https://www.outkickthecoverage.com/...7YKAsFCAorO8x9d58DkzjSu7T2zzjRtxMySmemxca-Tzc
“I see the following narrative from left-wing and right-wing outlets: “While Trump may not have been guilty of collusion, he surrounded himself with shady characters and that brings his judgement into question”.
What I’d like to know is who he was supposed to hire for his campaign and administration? Every mainstream conservative was against him from the beginning. One of the writers at National Review who especially enjoys calling Trump’s judgement into question considered running as an independent conservative candidate very publicly because he loathed the Trump campaign so much.
Trump had next to no Congressional backing, no support from conservative think tanks/media outlets and no options. Not one mainstream conservative would have worked for him. Who was he supposed to hire? How can the same people that are #nevertrumpers and #resisters hold this against him?
I’d be curious to get your take on this.”
I think there has been a great hope by Trump critics that he’s an awful, horrible very bad human being who is incredibly maniacal in his quest for power and that he was also diabolical in the way he got elected president. That fulfills the need of many to see Trump as an evil genius.
But I think that entire narrative is misguided.
I think Trump’s campaign wasn’t incompetent enough to enact any evil genius conspiracies. These guys can’t keep stories quiet for a day or two in the White House, yet some people think they engaged in high level espionage with Russia to change the outcome of our election and even after years of investigation and a $40 million investigation we can’t uncover it?
Come on.
If Trump had colluded with Russia it would have taken less than a day to uncover.
What’s more, and this is where I always come back on this issue, there’s no suggestion that the actual electoral votes themselves were rigged. (I mean, outside of Trump’s hamhanded allegations of voter fraud). It’s not like Russia hacked the election and changed the outcome.
Ordinary Americans went out there and voted and Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a grand total of around 80,000 voters. And do you know who these voters were who decided the election? People who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then flipped to Trump in 2016.
That’s why the entire allegation that Trump won because of racism was so absurd at its inception too. Trump won because he flipped enough Obama voters in the Midwest to change the outcome of the election and — and this is key and few talk about this — because many of the black voters who supported Obama didn’t show up to support Hillary in these Midwest states.
Why didn’t they?
One big reason is probably because she was white.
I haven’t heard anyone point out that Obama may well have beaten Romney because of his (Obama’s) race. That is, black voters who otherwise would have stayed at home came out to vote for Obama specifically because he was black in 2012. (The 2008 election wasn’t close because Obama ran a much better campaign than McCain).
If anything, the racism at play in 2016 was black to white racism, the same voters willing to vote for Obama weren’t willing to vote for Hillary. (To be fair, it’s also possible sexism was at play here as much or more than race. That is, some of these black voters may have been more likely to show up and vote for Bill Clinton than they were to show up and vote for Hillary Clinton). But the point remains pretty clear: if the same black voters show up in the Midwest in 2016 who showed up to vote for Obama in 2012, Hillary wins in 2016.
These voters didn’t flip to Trump, they just didn’t vote at all.
There have been millions of words written about Trump winning because of racism, but how many have been written about Hillary losing because of black racism?
Almost none.
Why is that? Probably because the Democratic party so desperately needs black voters to support them that they are terrified of ever discussing an issue like this.
Now, and this is key too, this doesn’t mean that white racists didn’t support Donald Trump.
They probably did. But most white racists probably already vote Republican no matter who the candidate is. (Were white racists who more likely to show up and vote for Trump than past candidates? There doesn’t seem to be any particular evidence of this).
So, yes, white racists are more likely to vote Republican, I think that’s likely true.
But I think black racists are more likely to vote Democratic. (I don’t know which way Hispanic and Asian racists are most likely to vote).
My point here is that we continue to define racism like we still live in the America of fifty years ago.
I have a wild and crazy idea that I think would fundamentally alter the way we talk about race in America today — every racial group has an equal number of racists in it. That is, Asian, Hispanic, white and black racists are all of similar percentages in the country.
The media is fixated on white to black racism because that’s the historical legacy of racism in this country, but it’s far too simplified of an equation to embrace in modern America and it alienates many from a conversation about race at the outset.
That is, when you tell a certain segment of white people that they are the bad guy, they just dial out immediately. If you told people of all races that each of their races was equally responsible for racism, I think we’d be more likely to make substantial progress.
Right now the end result is that black people are cast in this narrative as perpetual victims of racism. And so we have the same racial victimization narratives playing out over and over again. The problem is the white liberals, like Kyle Korver, embracing this narrative, however well intentioned they might be, are actually making things worse.
And instead of making any progress, we’re set in the same repetitive patterns, over and over and over again.
Okay, now back to the premise of your question.
If you look at most of the crimes that people have pleaded guilty to or been charged with in the Russia investigation, most of them have had nothing to do with the initial investigation itself, into whether or not Trump and his associates colluded with Russia.
