If you want to change the world, you have to have the courage to be an outsider. In other words, you have to take certain risks and do things a little bit differently; otherwise, if that were the case, everybody would be successful. Doesn't work that way. Progress never comes from those satisfied with the failures of a broken system; it comes from those who want to fix the broken system.
Remember those words from Donald Trump, delivered at the University of Alabama commencement. Years from now, when there have been more than fifty Presidents and he's just one or two of them, grade school level Presidential fact books will be published and that will be included as one of his grander, more presidential statements.
More than that, though, it's a key to his appeal. For good reason, Americans have lost all trust in insiders. Trump presented the clearest available way to put someone besides them in charge. Different people have different opinions on him as a man and as a leader. I'd say that much and perhaps most of what he's done while in power has been not good. But it's important to understand how he got where he is.
2 comments:
That is a very cool Trump quote and one I hope will be remembered fondly in years to come. If you ook up Donald Trump quotes on Goodreads there are hundreds but one of my favorites was the second one - for brevity as well as wit:
“As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big.”
~ Donald Trump
Voters liked him because of the ill-advised things he said, not in spite of them. I agree with you that a number of things he's actually done rather than said have been disastrous, and for the most part what we've seen, like continuing the support of genocide against the Palestinians and making economic deals with Zelensky so we'll have to protect the investment militarily are exactly the things he promised he woudn't do. The anti-war president should have followed his own advice:
“Don't get sidetracked. If you do get sidetracked, get back on track as soon as possible. Ultimately sidetracking kills you.”
~ Donald Trump
On the other hand no president since Carter has tried to rein in Israel.
Still and all, nothing was going to change with that other crew in charge and the Donald as made some momentous changes. No more DEI, no more kowtowing to trans bullies, putting people he can trust into positions of power. Then there's his reliance on Libertarians and their priorities.. not so good. Every day we see him enact executive orders that give us some hope like the recent one he's announced that he's signed an Executive Order to modernize American workforce programs to prepare citizens for the high-paying skilled trade jobs of the future. $700 billion dollars a year goes to higher education and only a fraction of that to trade schools and apprenticeships. That will change now.
For every bad move there have been some compensations. All over the west these have been populist movements that have been encouraged by having Trump as president of the US. Overall, I'd say that's not a bad thing. If you throw a monkey wrench into the works all sorts of things happen - good and bad.
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An Unavoidable Trade War with Canada is Looming
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/05/02/an-unavoidable-trade-war-with-canada-is-looming-trigger-date-july-august-2025/
An Unavoidable Trade War with Canada is Looming – Trigger Date July/August 2025
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/05/02/an-unavoidable-trade-war-with-canada-is-looming-trigger-date-july-august-2025/
That's an interesting perspective re: thinking and thinking big. I hadn't realized that Goodreads had so many quotes from him. “I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's were the fun is.” is another good one. Wikiquote, by contrast, seems to only have quotes that they think will make him look bad. I might try to balance that one of these days.
When Barack Obama was elected it briefly looked like we were getting someone who would question the stale assumptions and move things in a more healthy direction. As we've seen, he turned out not to be that guy. So it makes sense that Americans went in the opposite direction in terms of temperament. Gaza and the Russia Ukraine war represent unfortunate turns in policy. It might be a matter of the worse advisors having some kind of advantage in getting his ear over the better ones. A lot of us fail to listen to our own advice. And we all know what happened to Carter. (Still ridiculous that they started parading him around when he couldn't speak and could barely move.)
The problem with Libertarians is that most of them...aren't. There's not a basic human freedom that they won't trade away for clout and higher returns on their investments. But I am glad that he's making some needed changes in education policy. On the one hand I don't like the idea of punishing Harvard because their students protest government policy. On the other hand, there's the big picture. Emphasizing prestige universities helps few. Not everyone even needs to go to college, as such, but that was what Biden emphasized.
Technocracy has become a plague. Governments have gotten into underhanded methods to control their people's behavior (i.e. "nudge units.") It's good that there are movements demanding another way, even if I don't necessarily agree with what the people in those movements say all the time.
That's an interesting article at the Treehouse. What I get from it is that if Canada does want to maintain its independence and sovereignty that--ironically enough--may require becoming more like Trump's US.
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