Its Personal....

Ever since I can remember, I have had a basic dislike for loudmouthed bullies, arrogant braggarts and wannabe tough guys. In my experience they tend to be either cowards who abuse those they perceive to be easy targets  (women, kids, minorities etc) or those they understand to be perhaps smarter or more accomplished than themselves. By now an observant person might understand that I am profiling the commonplace Trump type and his  classic supporter. That is not to say that Mr Trump would not make a successful president. He might. What I am saying is that this type of individual would not darken my family doorstep. Its personal.

In 1982 during the First Lebanon War our IDF unit penetrated far into the Eastern region of Lebanon and faced off against Syrian forces in the area of Lake Qaraoun. Listening to some of the radio chatter it was astounding to hear the arrogance and confidence of some of the unit, and how they were going to rattle the Syrian cage. With a pulsating heart I remember thinking of how tough these guys were. Well to cut a long story short, The Syrians began pounding us that evening with artillery barrages and we dived for any form of cover we could find. Through the cacophony of explosions I heard one tough guy crying out for his mother. Another peed his pants and a third was wailing in fear and and babbling a prayer. Young Harry was taught a major life lesson in those chaotic moments. There is no such thing as a "tough guy", only brave guys and many loudmouthed wannabees. Significantly, the same windbags were heard later on explaining  how they had taught the enemy a lesson.

This blog is definitely not for your typical Trump supporter since the majority of these folk don't appear to be interested in the truth, facts or practicality of anything he is saying. Rather he is feeding into their "anger" and therefore they believe anything he says to be possible. To be fair, he did not create the political and economic climate of today (that belongs to Bush and Obama). Like the typical Queens con man ("I know somebody who knows somebody etc") he saw an opportunity and  jumped at it. And man....did the fish bite or what! A wild feeding frenzy by the PC commercial media intellectuals on the left and across the board to the white trailer trash in the deep south, ensued. Nobody bothered to fact check the statements coming out of this campaign. This was a reality TV revolution at its best....something most Americans are familiar with. The real world looked on in shock while the liberal media watched gleefully as the hate fest exploded onto our screens.

Anyone who believes a "successful businessman" can run a country is bordering on the delusional. The modern presidents who achieved the most — Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan — had virtually no commercial background. Some who did, George W. Bush and Herbert Hoover, fared worse in the White House.  Robert Rubin: “In business, the single, overriding purpose is to make a profit,” he wrote. “Government, on the other hand, deals with a vast number of legitimate and often potentially competing objectives — for example, energy production versus environmental protection, or safety regulations versus productivity. This complexity of goals brings a corresponding complexity of process.” He then noted that a big difference between the two realms is that no political leader, not even the president, has the kind of authority every corporate chief does. CEOs can hire and fire based on performance, pay bonuses to incentivize their subordinates, and promote capable people aggressively. 

So what will the Donald do when confronted by a hostile senate....after all he doesn't sign the cheques. Trump is using a typical "divide and conquer strategy" which in a diverse America of today is paradoxically playing right into the hands of the Dem strategists. Either way, for this "tough guy" to mutate into a viable leader he will have to unite Americans and America. Not just his own party. I wish him luck with that....but like I said at the outset, the bad taste in my mouth is personal.

“I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.” 
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

Boxing is real easy. Life is much harder -  Floyd Mayweather, Jr.