In Defense of Donald Trump

Three Things #147: December 1, 2024

At least I don’t cringe anymore when I see his face. That’s progress.

This is a difficult piece to write, but it’s a necessary one.

It’s difficult because, to be frank, I don’t like Donald Trump. And it’s necessary because, in spite of this, I still think it’s good that he won and I need to explain why to my many friends and family members who are lamenting his victory.

Let’s start with the first. I won’t surprise anyone by saying I don’t like Trump, and I probably don’t need to explain myself, but I’ll say just a few words about it anyway. I’ve never liked Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him the first time, second time, or third time. I’m a good judge of character, and character matters a lot to me. Trump appears to have some redeeming qualities: he seems to genuinely adore his family, and he can be quite funny. But, on the whole, as far as I can tell he isn’t a very good person and his character leaves something to be desired. He’s vindictive, cruel, and extraordinarily narcissistic. Modesty and humility are two of the things I value most highly, and Trump has less of these than a ham sandwich.

Having said all of that, Trump did win the election. More importantly, he and his party won in an overwhelming landslide that removes even the slightest glimmer of a doubt about the validity of their victory. While Trump doesn’t seem to have much respect for the democratic process, he won the election fair and square, through a free and fair democratic process (Ironic, isn’t it?). In other words, voting works.

But I’m not here to tell you about all of the reasons Trump is unfit to lead. This issue is “necessary” because, while I didn’t vote for him, I actually think it’s better that he won this election, and that he won in such a landslide. I’m clear-eyed about the challenges we face as a nation, a topic I’ve written about many times, but for the first time in a while I’m also enthusiastic and optimistic about the next few years. I feel this way because of Trump’s resounding win, because of the people he’s gathered around him, and because of his professed policy stances. More on those in a moment.

After this election I feel caught between two worlds. On the one hand, I’m from New York City and I’ve spent most of my adult life in overwhelmingly liberal places including New York, California, and Boston. I’ve worked for liberal companies and studied at very liberal universities. On the other hand, however, I grew up in a small, disaffected, working class town, surrounded by the most ordinary, unelite people you can imagine, and I attended public school up to and including college. I absolutely see the appeal of Trump and what he offers to people like those I grew up with.

The first time Trump ran for office, I was very much in a liberal, elite bubble. I can see clearly now that I fell victim to Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). I gobbled up the nonsense the legacy media spoonfed me, up to and including the Russiagate allegations that ultimately proved unfounded. The degree to which I accept and feel optimistic about Trump’s victory this time around shows me very clearly how much I’ve changed and how much the world has changed these past eight years.

These days, I spend most of my time in a different bubble: the crypto bro echo chamber, which happens to be one of the core constituencies of Trump’s new coalition. Many of my friends today, perhaps a majority, have been jumping with joy ever since the election. At the same time, however, I also still have many “liberal elite” friends and family members who are afflicted by the same TDS that I felt previously. Many of them think the sky is falling, and the world is over, and that American democracy is now on the brink of collapse—just as they did, as I did, eight years ago. (Democracy didn’t collapse then, and it won’t this time. This is one of many core contradictions in their position, which they seem unable or unwilling to see.)

In the rest of this issue, I want to explain why, in spite of all of his flaws, Trump is nevertheless what America and the world needs right now, and why you, too, should be optimistic about what comes next.

Thing #1: This Sorry State of Affairs 🤦‍♂️

The journey to understanding Trump’s victory, and understanding why we should feel optimistic about the next four years, starts with recognizing that things today are far more broken than you probably realize. In fact, when I compare my friends who support Harris and those who support Trump, this is the single biggest difference I see. Democrat supporters tend to feel that things are, on the whole, more or less fine, and that we should keep on with more of the same. Republican supporters, on the other hand, understand that the house is on fire and that more of the same will just hasten American decline. They feel that the hour is late and the situation is dire.

I side with the latter. I’ve written about the sorry state of the world, and about American decline, again and again. Just for starters, and just over the past four years, we experienced a tragic, embarrassing end to one forever war in Afghanistan, just to find ourselves embroiled in two more forever wars, a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and a proxy war in the Middle East against Iran. Neither conflict is in America’s interest, both are entirely unnecessary, and both could’ve been prevented.

What’s more, we face potential conflict in a number of other places, most notably with China over Taiwan. Russia and China aren’t going anywhere, and the USA isn’t nearly powerful enough to eliminate the threat that they pose. We should have excellent relations with these countries, but instead, we’re barely talking and we refuse to recognize even their most basic interests. We’re not so much attempting to negotiate as we are laughing down the barrel of a gun, a strategy that works until it doesn’t. Worst of all, these simmering conflicts vastly increase the risk of nuclear war.