Paul Manafort is a great example. He got hit with tax evasion for crimes he committed before the Trump investigation ever began.
And he wasn’t alone.
Many of these individuals were charged with lying to investigators. Not committing actual crimes, but just not being truthful when they were questioned.
And my question here — which is I think the crux of the Barr review of the Mueller report — is this, if there is no collusion with Russia, that is no crime occurred here, how can you be charged with obstructing justice, whether you’re the president or anyone else? Typically in order to obstruct justice there needs to be a crime you’re obstructing the justice for.
It seems to me it would be nearly impossible for any prosecutor to get an obstruction of justice charge if the underlying act being investigated — whether it was the president or anyone else — isn’t a crime as well.
Which brings me back to the Trump question we started with — I think the only way to get charged with obstructing justice when you haven’t actually committed a crime is to panic so much in the face of the investigation that you incompetently obstruct justice when all you needed to do was just to be honest.
Who are the people most likely to do this? People who aren’t as sophisticated in political circles, i.e. the people Trump had working for him.
The challenge, of course, is how comfortable do you feel being honest with investigators who you believe are on a witch hunt designed to find wrongdoing even when you’ve done nothing wrong to begin with?
And that’s where I think Trump found himself throughout the course of this investigation.
Almost all of the sins of the Trump administration — to the extent there have been any — are sins of incompetence not sins of nefarious design and evil genius intention.
That’s where I think the media has gotten Trump so wrong, they’ve assumed a level of competent evil that Trump isn’t capable of.
The Hitler comparisons some on the left wing make are ridiculous on virtually every level imaginable, but they’re particularly misguided when you consider that Hitler was, in fact, an evil genius. That is, his intentions were truly abhorrent and evil and so were his actions. He was capable of inflicting great evil on the world and he intended to inflict that great evil on the world.
I don’t think Trump is capable of inflicting great evil on the world, but, and this is key, I also don’t think Trump’s goals have ever been remotely evil either.
I think Trump’s successes and failures essentially emerge from the same place — he wants the media — and the public — to love him as much as he loves himself. Trump isn’t a white supremacist, that’s far too large of an ideology for him to embrace, he’s a Trump supremacist — he believes he’s better and more talented than everyone else that surrounds him.
Once you understand that psychological footprint, everything else about him makes sense.
And he becomes far less terrifying of a leader.
Trump’s motivations are always going to bend in the same direction — he’s going to favor the people who believe he’s a genius.
“I see the following narrative from left-wing and right-wing outlets: “While Trump may not have been guilty of collusion, he surrounded himself with shady characters and that brings his judgement into question”.
What I’d like to know is who he was supposed to hire for his campaign and administration? Every mainstream conservative was against him from the beginning. One of the writers at National Review who especially enjoys calling Trump’s judgement into question considered running as an independent conservative candidate very publicly because he loathed the Trump campaign so much.
Trump had next to no Congressional backing, no support from conservative think tanks/media outlets and no options. Not one mainstream conservative would have worked for him. Who was he supposed to hire? How can the same people that are #nevertrumpers and #resisters hold this against him?
I’d be curious to get your take on this.”
I think there has been a great hope by Trump critics that he’s an awful, horrible very bad human being who is incredibly maniacal in his quest for power and that he was also diabolical in the way he got elected president. That fulfills the need of many to see Trump as an evil genius.
But I think that entire narrative is misguided.
I think Trump’s campaign wasn’t incompetent enough to enact any evil genius conspiracies. These guys can’t keep stories quiet for a day or two in the White House, yet some people think they engaged in high level espionage with Russia to change the outcome of our election and even after years of investigation and a $40 million investigation we can’t uncover it?
Come on.
If Trump had colluded with Russia it would have taken less than a day to uncover.
What’s more, and this is where I always come back on this issue, there’s no suggestion that the actual electoral votes themselves were rigged. (I mean, outside of Trump’s hamhanded allegations of voter fraud). It’s not like Russia hacked the election and changed the outcome.
Ordinary Americans went out there and voted and Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a grand total of around 80,000 voters. And do you know who these voters were who decided the election? People who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then flipped to Trump in 2016.
That’s why the entire allegation that Trump won because of racism was so absurd at its inception too. Trump won because he flipped enough Obama voters in the Midwest to change the outcome of the election and — and this is key and few talk about this — because many of the black voters who supported Obama didn’t show up to support Hillary in these Midwest states.
Why didn’t they?
One big reason is probably because she was white.
I haven’t heard anyone point out that Obama may well have beaten Romney because of his (Obama’s) race. That is, black voters who otherwise would have stayed at home came out to vote for Obama specifically because he was black in 2012. (The 2008 election wasn’t close because Obama ran a much better campaign than McCain).
