of his presidency.) I note, in particular, that he did not start any wars, try to establish a dictatorship, or commit any other of the extreme acts predicted by some Leftist defamers. (On the contrary, anti-democratic attempts during his previous presidency came from the Democrats and have been continued during the Biden presidency—something well worth noting in light of renewed defamation on such points by Harris et al. during the 2024 campaigns.)
Secondly, I have accumulated considerable readings from sources not dominated by the Left, including various pro-Republican news sources and Trump himself (also see a later discussion on literature). I have heard both sides of the story, these sides are very different, and it is foolish to judge based on only one side—but exactly this is what those who only hear what Leftist media proclaim end up doing. (Which is not to say that the pro-Trump sources would automatically and necessarily be more truthful, notwithstanding that political lies, in my experience, is the staple of the Left. The point is that both sides must be heard—and this applies in general, not just to pro-/anti-Trump stances, and not just to politics.)
I have read at least the following works of note regarding or by Trump:
The list is based on a quick search of my hard drive and is likely incomplete.
It does not include several books around COVID-issues and other books that are more tangentially Trump-related.
Anti:
A higher Loyalty: See an old Wordpress discussion.
Fire and Fury: See an old Wordpress discussion.
Pro:
Great Again / How to Fix Our Crippled America: Trump’s own perspective on various issues, including lengthy discussions of exactly how his opinions have been distorted by mainstream media. Two particularly notable points is that (a) he proclaims himself pro immigration (while being anti illegal immigration), (b) his publicity oriented approach gives a plausible explanation for many of the controversial things that he actually has said—be outrageous and get free publicity. (Whether this strategy does more good than harm is another question, but it does put many of his claims in a very different light.)
Another interesting point that might have been here or might have been in “Understanding Trump” (cf. below), is the implication that many other statements must be understood in a context that might not be present in e.g. a public speech (or, worse, where the context that is present is removed by hostile or incompetent media when reported). For instance, something that I perceived as unrealistic and problematic, in the early days, was Trump’s stubborn claim that the Mexicans would pay for “the wall”. The impression created was that he would bill the Mexican government and enforce payment, or some variation of the same; however, actual potential means to get those payments included instituting or raising fees for this-and-that relating to border crossings and whatnots. A claim like “Mexico will pay for the wall!” might then, in the mouth of a career politician, amount to “We will finance the wall by leveraging fee structures on the considerable value that we bring to Mexico and the Mexican people through international trade, travel, and cooperation.” or some such.
There appears to be at least two versions of this book, one from before the 2016 election, another from after it. I have read the latter.
Understanding Trump: A thorough discussion of many aspects of Trump, his motivations, and behaviors, whatnot, by Newt Gingrich (who is, of course, very much a Republican insider). The focus, as might be expected from the title, is on how to correctly understand Trump, how his critics simply would not understand him, and similar. This includes e.g. how much of Trump must be understood from the perspective of a results-oriented businessman and an entrepreneur—not from the perspective of a career politician. Likewise, from the perspective of a political outsider—not an insider. Etc. (Some of these points might be less relevant to the understanding held by the man on the street and more to the understanding held by the “establishment” and the later reactions of the “establishment” to Trump.)
Exonerated: A thorough account by Dan Bongino of specifically the events around the infamous-as-a-failure “Russiagate” investigations, how they arose, how the situation got out of hand, what little factual background there was to them, and similar—up to and including an influence from the Hillary campaign. On the downside, portions of the book are speculative, but less so than much of the investigations and the reporting on the investigations. This book is particularly significant through the great influence the related accusations had on the public opinion of Trump—and a sign of what care must be taken when interpreting later accusations, acts of lawfare, and similar against Trump. It certainly has a different take on Comey and the Comey–Trump relationship than “A Higher Loyalty”, authored by Comey, himself, does.
While my current take is on Trump, the below sites bring more general value to those who want to see more than one side of many other issues. Indeed, by their nature, the presence of new Trump material will depend strongly on the degree to which he remains in the spotlight. (The Telegraph, e.g., has made a great number of mentions of both Trump and Harris during the current end-phase of the 2024 campaigns, which is highly newsworthy even in the U.K., but will foreseeable reduce the focus on U.S. politics to normal levels, once things have settled.) Older material will typically still be available and searchable, however.
I do not give sources with a negative take on Trump (and/or that otherwise stick to the typical Leftist angles) for the simple reason that they are so easy to find.
Two definitely useful sources are:
The U.K. Telegraphe, which while not strictly pro-Trump is not anti- either, is one of the few newspapers that are not Left-dominated, and provides an outsider’s perspective and distance on U.S. issues.
The U.S. Fox newse, which has a strong pro-Trump, anti-Biden/-Harris position.
From what I can tell, the extreme aversion that some show against Fox is based more on “has the wrong opinions” than anything else. (With reservations for what might be different on TV relative the texts published on the website.) While being a bit lowbrow in terms of style of writing and headlines, the actual take on various issues is no worse than in Leftist news sources—it just goes in the other direction in terms of political leanings. Indeed, my first reaction when I (as a European and long before actual own exposure) became aware of Fox, and the great criticisms so often raised against it, was that Fox was accused of doing nothing more than what Leftist media had been doing on a large scale for decades.
Among the potentially interesting, often more (journalistically) independent, strongly Republican, and/or more editorial, we have e.g.:
The Federaliste
PJ Mediae
Red Statee
Townhalle
Breitbarte
The Gateway Pundite
WNDe
I have not visited most of these sites in years, and others only on rare occasions during these years, simply because I have prioritized other readings and other work more highly. The implication is that I cannot guarantee the same value at the time of writing as at the time of my familiarity, do not necessarily remember what site provided what content, etc.
Addendum: Because of the 2024 election, I have to some degree revisited these sites again after the original publication. The Federalist stands out for depth and quality (in politics and adjacent areas), I recommend it highly, have re-added it to my own standard readings, and have moved it to the top of the above list (originally, randomly at third; the order of other entries carries no meaning).
In the specific area of COVID, Brownstonee is notable. Brownstone is/was likely Trump-critical on the balance, because (cf. below) he did drop the ball on COVID, but it can give much information on that “other side” with regard to the most significant issue family during large parts of the Trump and Biden presidencies, including regarding COVID as such, the horrifying economic and other consequences of the COVID-countermeasures, and the enormous problems with suppression of free speech and free science with regard to COVID (and more generally).
I will not attempt to give a complete run-down—if in doubt, because of the additional research needed and the length of page that would result.
However, I note e.g. that the pre-COVID economy was flowering, that he managed to push some tax cuts, that he at least attempted to reduce excessive regulations, and that, to a large part due to his efforts, the situation around Israel and around various Arab nations was among the most promising that it has been within my lifetime. Biden? Rather the opposite. Ditto Harris, both as VP and in terms of what can be predicted based on her current campaign and opinions. (But I caution that the VP is a very secondary figure to the POTUS, and that her influence on the Biden administration is/was limited.)
He did drop the ball on COVID, but Biden did even worse, and Trump was working from a state of lesser knowledge and was fed poor advice from, or was outright misled by, those who should have known better. (Note Birx’s later self-incriminations. The “lesser knowledge”, of course, arises through how new COVID was and how many early question marks existed—not through any particular expertise of Biden’s.) To boot, it appears that he was quicker to catch on to how misguided early policy was than most international counterparts (including Merkel/Scholz in Germany, where I live).
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