Beyond the bluster, insurgent GOP candidate makes some points
By Nathaniel Smith, Columnist, The Times
Donald Trump has many gifts: wealth (thanks to an initial hand from his multimillionaire father), fame, stage presence, attractiveness to voters, and the ability to alienate most of the GOP political establishment.
Although his self-aggrandizement, lack of consideration for individuals, prejudice against whole groups of people, and ignorance of public issues and foreign policy are truly shocking, that does not mean everything he says is wrong. We should not allow guilt by association to drag down all his positions on the issues.
Despite his demeaning attitude toward women, he mostly supports Planned Parenthood and is not obsessed with other people’s abortions.
He appears to respect the Founders’ concept of separation of church and state.
He elevates the concerns of working people above those of the 1% and supports federal programs like Medicaid and Social Security that benefit ordinary citizens.
Like many of all political persuasions, he has attacked insufficiently unregulated international trade deals and job outsourcing as causes of working class economic decline in this country. That issue splits both parties but I happen to agree with him.
He repudiates the influence of corporate money and lobbying groups that hold such vast power in Washington.
He wants to prevent corporate defection from the US and the resulting decline in government resources.
He might well, as originally claimed, be “neutral” in trying to end the intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, which has disabled US Mid East policy for generations.
He said what most Americans think about the lies that got the US into interminable warfare in Iraq and dares to remember that 9/11 did not happen when a Democrat was president.
He believes in increasing (and this year has increased) the number of Americans who pay political attention and vote. Who (except those who promote discriminatory Voter ID requirements, which our state mercifully escaped) can argue with that?
This doesn’t mean I look forward to a President Trump, far from it. But the Trump phenomenon can help us remember that our government is not one of personalities but one of laws and a long-term struggle to advance the common good.
