Yes, Trump is scary and crazy, but fear the immoral system, not him

By David McElroy · December 8, 2015

I’m terrified of what Donald Trump might do as president, but I’m even more terrified of the system that has the power to set him — or anyone else — up as a ruler over me.

As Trump makes statements that are increasingly insane and scary, I see people all over social media posting those words and pointing out how scary they are. Their outrage makes it clear that they’re saying to Trump supporters, “See? Don’t you get it? The man is crazy. Quit supporting him!”

I’m starting to realize that a lot of people can’t accept that a substantial portion of the voting public — a vast majority, I’d argue — are delusional in very serious ways. They believe that if Trump supporters just understand how monstrous his beliefs are — and how insane he is — his support would evaporate.

They’re wrong.

Trump is exactly what a huge percentage of people in this country want. Think about that for a moment.

Millions and millions of people want a “strong man” who will promise to fix all their problems. They want someone who will “stand up” to other governments, threatening those nations, bullying them and bombing other people who don’t bend to his will. They want someone who will protect them from foreigners who scare them. They want someone who will pander to their darkest, ugliest prejudices — because they are too ignorant to know how evil their beliefs are.

Most of those who oppose Trump realize he’s crazy and scary, but they support some other candidate — one of a group of people who I find just as scary for different reasons.

I still don’t think Trump will ultimately be elected — for reasons I’ve outlined — but every time there’s a terrorist attack, his odds get better, simply because people who don’t understand relative risk are getting more and more afraid.

Trump is merely a symptom of a much bigger problem. At its essence, democracy is mob rule. A system that hands dictatorial powers to one person (or any group) over everyone else is wrong, no matter how that person is selected.

A system that gives a group of people the power to take your money and force you to obey their rules is immoral.

Yes, Trump is scary, but any system which has the power to give you orders and coerce your obedience is just as scary, even if it’s a nice, smiling man or woman with good intentions. It’s just that you’ve been brainwashed to accept this system, so you don’t object to it — as long as that person acts more sophisticated and more reasonable.

It’s true that a president doesn’t have complete powers to rule, although pretty much every president ends up wishing he had such powers. But a modern president is more and more like an emperor. (When is the last time one of our many wars was declared by Congress, as required by the Constitution?) Even if you just use him as a symbol for the larger government structure, though, it’s a complex system that hands power to a group of people — through a series of majority-rules elections — to control you. With force when necessary.

So, yes, Donald Trump is scary. I fear that a President Trump could drag us into bigger wars and destroy even more of our rights. I think he’s a fascist who is sounding more and more like a modern-day Hitler. But even if I agreed with what a president and Congress want to do, that wouldn’t make it moral to impose my will — or the will of any majority — on those who don’t want to obey or participate.

The second point is that if you think the emergence of someone such as Donald Trump — or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Sarah Palin or whoever your nightmare scenario is — means there’s a bug in the system, you misunderstand. The problem is that candidates who represent the darkest desires of the populace aren’t a bug. They’re a feature of democracy.

Crazy and scary politicians are the primary feature of any system which allows the populist majority to choose someone who represents their fears and greed most clearly.

Donald Trump scares me, but every candidate scares me. Even more, any system that hands power to anyone — even a saint with my best interests at heart — is immoral.

Don’t fear Donald Trump. Fear the coercive state, no matter who is at the controls of the evil machinery.

Note: On a related point, I’ve recently argued that if you want to understand the Trump phenomenon, you have to have empathy for his supporters and understand why they feel desperate for a strong man.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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