Matt,
It’s hard to know where to begin with this. Let’s start with your analogies, both of which amount to the same: personality doesn’t matter, skill does. This presumes Trump was more skillful than his opponents. You present the following reasons why this is the case: strong economy, energy independence, foreign policy, judicial appointments, criminal justice reform.
First: None of Trump’s “skill” in these matters could have been demonstrated in 2015. You said you voted for him three times, so you voted for him the first time. Despite Trump being a “rude self-absorbed jerk” who didn’t “embody the virtues” you’d want your son to emulate, you voted for him. We can only guess then, that you surmised Trump’s surgical skills in other ways. His real estate dealings? His reality TV show prowess? Trump University? Perhaps just because you're a Republican? Dare I wonder if you didn't want a female president? I can only speculate, but I'll grant you the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps his rhetoric suggested he would be the change needed; and so on that first election, you took a gamble.
Now, for the second election, we can address your claims. The first, that Trump built a strong economy, is dubious. Trump inherited a strong economy. The second, that Trump made us “energy independent,” is also not astute. A shale boom beginning in 2005 led to a steady decline in net energy imports. There was no “suddenly” about it; by the time President Trump took office in 2017, U.S. net energy imports had fallen 75% from the 2005 level.
Foreign policy: I’ll pick just one thing you mentioned for brevity: the impact of the Abraham Accords is unclear. It’s arguable that by normalizing / codifying Israel’s occupation of Palestine, they contributed to Oct 7.
And your position on Trump’s judicial appointments is ambiguous. Who was “inventing” the law? You says “many of (Trump’s appointees) were originalist judges” as criteria for you accedence. If originalist views are based on the understanding of the Constitution and its amendments when they were ratified, read retired conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig’s scathing amicus brief against the Supreme Court allowing Trump to even run in 2024. Originalism when it suits an agenda is not originalism. Ask Scalia.
Criminal justice reform: fair enough.
Speaking of the 2024 election, this would now be your third vote for Trump, and this was post-Jan 6th. It was also post-2020’s “Big Lie” that the election was “stolen”. So you were now voting for someone who arguably incentivized and certainly defended a riot on the Capitol that injured some 174 police officers and included urination and defecation on the desks of government officials. You were voting for a candidate who lied endlessly that the election was rigged and he really won, despite all of his own stacked courts throwing out the claims. You had to overlook the multiple cases against him, the civil trial that found him liable for sexual assault, the campaign finance violation during his payoff of a porn star. You had to overlook (or excuse, or justify, or deny) his convictions for fraud. Now your “skilled surgeon” is being sued for malpractice. Was it just “law fare?” I submit it’s likely you had to engage in some conspiracy thinking, cognitive dissonance, implicit bias, or some combination of all three, to justify your vote.
Matt, you say you wanted someone who was not going to just be “managing the decline” of the United States but “reversing course” on that decline. You cite “rising crime, declining education, and an obsession with ideological purity over practical governance,” ostensibly as evidence. The first is wrong, the second is complex, and the third is mushy and cultural. But there are many other forms of decline. Income inequality rivaling the 1930s has given rise to faux populists like Trump, whose nationalistic, protectionist policies don’t historically lead to good places. Read Ray Dalio’s “The Changing World Order” for an erudite, in-depth look at this. Trump governs as a patrimonialist, stocking his cabinet with loyalists who are no more “skilled surgeons” than he is, but, to extend your analogy, the random orderlies, nurses, and admins filling out the hospital. Family, personal allegiances, and patron-client relations are his M.O., and no governing style is more closely related to corruption and autocracy than patrimonialism. (Putin would agree). Finally, Trump’s disavowal of climate change and commitment to fossil fuels has to be the biggest, most glaring sign of them all that he’s not “reversing course” on anything when it comes to humanity’s greatest existential crises. He’s pushing down on the throttle instead.
I don’t doubt you see yourself as “a thoughtful, sincere, and generous family man,” Matt. I feel the same way about myself. But it strikes me that your “woe is me / you won’t like me because I voted for Trump” is disingenuous. So are your repeated references to his lack of good character. These are distractions from the more substantive issues, because you cherry pick a few debatable reasons for voting for him while omitting many pressing issues of our time. The “choose the hero you need” reference to Batman is cringe. Your criteria don’t hold up. And the criteria you excuse, Trump’s “arrogance, lack of humility, and bombastic personality” are more than just some simple personality quirks you can brush aside because of his supposed other qualities. They amount to a governing style, they inform policy, they inform the world of what the United States is, and they inform your little boy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2023/05/02/us-energy-independence-soars-to-highest-levels-in-over-70-years/
https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/assessing-the-abraham-accords-three-years-on/
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/299107/20240129171610494_23-719_Amici%20Brief.pdf
