The Trumpster Fire

When President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden entered the debate stage at Case Western Reserve University on Tuesday, September 29, no one expected it to be the Lincoln-Douglas debates redux. But even by Trump’s low standards, this was appallingly bad. If Trump’s performance was to be judged by his bullying, violating the rules his team agreed to, lying, resorting to personal attacks on Joe Biden and his family, and incessant interruptions, then he was the clear winner. If, on the other hand, he was to be judged by an intelligent discussion of his positions, the facts that support them, and the moral imperatives for following them, well, then, it was truly a “Trumpster fire.”

Pundits have said that Trump’s voters are going to support him, no matter what. Coming from their ancestral Scottish-Irish-Northern English background of rebellion against the king and the nobility, his base has a strongly anti-establishment bias. But they also have a bias against courtesy, civility, mutual respect for those with different opinions, and treating everyone with dignity. They feel that showing courtesy and behaving with civility means that they’ve kow-towed to the Establishment and have “given in.”

Of course, acting with respect to others is a reflection of self-respect, but Trump’s base hasn’t learned the basic rules of social interaction, and, so, their crudity is a reflection of…