He Fights

I have done a reasonably good job of staying clear of politics in this space, especially considering that there’s an election going on, but to totally ignore the ugly elephant in the room seems a bit gutless. So, today I will enter that swamp of horrors. In doing so I am fully aware that I will anger, disappoint, frustrate and annoy at least half of you, maybe more. I know this because there are lots of people in my life, people who I love and respect, who support a man who I find to be a loathsome embarrassment. In my desire to understand rather than be understood, I have recently asked many of them a simple question, “What is it about Donald Trump that makes you support his re-election?” The answers I have gotten have been interesting, to say the least.

First of all, almost everyone I have asked begins their answer with a disclaimer that goes something like this: Look, I know he can be a real asshole...or, Sure, he tells a lot of lies, and I wish he would get off Twitter. But then, after acknowledging his deficiencies of character, they invariably say some variation of this, “But Doug, he fights!”

I don’t think that I have ever encountered a simple declarative sentence pregnant with more mischief than...he fights. If ever there was a sentence in greater need of a prepositional phrase, I can’t imagine what it would be. He fights...is begging for clarification such as:

He fights...against what?

He fights...for whom?

He fights...on whose behalf?

He fights...to what end?

When pressed, my friends struggle to finish the sentence. “He just fights. He doesn’t take any s**t from anybody.”

When I follow up with something like, “But, what has all this fighting accomplished? Are we better off because of his fighting? Is he better off ? What has all this combativeness gotten us?”, they usually answer some versions of, “He’s got all the right enemies! He hates the same people I hate!” When I ask, “like who?”, they answer, “For one thing, the press!!” Back and forth we go.

Ok, combativeness, in and of itself, isn’t a flaw. I want a little combativeness in any President or CEO. But when it becomes the defining characteristic of who you are, fighting becomes dysfunctional. In the case of Donald Trump, I concede that my friends are entirely correct. He does fight. But, he fights everyone and everything, even himself. In pursuit of all this fighting he has been willing to demonize even casual opponents. He’s like the drunk who gets loaded and suddenly wants to take on everybody in the entire bar. I fail to see how this makes him an effective President. What it makes him is...a fighter.

As far as having the right enemies, even that is an odd selling point for a President. Do I like the press? That’s a trick question, right? Who likes the press?? Never has a profession grown so loathsome in such a short time than journalism! But is a free press my enemy? No. I might not like them, but I wouldn’t want to live in a country without a free press. Would you? Trump’s “enemy of the people” epitaph sounds like something a communist would say! 

“But Doug, he fights.” 

Yes. Yes he does. It has been the defining theme of his Presidency. Fighting. He fights the press. He fights the Democrats. He fights the Republicans. He fights his own advisors. He fights his cabinet. He fights the liberals. He would fight conservatives if there were any left. But, not surprisingly, all of this fighting hasn’t morphed its way into very much actual...policy. His famous wall remains unbuilt. Obamacare survives. Abortion is still the law of the land.

I give no President credit or blame for the economy because the economy is impossibly complex and largely immune to the small scale tinkering that most Presidents engage in. I also wouldn’t blame any President for a pandemic. Presidents don’t run local police departments, so their behavior is beyond any President’s control. But, I can’t help but think that this President’s fighting personality is now being reflected in the streets. Who, when looking at the chaos and violence in American cities, thinks that what we need as a nation is a President who fights?

I have not here made the case for his challenger. This blog isn’t about Joe Biden. This blog seeks to understand why our current President has made a virtue out of endless anger, resentment and confrontation, and why his supporters love him for it. For me, Donald Trump is exhausting. He promised winning. We got fighting.

Not the same thing.