{"id":73018,"date":"2015-08-25T11:50:15","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T19:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=73018"},"modified":"2015-08-25T17:30:53","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T01:30:53","slug":"is-donald-trump-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=73018","title":{"rendered":"Is Donald Trump Cool?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comments to Steve Sailer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* Rex Weiner wrote an article for High Times in the 1970s called \u201cThe ABCs of How to be Cool.\u201d Here are excerpts of some of the attributes that fit Trump.<\/p>\n

Attitude: If you\u2019re absolutely convinced that what you\u2019re doing is cool, then it\u2019s cool. With the right attitude you can get away with anything.<\/p>\n

Competent: Cool people are always competent (but not necessarily the other way around). The coolest way to take over a scene is to be better than everybody else.<\/p>\n

Danger: Cool people are always dangerous because they take risks. Danger is cool because you know you\u2019re not going to live forever, and knowing that let\u2019s you relax. When people find out exactly how relaxed you are \u2026when taking a controversial stand on some issue, they tend to give you the respect you deserve.<\/p>\n

Energy: Cool people have a great deal of energy. . . They get everything done on time and always have about three or four things going on at once. [Trump sleeps four hours a night.]<\/p>\n

Irrational: Get a reputation for being unpredictable and crazy. You\u2019re the kind of person who\u2019s likely to do anything anywhere anytime. But also gain a reputation for consistency. Paradox is the absolute essence of cool.<\/p>\n

Jerks: Cool people always keep a few around, just to catch flak. [Jeb and Marco.]<\/p>\n

Mainstream: Go against it. If everyone around you is busy being hip, be square. In a roomful of nervous people, be calm. Talk loudly in libraries. What the hell.<\/p>\n

Opinions: Have lots of them. Like or dislike people immediately and don\u2019t be afraid to say so. [Rosie, Megyn] Too many people go through life without ever deciding whether they want mustard or ketchup on their hamburgers.<\/p>\n

Sex: If you\u2019re cool, you\u2019re sexy. [\u201cBest sex I ever had!\u2019 says former Trump girlfriend.]<\/p>\n

Unique: Eminently cool people are always unlike anybody else. Nobody knows quite what makes them so, but they\u2019ll spend hours trying to figure it out. What they come up with, often enough, is, \u201cBoy, I sure hate that son of a bitch!\u201d [see: Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Jonah Goldberg, Greg Gutfeld, etc.] Being hated is no less cool than being loved.<\/p>\n

Work: Cool people are always busy. It\u2019s cool to work. Cool people are always busy. But cool people never work up a sweat.<\/p>\n

Extra: If you\u2019re cool, you invariably ask for a little more, and if you\u2019re cool, you invariably get it.<\/p>\n

* What I\u2019m finding fun to exam is how loyal Red Team members are slowly coming to realize that being on Red Team is not worth their time. It\u2019s different than what we\u2019re seeing with Blue Team, where the freak show is slowly breaking away from the main. Red Team has always defined itself in opposition to Blue Team. They are socialist and we are capitalists!<\/p>\n

On Red Team, you see people suddenly confronting the fact that their team has always sort of hated them. At the same time, the old guard is struggling to figure out why the trouble makers appear to be mocking them, rather than fearing them. Calling Donald Trump a Nazi, for example, was met with laughter.<\/p>\n

In Europe the realignment is easier and further advanced. You have existing parties into which dissidents can find refuge. if you have become fed up with Muslims in France, you the FN. In America, no such refuge exists. The fringe parties are nuts and the main parties are locked in a passionate embrace.<\/p>\n

* Interesting comment at Hot Air:<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s popularity is a mystery until you compare him to Putin.<\/p>\n

Regular Americans feel emasculated, weak and disrespected in the world\u2026 and ignored\/hated by their own elected officials.<\/p>\n

Same way Russians felt crapped on and ignored (by Gorby) after the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n

