How we play this game: I say something Trump has done. You answer: Good Trump. or Bad Trump.
Close the southern border. Good Trump.
Send an immigrant, without proof of criminal behavior or due process, to horrific Salvadorian prison. Bad Trump.
Prevent biological males from competing in female athletics. Good Trump.
Abandoning Ukraine to Russian terror. Bad Trump.
Supporting Israel in war against Hamas. Good Trump.
Surrendering himself to narcissistic grandiosity, manic impulsivity, disconnect from reality. Bad Trump.
Combating antisemitism and anti-Christianity. Good Trump.
Weaponizing DOJ for revenge against his personal enemies. Bad Trump.
Aligning Israel and Sunni states against an aggressive Iran. Good Trump..
Recklessly eliminating agencies which provide desperately needed humanitarian aid. Bad Trump.
Assertively eliminating waste and fraud in a bloated government. Good Trump.
Crowning himself as King-Dictator and displacing the dispersion of powers, the role of judiciary, and the autonomy of agencies like the Fed. Bad Trump.
Stopping, forcefully, or at least pausing, if not reversing, the advance of Cultural Progressivism (Marxist/Freudian) through our higher institutions. Good Trump.
Speaking of others, anyone who opposes him, with contempt, without decency or respect. Bad Trump.
Aggressively engage China as our global adversary. Good Trump.
Allow TikTok to continue despite legislation and harm to our society. Bad Trump
Voicing the rage of the underclass. Good Trump.
Enacting tax policy that favors the rich, investor class. Bad Trump
Defending traditional religious freedoms and values around vulnerable life, gender, marriage. Good Trump.
Disrupting the entire global economy with contradictory, irrational tariff decisions. Bad Trump.
Recognizing the emergent, multipolar world order and requiring a fair share from our allies. Good Trump.
Alienating valued allies with tariff policy and antagonistic, xenophobic, arrogant postures. Bad Trump.
Firmly addressing trade and financial deficits. Good Trump.
Impulsively, erratically, emotionally making global decisions without coherence, foresight, study. Bad Trump.
That makes 12 good and 12 bad. Have we ever had such a convoluted, complex, dizzying leader?
Democrats enjoy a simplistic, indignant, apoplectic rage at Trump as pure evil.
Trumpians enjoy an equally simplistic dismissal of the negatives and buy into his self-adulation.
He can be understood as the Great Anti-Liberal, in two distinct ways.
On the negative side, he is a megalomaniac crypto-fascist who aspires to unlimited power and is systemically undermining the structures of the America-led global era since WWII: rule of law, due process, autonomy of multiple agencies, tone of respect in discourse, cooperation with allies in contest with adversaries, (mostly) open trade, humanitarian assistance to the suffering, defense of national sovereignty.
On the positive side, he is our great champion against Cultural Progressivism. (Here I prefer to maintain the positive senses of "liberalism" and use "progressivism" as a pejorative.) In policy he has forcefully defended traditional religious values of the dignity of the person (however powerless), sexuality, religious freedom, marriage, and other. He has done this while his personal deportment is despicably transgressive.
We live in interesting times!
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