Going beyond the Self-Evident

The screen shot above is part of one of billions of interactions that occurred today on the internet.  It's not a bit deal, but it has given me food for reflection all day, and I want to share some of those reflections.  

There are three clauses in that interaction, and I want to discuss each of them, but I will save the first one, about the democrats, for last.

I have known Dan Krotz for about twenty years, since he owned a bookstore from which I bought and then sold and then often re-bought many years.  He's a minor but rather brilliant author, and someone for whom I have much respect.  Indeed, the cover photo on his Facebook  page is one I took of a book he wrote  that I bought and have recommended to many. And Dan said that Trump is simply and openly a pig.  That doesn't seem too remarkable, does it?  And yet, in the history of the world, it's been a rare thing that someone can call the leader of one of the world's most powerful nation a pig with no fear of retribution.  When Trump was elected, I remember being told by many friends that all our rights would be taken away, even that I perhaps should get a burner phone.  But in fact the times I have personally been under scrutiny and censorship by the government was under democratic regimes.  Dan said that without even getting any dislikes on Facebook.  (It's a good thing he didn't call a fat black female actress a pig, because then he would have been put in social media jail or banned for life. (At least he would were he a conservative comedian.) 

Thinking about that remark, I am struck by how much Dan's remark about Trump resembles some of the things Trump says on Twitter about people he dislikes.  Yet, somehow, I still respect Dan.

Now, of course, there are things about Dan's statement that are self-evident.  I mean, I have yet to forgive Trump for destroying the facade of Bonwit-Teller.  He's often crass, calling people things like 'pig'. And yes, there is, I'm aware, corruption in the Trump administration.  But, alas, I'm afraid that is not unusual.  Mr. Obama is somehow now a poster child for good presidenst, but I rented an apartment from the Chicago Democratic Party back in the 1960's when the Johnson administration was tapping my phone , and when somehow my building escaped enforcement of the Chicago building code.  I doubt things have changed much since. (And, if I may borrow a phrase from the democrats' nominee for likely the true leader of the nation, 'are you aware that there's a perception' that people around some politicians are likely to commit suicide?)

So, yes. Trump is a pig. His faults are pretty self-evident.  But, the alternative, about which Dan sadly agrees, the democrats and their program to dismantle western civilization, is carefully covered in banal feel-good phrases like hope and light and love.  If putting up with Trump's self-evident piggishness for another four years will delay the arrival of the full-on Animal Farm, I'm willing to risk it.

Yup.  Trump's a self-evident pig, and he hasn't been given an Nobel Peace Prize.  But I would suggest that it is not enough to just rely on the self-evident appearances of any situation, it is not enough to be seduced by slick intentions, but look for results.  I'm fond of fewer wars.