There are plenty of issues closer to home. No matter how many times liberal elites repeat talking points about crime being down, the everyday lived experience of Americans is different. People aren’t stupid. They believe what they see and hear with their own eyes and ears, and the stories they hear from the people around them, not the nonsense they hear elite talking heads repeating on television.

I’m aware of what the official statistics show about crime, but what are everyday Americans experiencing? There was a clear uptick in crime during the pandemic, including violent crime. I personally saw police enforcement dialed down significantly in places including New York during and after the pandemic, and I feel that America’s big cities have become more lawless in some important ways. Behavior on the road is worse than ever before and even basic laws aren’t being enforced. And I constantly hear stories from friends about theft, gun crime, etc., stories I literally never heard growing up in New York. Meanwhile, Democrats including Kamala Harris have continued to repeat asinine lines like defund the police that are wildly out of touch with the wants of most Americans.

And—remember, we’re still only looking at the past four years!—the biggest issue of all for most Americans is the economy. As with crime, Democrats continue to prattle on about how, no, actually, you’re all wrong, the economy is doing just fine, thanks, and here’s some data to prove it. But, as with crime, the lived experience of the average American is anything but fine. As with crime, the Democrats are wildly, shockingly, embarrassingly out of touch. What matters to the average American isn’t the level of the S&P, stupid. It’s the pain they feel at the supermarket or the gas station pump. It’s how much (or little) money they have left at the end of the month after paying rent and all of their other bills. It’s the fact that basically everything just seems to keep getting more and more expensive, and everything feels more and more out of reach, while the liberal elites continue to do just fine with their fancy trust funds and stock portfolios.

Most low income Americans don’t own stocks or have any investments to speak of. The median level of emergency savings among Americans is only $600, and most Americans don’t feel comfortable with their ability to handle an emergency such as an unexpected medical bill: in fact, most Americans couldn’t handle a sudden $1000 bill. In general, most Americans today are feeling crushed by an ever-increasing burden to afford basic necessities including housing, food, education, and healthcare. We face a more severe housing shortage today than at any point in the nation’s history. No, Democrats, I’m sorry, everything is not fine economically.

It can both be true that the economy is doing well on the whole, but also that individual Americans are struggling as much as they ever have in living memory—this is the difference between the mean case and the median case. The everyday suffering of the ordinary American is lost in the averages.

In her defense, Kamala did have a proposal to help with housing. It was one of the very few substantial policies that she proposed, and it actually stood at least some chance of working. But it was too little, too late. The Democrats are largely responsible for the severe inflation of the past few years: under policy including Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, government spending and money printing increased massively. The Democrats never reconciled with this or took responsibility for their role in triggering inflation. Again, voters are many things but they aren’t stupid and they know when they’re being duped.

To be fair, while the Dems deserve most of the blame for the state of the economy, it’s partially the fault of the Republicans as well. The economy is hard to fix and no modern American politician of either party can resist the temptation to print money as a short-term fix, which just makes things worse in the long run. Trump is proposing two things, tariffs and cutting red tape. Tariffs probably won’t work, but slashing regulation and cutting taxes probably will help stimulate the economy.

More importantly, Trump also stands a good chance of ending some of the conflicts that we’re forever mired in. “America First” might seem shortsighted and selfish, but it’s understandable that, when they see crumbling infrastructure and an ever-worsening housing and homelessness crisis close to home, and literally trillions of dollars funding forever proxy wars and relief abroad, Americans want to see some of that money invested closer to home.

The main point here isn’t how Donald Trump will magically fix all of these problems. It’s that things are really, really bad, much worse than liberal elites realize. And Americans want something, anything, even Donald Trump, rather than more of the same.

Thing #2: Disappointing Democrats 😕

I voted Democrat in my first few presidential elections. I remember feeling proud to vote for Obama and proud to see him win in 2008, because he represented change and an end to the miserable Bush era of war, WMDs, and neocon nonsense. Also, because of what the Democrats stood for at the time: things like individual rights and freedoms, freedom of speech, the interest of the working class, and equal access to opportunity, all things that I care deeply about. I voted for Obama again four years later, and for Hillary in 2016, and for Biden in 2020.

Something changed during this period, however. In 2008 I was genuinely excited and proud to vote for Obama. It felt like an important groundswell movement, and I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself. With each successive election I felt a little less enthusiastic about the Democrats. I was less excited about voting for Clinton in 2016, but she was in any case much better than Trump. And in 2020, my vote for Biden wasn’t a vote for Biden at all. It was a vote against Donald Trump. I never felt excited about Biden, and the last four years killed whatever shred of enthusiasm might’ve remained for the Democrats.

There are many ways to interpret Harris’s landslide loss this year, but one of the simplest is that tens of millions of other Americans did what I did, and withdrew support for a party and a candidate that failed to inspire, even a little bit.

