I am trying to find the good in the man who occupies the White House, but who does not seem to occupy the same world as many of us ! He is, and this piece here shall be, a continuing reminder, a metaphorical, “pinned tweet”, of why the cause of this site is not only a necessary one, but a just one. For just when you thought it was safe to go back in the shower, as the Psycho, movie promo, used to say, there he is !
His latest, the assault, on the state of the State finances, a form of Robin Hood in reverse, robbing the poor to feed the rich, is but one in a series of policies and worse, pronouncements, that shall keep this site on it’s toes ! It is, indeed the manifold and myriad of pronouncements that both challenges and confirms our approach. For Trump utilises the great cherished liberties, freedom of speech and expression, to speak the unspeakable and express himself in ways we would rather were not expressed thus ! Tweets from the Twitterer in Chief shall not put us off supporting his right to make a twit of himself ! He shall have no platform here, not because we “no platform” him, we dislike that tendency if we support true liberal values, but because this is not his platform. He has the bully pulpit, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, of the power of the Presidency. Liberalism is about the understanding of where power is held, and who by, and apportioning it too, to where it is not, but is needed. But we who argue, about, the man and his work should welcome a chance to do so, with him. There is an empty chair where he could sit and argue with us anytime, if we seek the right to a shared platform for ideas !
Though very far from being a man of the arts, his book The Art of The Deal, was in reality, not from the perspective of any art form, nor from Trump, as it’s ghostwriter has made clear ! Trump, unlike Kennedy for his Profiles in Courage, is not going to win the Pulitzer prize ! But he is a man of the media and of reality TV. Reality, being the operative word, though his grasp of it increasingly lacking at times, or so it seems ! A TV star of reality TV, or similar, programme, is a man we could have at least seen as a distant cousin to the arts, entertainment and such. Yet such is not the case. No, we need see this man, thus far and surely ongoing, as neither friend of this site and what it stands for, however varied or individual the views of Liberals or Liberalism, nor foe, in that he is merely the product, and yes he is more or less a product, of a wider problem with our discourse and the state of democracy.
Watch this space…