[Magdalen] Tonight's debate

[Sally Davies]

I wish I had a better sense of why Trump wants the White House.

- Crazy ego? Surely there are other ways to get one's jollies that are less
demanding, exhausting and stressful - recalling those pictures showing how
Obama has aged over his two terms

- Business corruption? Surely his business dealings will be intensely
watched once he achieves power, at which point his ship of state will leak
like a sieve

- Principles? A more obviously cynical and manipulative politician has
never trodden the boards, unless it's Ted Cruz. I used to believe that an
unprincipled leader was less dangerous in practice than an ideologue,
because compromise and negotiation would occur and bitter divides be
avoided; but recent South African history has changed my mind on that. Both
are equally bad for the nation.

- Hubris? That's the only one that makes sense to me. An unconscious drive
to self destruct akin to that of the Nazis in Germany, the Tsar of Russia,
or Saddam Hussein.

Sigh. It's a depressing spectacle, but might drive people who love
God, regardless of their party position, to pray hard and earnestly for the
nation. There's no use is saying "God Bless America" a million times (as
everyone seems to do over there) without also asking what God would have
us do, to make that blessing a reality. Without that, it's just smug
exceptionalism.

As South Africans, we've had our own dealings with a sense of being special
and exceptional, the "Rainbow Nation" and so forth over the past couple of
decades, and it's not working out very well for us right now.

Sally D








On Friday, 12 February 2016, M J _Mike_ Logsdon <mjl at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> In terms of Trump winning (and every day it gets both more AND less
> likely), I've already tried convincing myself that getting into the Oval
> Office and encountering how much of what he wants to do is either
> impossible or illegal, will make for a calmer and more reasonable Trump.
> But maybe not.
>
> I wonder what the GOP'ers on the SCOTUS think about the Trump
> possibility.  Not that they'd necessarily disagree with him, but they'd be
> hit up with an infinitude of additional cases as a result.
>