Taking the Bad with the Good

At the website The New Neo, someone anonymously writes about the Trump presidency and his controversial personal style. They argue, and I'm inclined to agree, that Trump couldn't get done what he's accomplished with a smoother, less abrasive style. The author's conclusion:

The main reason Trump is hated is not his style. It is what he has done and what he promises to do. That the package “Donald Trump” also contains a style most people – including many of his supporters – find abrasive and harsh is a fact. But Trump’s style is inextricably linked, I believe, with his ability to be bold in his judicial appointments, his foreign policy, and his criticism of a press that had become a Pravda-like Democratic organ long before he came on the scene.

I can imagine a Republican candidate who might have done all of that and yet retained a smooth and relatively polite and erudite style, and yet would also have managed to defeat Hillary Clinton (that last bit is all-important, because without that it would be moot). And although such a combination of traits in one person isn’t literally impossible, it is so unlikely that I don’t think it’s realistic to have expected such a person to have come along at just the right juncture in 2016.

A gentleman (or gentlewoman) on the right probably would not survive this particular political climate, and that fact way predated Trump. In fact, at this point, a gentleman or gentlewoman on the left doesn’t seem to have much chance of surviving either.

Modern politics is no game for the genteel. What people don't like about Trump is what they don't like about New Yorkers generally, the short fuse, the chip on the shoulder and the in-your-face attitude. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.