A Word on Trump

With our recent discussions on Donald trump in class, I was reading up a bit on some of his better-known speeches and the political reactions to the less favorable portions. It seems that, in response to the more slanderous and insensitive arguments made by Donald Trump, many leading figures in the Democratic party have commented that Trump’s attitude “is not who we are. That is not what this country stands for.” In one of the news articles I read, the author says that “To argue … that Trump is entirely outside of the American character may be effective messaging for Democrats, but also wishful thinking” citing several significant incidents of civil violence against minority groups as well as examples of discrimination in American popular culture and international policy (I give the link to the article at the end of this post). He argues that these negative incidents define the American character just as much as the more admirable ones, suggesting that this is how Trump’s exceptionalist rhetoric has been able to appeal to such a large number of people.

I think the call to consider the “American character” as being more eclectic and complex is warranted. Americans throughout history have shown the propensity of both vehement intolerance and impartial acceptance, in much the same way that the reaction of Native Americans to European settlers differed between the Massachusetts colonies and the ones further south, and both have been demonstrated in the American character up to the present day. Ascribing a single set of characteristics to hundreds of millions of individuals inherits the many flaws of inductive reasoning, but there are certainly patterns of behavior in the United States which are difficult to write off as coincidental, and I think this article makes a compelling point in that regard.

The article quoted is found here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-america-worst-instincts-20160708-story.html