If anything, the racism at play in 2016 was black to white racism, the same voters willing to vote for Obama weren’t willing to vote for Hillary. (To be fair, it’s also possible sexism was at play here as much or more than race. That is, some of these black voters may have been more likely to show up and vote for Bill Clinton than they were to show up and vote for Hillary Clinton). But the point remains pretty clear: if the same black voters show up in the Midwest in 2016 who showed up to vote for Obama in 2012, Hillary wins in 2016.
These voters didn’t flip to Trump, they just didn’t vote at all.
There have been millions of words written about Trump winning because of racism, but how many have been written about Hillary losing because of black racism?
Almost none.
Why is that? Probably because the Democratic party so desperately needs black voters to support them that they are terrified of ever discussing an issue like this.
Now, and this is key too, this doesn’t mean that white racists didn’t support Donald Trump.
They probably did. But most white racists probably already vote Republican no matter who the candidate is. (Were white racists who more likely to show up and vote for Trump than past candidates? There doesn’t seem to be any particular evidence of this).
So, yes, white racists are more likely to vote Republican, I think that’s likely true.
But I think black racists are more likely to vote Democratic. (I don’t know which way Hispanic and Asian racists are most likely to vote).
My point here is that we continue to define racism like we still live in the America of fifty years ago.
I have a wild and crazy idea that I think would fundamentally alter the way we talk about race in America today — every racial group has an equal number of racists in it. That is, Asian, Hispanic, white and black racists are all of similar percentages in the country.
The media is fixated on white to black racism because that’s the historical legacy of racism in this country, but it’s far too simplified of an equation to embrace in modern America and it alienates many from a conversation about race at the outset.
That is, when you tell a certain segment of white people that they are the bad guy, they just dial out immediately. If you told people of all races that each of their races was equally responsible for racism, I think we’d be more likely to make substantial progress.
Right now the end result is that black people are cast in this narrative as perpetual victims of racism. And so we have the same racial victimization narratives playing out over and over again. The problem is the white liberals, like Kyle Korver, embracing this narrative, however well intentioned they might be, are actually making things worse.
And instead of making any progress, we’re set in the same repetitive patterns, over and over and over again.
Okay, now back to the premise of your question.
If you look at most of the crimes that people have pleaded guilty to or been charged with in the Russia investigation, most of them have had nothing to do with the initial investigation itself, into whether or not Trump and his associates colluded with Russia.
Paul Manafort is a great example. He got hit with tax evasion for crimes he committed before the Trump investigation ever began.
And he wasn’t alone.
Many of these individuals were charged with lying to investigators. Not committing actual crimes, but just not being truthful when they were questioned.
And my question here — which is I think the crux of the Barr review of the Mueller report — is this, if there is no collusion with Russia, that is no crime occurred here, how can you be charged with obstructing justice, whether you’re the president or anyone else? Typically in order to obstruct justice there needs to be a crime you’re obstructing the justice for.
It seems to me it would be nearly impossible for any prosecutor to get an obstruction of justice charge if the underlying act being investigated — whether it was the president or anyone else — isn’t a crime as well.
Which brings me back to the Trump question we started with — I think the only way to get charged with obstructing justice when you haven’t actually committed a crime is to panic so much in the face of the investigation that you incompetently obstruct justice when all you needed to do was just to be honest.
Who are the people most likely to do this? People who aren’t as sophisticated in political circles, i.e. the people Trump had working for him.
The challenge, of course, is how comfortable do you feel being honest with investigators who you believe are on a witch hunt designed to find wrongdoing even when you’ve done nothing wrong to begin with?
And that’s where I think Trump found himself throughout the course of this investigation.
Almost all of the sins of the Trump administration — to the extent there have been any — are sins of incompetence not sins of nefarious design and evil genius intention.
That’s where I think the media has gotten Trump so wrong, they’ve assumed a level of competent evil that Trump isn’t capable of.
The Hitler comparisons some on the left wing make are ridiculous on virtually every level imaginable, but they’re particularly misguided when you consider that Hitler was, in fact, an evil genius. That is, his intentions were truly abhorrent and evil and so were his actions. He was capable of inflicting great evil on the world and he intended to inflict that great evil on the world.
I don’t think Trump is capable of inflicting great evil on the world, but, and this is key, I also don’t think Trump’s goals have ever been remotely evil either.
I think Trump’s successes and failures essentially emerge from the same place — he wants the media — and the public — to love him as much as he loves himself. Trump isn’t a white supremacist, that’s far too large of an ideology for him to embrace, he’s a Trump supremacist — he believes he’s better and more talented than everyone else that surrounds him.
Once you understand that psychological footprint, everything else about him makes sense.
And he becomes far less terrifying of a leader.
Trump’s motivations are always going to bend in the same direction — he’s going to favor the people who believe he’s a genius.
