The Donald Trump phenomenon

That there are men in the world like Donald Trump perhaps should not be a surprise. That a man such as Mr Trump would be elected President of the USA was a great surprise. That Trump continues to receive a huge amount of support from US citizens is almost unbelievable.

Not a supporter of the Democrats
I need to point out that I am certainly not a supporter of the Democratic Party of the USA. I believe that administrations under both Democrat and Republican presidents have often been highly unethical, as I have written in my page on The Real USA.
But Donal Trump, as a man, is far more deeply flawed than any other American President in my memory.
The trigger that moved me to write this page was receiving a number of emails from 'Team Elise'. This is apparently an organisation set up by Elise Stefanik, "House GOP (Grand Old Party, aka Republican) Conference Chair & Steadfast Trump Supporter". Incredibly Team Elise were asking me to support Donald Trump's campaign. Did they get my email address via my piece on Donald Trump in my Real USA page? If so, how could they possibly think that I would support the monster?

Still, if my piece on Mr Trump in The Real USA came to the attention of Team Elise perhaps it is also receiving some attention from other Americans, and perhaps this page, specifically about Trump will get more attention and, hopefully, make voters think a little before voting for the despicable man.

Our beautiful environment has been damaged by Donald Trump's actions

Our beautiful environment has been damaged by Donald Trump's actions

As an environmentalist and one who dabbles in philosophy, particularly ethics (moral philosophy) I am hugely concerned by the damage that Donald Trump has done, and may in future do, to our shared planet. Equally worrying to me is how so many Americans can put aside ethical concerns and support Trump.

As an environmentalist and one who dabbles in philosophy, particularly ethics (moral philosophy) I am hugely concerned by the damage that Donald Trump has done, and may in future do, to our shared planet. Equally worrying to me is how so many Americans can put aside ethical concerns and support Trump.

I don't live in the USA, I live in Australia. Perhaps a resident of the USA would better understand how decent, presumably honest, people can support a man like Donald Trump. I can't understand it.

How the people of the USA could elect such a man, as they did in late 2016, and consider him for a second term as well, is beyond my understanding. It certainly damages whatever faith one might have had in the quality of American democracy.

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A man without ethical standards

He is a man without any ethical standards, in particular he is a habitual liar - he seems almost to aim at some rather high numbers of lies each week. The Washington Post reported that Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims over his 4 years in office.

Trump slowed the urgently needed action on Climate change by some of the things he did while President.

He stacked the Supreme Court, even installing one member after Joe Biden's election and before Mr Biden's inauguration. This sort of action was considered highly improper and not done by previous Presidents, but there was no act that was too low for Trump.

Donald Trump is almost universally despised outside the USA

My strong impression is that while Donald Trump has a lot of support inside the USA, outside the USA he is despised and would be a laughing stock if he was the leader of an inconsequential nation, but as the leader of the most militarily powerful nation in the world he worries us.

How can the Republican politicians have such low moral standards?

America's Republican politicians almost unanimously support Mr Trump. To do so they must have very low moral standards, perhaps as low as Trump's own standards. Why do the American people elect such abhorrent politicians?

Unfortunately it is much the same in Australia, where the majority of voters do not consider voting for any but one or another of the major, old, tired political parties. That is how the contemptible anti-progress Scott Morrison Government got into power back in August 2018. It's time that voters everywhere started to vote smart.

Fake news

Mr Trump is keen on the term 'fake news'. Any news he doesn't like he calls fake news. In fact anyone who has a grasp of what is really going on in the world can recognise that Trump is the greatest source of fake news.

Use your brains people, use your brains. Do a bit of investigation before believing a word the man says. The reliability (or otherwise) of sources can be checked through fact-checking sites. Two that I have used are Source Watch and Snopes. Others are Politifact and FactCheck.org.

There are politicians in Australia who are almost as lacking in ethical principles as Trump

The federal branch of the Australian National Party opposes renewable energy and wants to mine ever more polluting coal and coal-seam gas. They don't seem at all concerned about what the burning of fossil fuels is doing to our beautiful shared planet or for the harm that is being done to the quality of life of coming generations.

Perhaps the only difference is that these Australian politicians are not habitual liars.

Update, March 2024

I note that there is at least one Australian politician who does seem to have as low standards of truthfulness as Mr Trump; Andrew Hastie has been notably lacking in honesty and ethical standards in his opposition to a renewable energy proposal.