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Trump deletes post depicting him as Jesus-like figure after backlash
If the image had been satirical, people would have dismissed it as too over the top. But Trump's taste is such that he posted this thing unironically.
Any Trump supporters care to steelman this? To me, the most parsimonious explanation is that Trump is a narcissist with a god complex.
I am not a Trump supporter, but I suppose I should weigh in with another Christian response -
This is obviously gross, blasphemous, and testament to Trump's narcissism, and in that light I think it tells us nothing we did not already know. We already knew that Trump cares absolutely nothing for God, Jesus, or any sense of human dignity. We already knew that he holds nothing sacred. He has been very clear about that. We also know that he is prone to like or retweet anything that flatters him, no matter how lacking in taste. This is of the same species as that AI-generated video of Trump in a jet dropping excrement on protesters. If it flatters Trump, he likes it, and because he has no sense of decorum about anything, he just shares it.
This reveals that Trump is venal, crass, self-centered, and so on, but again we all knew that. This does not tell me anything new. Maybe that Trump has a kind of contempt for all that I hold sacred, but that too I already knew.
Yes, it is vile, and the more people realise the extent to which Trump is a man wholly lacking in virtue, the better, but for me personally? It moves me not a jot.
(Assuming you're American) - Did you vote for Kamala? Just curious.
I'm Australian. I was spared that choice.
It really is incredible that neither US party could put forth a decent candidate. Unbelievable neglect of the world's greatest power.
Presidential candidates being thoroughly mediocre is pretty normal. There just aren't that many brilliant leaders out there, and in the US presidential system you're praying for the trifecta of: able to win a partisan primary, able to win a nationwide general election, and actually a competent executive. There is some overlap between the first two with respect to charisma, but they're mostly three distinct skill/capability sets.
However, it must be noted that 2024 didn't fit the pattern of people grudgingly voting for their party's nominee. Trump voters did not regard him as the best option amongst a subpar selection. They were (and for the most part still are) rapturously enthusiastic about him.
I don't it's mediocrity that is the issue here.
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Isn't this combining two groups?
Trump does have a base that is rapturously enthusiastic for him - which people often call the MAGA base or MAGA crowd. But this group is not coterminous with those people who voted for Trump. He did not win 2024 with his base alone - and we can see now that even though Trump won the popular vote, his current approval ratings are far lower than that. It seems like there must have been a lot of people who voted for Trump but are not consistently enthusiastic about him.
Not really. There are some marginal voters who voted for Trump but don't like him, but the vast bulk of Trump's ~~77.5m votes in 2024 came from Republicans. Amongst Republicans he is still incredibly popular, both in terms of raw approval and in terms of the fervency with which he is supported. The MAGA base has essentially devoured the rest of the Republican Party.
The fact that the Republican candidate was mostly voted for by Republicans is surely to be expected irrespective of who the candidate is. Republicans vote for Republican candidates. But not all of those were genuinely enthusiastic about Trump, and of course, Trump won on the back of swing voters.
The initial question here was about Trump voters. I think there are at least three different groups under discussion here: 1) everybody who voted for Trump, 2) Republicans, 3) MAGA. There is substantial overlap between those groups, obviously, but as far as I can tell there are plenty of people in one group but not in one or both of the others.
It looks to me like Trump's approval among Republicans was mostly in the 80s while in office, dipped significantly while he was out of office, and is dipping again due to Iran.
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Very much agreed. Trump got about 40% of the 2016 Republican primary vote if you only look at states which voted while the race was still competitive. Cruz voters don't need to hold their nose to vote for Trump, but I don't think they are any happier with him than they would be with another winning Republican who appointed pro-life SCOTUS justices.
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I suppose I could be accused of dodging the question, so I should try to expand a little.
One of my red lines is that I will not vote for an unrepentant adulterer. Credible repentance and apology is needed before I will even consider it. Technically both Trump and Harris fail that criterion, though in Harris' case it's because, while single, she had an affair with a married-but-separated man. In general I feel that if you cannot keep faith in your personal life, you cannot keep faith in your political life. So even before we get into any other character issues, I could not vote for Trump.
The steelman of the case for Trump, to me, goes something like, "Yes, I know he is of terrible personal character, and that does weigh in my considerations, but a political choice like this has to be a kind of calculation about what's best for the country, and a bad man might nonetheless be the least bad choice for the country. It is a betrayal of the virtue of charity, and your obligations to your fellow citizens, to refuse to vote for a least-bad candidate for character reasons, because if the worse candidate wins, it is your fellow citizens who will suffer a worse result." A Trump voter aiming to persuade me would probably do best by not trying to play down or distract from the awfulness of his character, as revealed by things like these tweets, but rather by trying to direct me to concrete policy results.
For the first Trump term, I think they might have a strong case on consequentialist grounds like that. For the second term, it would be weaker. Would Harris have bungled the Middle East as badly as Trump seems to be? I can't prove a counterfactual, but I'm skeptical.
Still, if we're going to talk consequences, I would argue, I suppose, that the signalling value of a write-in or absent vote is more than zero, and perhaps a statement of lack of faith in the American political system, or of disgust at both candidates, would have about as much value as a single vote ever could.
I never actually faced this calculation, thankfully, but if I had been in the US, I suspect I would have left the vote for president blank or done a write-in, while still voting down-ballot.
By adultery, do you mean cheating (even if only technically, given that the man Kamala was with was separated), or does it include any form of extramarital sex?
I think that if you're trying to nitpick whether or not what you did was really adulterous, you're probably already in the red zone.
The underlying principle is that people who either don't keep their own most sacred promises, or who participate in helping others to break their own most sacred promises, should not bear the public trust. This is why e.g. someone who cheats in a same-sex partnership still fails the test, even though technically that's not 'marriage' in the sense that I understand the term.
You might be implying cases like a married couple who, via mutual agreement, sleep with other people? Like an open marriage? That does run afoul of my rule; I see how it's meaningfully different to traditional cheating, but it's still in my view morally disqualifying. This is also how I resolve cases of consensual polyamory - the interaction with my adultery rule is somewhat blurry, but as it is also disqualifying in itself, there is no need to resolve the exact relationship to adultery.
This is all just around the edges, though. Practical cases tend to look more like, for example, Barnaby Joyce.
Oops, I was confusing adultery with fornication. My confusion stemmed from "thou shalt not commit adultery" commonly being interpreted as also prohibiting fornication. I was actually asking about your opinion on non-adulterous extramarital sex.
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I don't think that should necessarily apply to politicians. Politicians have enemies who interpret everything they did uncharitably, so a politician may have to "nitpick" in response to them.
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