Follow us on Instagram
Try our daily mini crossword
Play our latest news quiz
Download our new app on iOS/Android!

Trump — more nuanced than nefarious

Let me state this outright so that there is no confusion. No, I don’t think Mexicans are rapists. No, I don’t support misogyny. No, I don’t think a large concrete wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is a sound appropriation of federal funds. And yes, I believe Obama is a legal U.S. citizen. Yet, for some reason, I find it hard to hate Donald Trump. In fact, I find his success fascinating, and a recent piece in The New York Times gave me a newfound appreciation for the man behind the persona.

ADVERTISEMENT

As much as I try to fight against my implicit biases, there is always that gut feeling I get when I see a new candidate emerge from the Republican field. It’s the feeling I got anytime Michele Bachmann went off about some religious association between hurricanes and gay rights, or when Rick Perry played the Texas Cowboy persona with his gun stance. But for some reason, I don't have that feeling when I see Trump. Trump is different.

I don’t need to fight that thought of “here we go again” every time he appears on TV. I have an uneasy feeling, sure. But I liken the feeling to having to deal with my racist grandfather. He was a kind person and I know he meant well, but sometimes he just sort of slipped up. Deep down, offending people wasn’t his main objective. Sometimes, I just had to remind him that it wasn’t appropriate to talk about people or cultures that way anymore. That’s the sort of feeling I get with good ol’ Donald. I’m sure that sounds quite condescending, but I don’t mean it to be. The amazing thing I’m realizing is that despite his stubborn racism and antiquated views, I don’t hate the guy as much as I should.

The reasons I have to dislike Trump are extensive. He made overtly misogynistic comments about Megyn Kelly after the first primary debate (and countless other times). He likens illegal immigrants to criminals and rapists. He criticized John McCain for being a war hero, commenting, “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” That was tasteless. He was the head of the “birther” movement against Obama’s legal citizenship. The list goes on.

But the key observation here is that his criticisms don’t come with a party tag. He insulted two major figureheads of conservative, right-wing America. Trump isn’t playing by typical party rules. Trump is just a guy who says what’s on his mind, and his views happen to align more with the right than the left. It isn’t a “right vs. left” debate with him. It’s an “everybody vs. Donald” debate.

As Scott Alexander, from the blog Slate Star Codex, covered extensively in his post last year, political party bias and belief affiliation is one of the strongest forms of in-group/out-group division and leads to the some of the worst instances of discrimination (even more so than race). As much as I fight against it, I can’t help but stigmatize somebody when I identify him or her as a member of the gun-toting, bible-loving, Fox-News-watching religious right. But Trump isn’t part of that group, not in the slightest. He doesn’t care about insulting Megyn Kelly or John McCain or George W. Bush or any Republican figurehead. He even boycotted Fox News! He doesn’t conform to my stereotypes of a modern conservative candidate and thus, my pent-up stigmatization cannot and does not apply.

Left without a mold to fit Trump, I was left curious. The Times piece filled in a lot of what I was wondering about Trump, though one can hardly call the Times an unbiased source. If I had to sum up what I think of Trump now, I’d say he seems like an audacious, yet well-intentioned old man with a large ego, a lot of money and very low self-esteem. Not a shining endorsement by any means, but not a condemnation either.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sure, he’s coarse, sexist and uncomfortably racist, but he’s honest. I’m not saying his honesty should justify everything else. But it’s rare, very rare. It’s a virtue that is so pervasively absent from American politics that it’s astonishingly refreshing to see it from anybody, even from Trump. When you see a new tweet from @realDonaldTrump, you know it’s not the result of a focus group’s attempt to win swing votes. According to the Times,“‘I do focus groups,’ [Trump] said, pressing both thumbs against his forehead, ‘right here.’”He treats everybody equally (in the most unpleasant sort of way) and that’s really admirable for any candidate. Nobody is safe from his punches when he enters the ring.

Will I ultimately end up voting for Trump? Doubtful. When it comes down to it, I just disagree with him on too many issues. As a candidate, Trump is the opposite of what I would vote for — smaller government, lower taxes, harsher immigration laws. But as a politician, Trump is something that I really like. Using his fortune and celebrity status, he has, to some small extent, managed to transcend partisan politics. He doesn’t side with anybody just for the sake of having a side.

I don’t like that he’s rude, stubborn, racist, sexist and dismissive. But I love that he is his own candidate. With billions of dollars, Trump noted, “I don’t need anybody’s money, I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.” Crass? As always. But in the age of corporate and partisan-funded campaigns, that’s the sort of populist stance you’d expect from someone like Bernie Sanders.

ChristianWawrzonek is a computer science major from Pittsburgh, Pa. He can be reached atcjw5@princeton.edu.

Subscribe
Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »