(I offer this with a disclaimer: There are, indeed, a lot of really good people who run for office in this country, especially at the local levels. I believe there are people with a lot of honesty and integrity in public office today. I give these thoughts with some exclusions.)
Do you realize the situation with Cam Newton highlights precisely why someone like Donald Trump won the election?
Cam Newton says something dumb and disrespectful, clearly sexist, and not off-the-cuff. There's no question he feels like women are inferior. And so he said what he said.
Realizing the backlash, both from the fans and from his employer, he offers the obligatory and much-expected apology. No one in their right mind, of course, believes it's sincere. Newton didn't have some big epiphany overnight. He didn't change what he's believed about women his whole life in roughly 18 hours.
And so we all pretend. We go on, because Cam's a big star, and we're all OK with people who say, do, and believe dumb stuff as long as they apologize afterward. I'll pretend Newton has somehow changed his entire belief system in a matter of hours, female reporters will pretend to not be offended by his sexism anymore -- because, you know, they're all professionals -- and Cam'll pretend to not be a creep anymore.
Cam Newton is a chump. And he isn't going to stop being a chump overnight. This ain't the first time he's proved that. His fans love him anyway cause he's a good football player. That's OK. For me, I don't believe in the same things as does Cam Newton, but I'd have a lot more respect for him if he just went on being who he was, and stopped pretending to be a great guy, when he's really not.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump says, does, and believes a lot of dumb stuff, but here's the kicker: For the first time in forever, we had someone running for office, who, unlike most every other politician we've dealt with, doesn't pretend to be someone he's not. Donald Trump has a lot of good qualities, and he has a lot of bad qualities, and at the end of the day -- HE DOESN'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THEM! He says what he says, and doesn't backtrack from it. You don't like it? Tough! He's not going to change who he is, and he's not going to offer fake apologies for the things he believes just because you or I don't like it. Love him or hate him, I respect anybody who is who they are and doesn't try to insult my intelligence by pretending to be something they're not.
I absolutely love it when the media fumbles all over themselves at the end of a story about Trump when they have to conclude, "Trump has yet to apologize for what he said." They're so used to every politician and celebrity and athlete apologizing for something they said or did the media believes was inappropriate (as though they are the authority on such things) that they simply don't know how to act when confronted with someone who doesn't play that game.
That's the real problem everybody has with Trump. It's not what he says or does. It's that he doesn't apologize for them afterward. I know a lot of people who are no saints themselves who believe Trump is some awful, creepy guy. The pot calling the kettle black, as it were. They ain't upset by what he does (or else they'd have hated Bill Clinton the same way.) Rather, they don't like that he doesn't play the obligatory game. He's supposed to apologize, plain and simple. Make us like him. He don't play that way.
I'll take heat from a few on this. A few. They'll say I'm apologizing for Trump. They'll say I'm condoning his bad behavior. They'll say I'm giving him a pass on every bad thing they think he's done. None of which is true, but that's OK. I'm simply trying to make a point here. There are many -- apparently over half the country -- who are simply fed up with the phoniness. We were aching for someone to tell it like it is, and say what he means.
That's why he got elected.
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