As a backlash, they now have Putin. He might be a bully\u2026 but he\u2019s their bully. Which is preferable to being under a wuss who cares more about the UN and world opinion than he cares about his own people. Everyone hates Putin\u2026 except for the 90% of Russians who love him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same thing with the US today. People are tired about the President selling out to Iran. They\u2019re mad at electing two houses of GOP Congressmen\u2026 who act like Democrats. They\u2019re mad that their jobs are gone to Mexico and China. And they can\u2019t figure out why the US military isn\u2019t crushing ISIS in two weeks.<\/p>\n

Trump is rude, crass and bombastic, but he knows his audience. And that audience would rather have a braggart, US-loving bully than another mom-jeans-wearing, UN-loving sellout.<\/p>\n

Just watch. The more he acts like Putin, the more Americans will embrace him. It\u2019s only natural given what they\u2019ve been through.<\/p>\n

* Fun guy, this Trump, but it won\u2019t go anywhere.<\/p>\n

This Mexico-bashing and China-bashing are ultimately meaningless since those nations have no direct control over the US.<\/p>\n

Trump, like everyone else, is totally mum on the people with the real power. He doesn\u2019t even have the guts to take on the homos.<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u2019s all about style. There is no real substance here.<\/p>\n

And suppose Trump wins. Anyone who thinks he will make a difference is like the fools who thought ARNOLD could really change California.<\/p>\n

Hasta La Vista, Baby.<\/p>\n

* Trump\u2019s parents attended Norman Vincent Peale\u2019s church, which was part of the Reformed Church of America, which is, I think, kind of like Presbyterian but a little more liberal.<\/p>\n

Peale was the author of the huge self-help bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking. I suspect there are all sorts of connections between the thinking of Peale and of Trump.<\/p>\n

One interesting aspect is that Trump comes out of this pro-business power of positive thinking Protestant background, but without the Ned Flanders-style nicey-niceness that usually goes with it. Romney was kind of dragged down by his related Mormon nicey-niceness, and George H.W. Bush had to struggle with his.<\/p>\n

Pat Buchanan survived for decades in an ideologically hostile media environment because he\u2019s a wonderful individual who is deeply liked by most people who know him well.<\/p>\n

* I remember being surprised when I read The Great Shark Hunt at how much Hunter Thompson liked Pat Buchanan\u2013of all people.<\/p>\n

* Steveosphere is a little bit behind the curve here.<\/p>\n

Whether Trump is cool was hashed out over the past ten years on Apprentice. It\u2019s all right there.<\/p>\n

* Megan Kelly is Ailes\/Murdoch PROXY. Wake the hell up. Fox tried to end Trump\u2019s political career that night. There is no bigger opponent for Trump now. Exactly because Trump is an alpha with killer instinct is why he pursues his opponent relentlessly. Trump has the potential to do real damage to the Fox brand and Roger Ailes knows it.<\/p>\n

* Trump and his family attended First Presbyterian in Jamaica, Queens before going to Peale\u2019s Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Peale\u2019s positive thinking is definitely evident in Trump\u2019s attitude and speaking style and presentation. Trump is relentless in applying positive thinking. Everything he says about himself and his projects and goals is unequivocally positive.<\/p>\n

The positive thinking \u201cphilosophy\u201d was very much a part of bourgeois, pro-business, Protestant American mainstream culture, but now largely persists among some evangelicals e.g. Rick Warren\u2019s \u201cPurpose Driven Life\u201d and in a non-Christian, New Age context. The self-help tropes about having a positive attitude, thinking positive, waking up in the morning and staring at the mirror while repeating positive mantras about yourself to yourself every day, etc., derives from positive thinking. Mainline Protestants today find it declasse and are sort of embarrassed by it.<\/p>\n

Part of the Ned Flanders nicey-niceness comes from positive thinking philosophy, whereby being effusively positive towards other people is believed to lead to positive outcomes, just as thinking and speaking positively about yourself is. Trump\u2019s brashness and ego however adds a twist to this formula, and he won\u2019t speak positively to or about someone and will put someone down if it leads to himself thinking, feeling, and looking more positive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comments to Steve Sailer: * Rex Weiner wrote an article for High Times in the 1970s called \u201cThe ABCs of How to be Cool.\u201d Here are excerpts of some of the attributes that fit Trump. Attitude: If you\u2019re absolutely convinced … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29752],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73018"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73074,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73018\/revisions\/73074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}