I honestly was not paying attention much to Donald Trump's latest flirtation with politics mostly because that is all it probably will end up being in the end, simple flirtation. That is until I read The Economist this week (love the art btw) and came away from it with a new sense of what the phenomenon is truly about.
What struck me most in Lexington's column was this line, "We'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us." Now it may be because I am currently reeling from an episode over Easter in which I feel I was unfairly denied my ability to win, or it may be because I am finely tuned into American culture, regardless, America loves to blame the opposing team, not themselves, and Mr. Trump is acutely aware of that.
We as Americans are never far from insinuating cheating when a situation does not go our way. It's never because the losing team was over matched, because admitting as much would be the same as admitting failure, the real reason is usually because of some shenanigans by our opponents or the referees or both. So when Mr.Trump says we will take the billions back that were wrongly taken from us by those cheating Chinese he is striking at the heart of our inability to admit that we are in fact probably not the best at everything.
We as Americans refuse to admit as much, and why not? We kick ass in every sport that matters to us (See: "World Series" or "World Champions"), we sweep the Olympics every year, we have the best military, Hollywood, and we landed on the moon. We are amazing. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with high confidence, that's precisely why America has gotten where it has gotten. Though we may have been winning the race for the better part of the past century we didn't lose our lead because we were tripped, we did so because we became complacent. And nothing Mr. Trump can say will change that.
What struck me most in Lexington's column was this line, "We'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us." Now it may be because I am currently reeling from an episode over Easter in which I feel I was unfairly denied my ability to win, or it may be because I am finely tuned into American culture, regardless, America loves to blame the opposing team, not themselves, and Mr. Trump is acutely aware of that.
We as Americans are never far from insinuating cheating when a situation does not go our way. It's never because the losing team was over matched, because admitting as much would be the same as admitting failure, the real reason is usually because of some shenanigans by our opponents or the referees or both. So when Mr.Trump says we will take the billions back that were wrongly taken from us by those cheating Chinese he is striking at the heart of our inability to admit that we are in fact probably not the best at everything.
We as Americans refuse to admit as much, and why not? We kick ass in every sport that matters to us (See: "World Series" or "World Champions"), we sweep the Olympics every year, we have the best military, Hollywood, and we landed on the moon. We are amazing. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with high confidence, that's precisely why America has gotten where it has gotten. Though we may have been winning the race for the better part of the past century we didn't lose our lead because we were tripped, we did so because we became complacent. And nothing Mr. Trump can say will change that.
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