This is lesson number one for the Democrats: you cannot define yourself in negative terms, strictly in opposition to something. That might work once, but it’s not at all sustainable. You must have a positive vision; you must stand for something big and righteous. In this most recent election, the most charitable interpretation of Harris’s campaign is that she stood for vague, ill-defined notions like “unity” and “hope,” in opposition to a Trump campaign that was framed as standing for “hate” (which was anyway never true to begin with).

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I could fill as many pages as you’d give me with other reasons the Democratic party brought this meltdown upon themselves, and why the loss was so severe.

Let’s start with Covid policy. The Democratic party used to stand for individual liberty. In spite of this, Democratic leaders and policymakers instituted the harshest, most draconian lockdown measures. These continued far after the initial threat of the pandemic had already subsided, and weren’t backed by science in any way. While there’s some evidence that lockdowns helped mitigate the early spread of the disease, there’s no evidence that continued pandemic restrictions helped at all, and they had severe economic and social costs. Worst of all, Democrats stifled dissent, insisting on the Chinese party line narrative that Covid had escaped from a wet lab, despite the fact that the lab leak hypothesis was always more reasonable and likely on the face of it. Democrats subsequently attempted to cancel anyone who deviated from this party line as “racist.”

Which brings us to the next hypocrisy: despite the fact that it used to be the party of free speech, the Democrats championed cancel culture. Lots of Democrats, Democratic supporters, and the left in general genuinely feel that certain ideas are dangerous and, rather than choosing to engage with these ideas on the merits, they prefer to shut them down via cancellation and “deplatforming.” To this day, prominent Democrats, including Tim Walz, believe that First Amendment rights are less important than vague notions of “hate speech,” which is arbitrary and ill-defined. Prominent Democrats have called for social media sites to crack down on hate speech, a euphemism for censorship.

Then there’s the economy, which also isn’t in great shape. It took six years to increase the national debt by one trillion dollars between 1996-2002. Today, it’s increasing by the same amount roughly every 3-4 months, and we recently added half a trillion dollars in only three weeks.

All of this has led to massive inflation. The Republicans share some of the blame for this, of course. But I put most of the blame on the Democrats, and in particular on the massive increase of government spending under Biden, including as part of the woefully misnamed Inflation Reduction Act. We’ll be dealing with the consequences of these for generations to come: inflation means kicking the economic can down the road, forcing future generations to shoulder today’s debt.

Nor did the Democrats get things right in foreign policy. As mentioned above, Biden brought about a necessary if embarrassing end to one forever war, in Afghanistan, only to find himself facing two new forever wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. More to the point, as I wrote about previously, Democratic policy decisions going back to the Clinton era, such as expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders in spite of Russian warnings and protests, and unquestioning support for Israel, brought about these conflicts and ensured that there’s no easy way to end them.

In an issue that’s closer to home, the Democrats are also responsible for years of anti-cryptocurrency policies, in spite of the fact that cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology are fundamentally democratic ideas that support freedom and equality of opportunity. They secretly carried out Operation Chokepoint 2.0, now well documented, debanking hundreds of major cryptocurrency stakeholders including funds, builders, and influencers. The Democrats allowed out of touch extremists like Elizabeth Warren to dictate policy. Worst of all, they gave Gary Gensler free reign as SEC chairman to pursue a ridiculous campaign of legislation through enforcement actions, doing enormous economic harm to the fledgling cryptocurrency industry and driving a huge amount of talent and capital overseas.

We haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet. The very worst part of the modern Democratic party is its proximity to wokeism, an extreme, narrow-minded, backwards-looking, fringe ideology that captured the party and the left more generally around the time of the pandemic. It led to all sorts of nonsensical, hypocritical policies and ideas such as condemning pandemic-era large gatherings except those in support of Black Lives Matter.

The Democrats made their woke bed and they’re now forced to sleep in it. Wokeism came home to roost in this election in a big way. It appeals to a tiny sliver of liberal elites, and the vast majority of ordinary Americans view the movement with contempt. It’s fundamentally negative, shameful, and backwards-looking, refuses to accept the progress that we’ve made as a country and as a society, and refuses to believe that we can continue to improve. Worst of all, in line with the cancel culture and unwillingness to engage in the marketplace of ideas, just described, wokeism is founded upon a belief that there’s a single, acceptable party line, and that anyone who refuses to toe this line should be canceled rather than engaged with on the merits of their position. This is the most un-American ideology I can possibly imagine. Liberalism used to be about free speech and about a market for ideas; “liberalism” today rebranded under the modern Democratic Party is about thought crime.

There’s a common pattern to all of these mistakes: each of them is wildly out of touch with the opinions and desires of everyday Americans. Over the past few years, the Democratic party fell in thrall to a radical, fringe minority that believes in extreme policy positions and stances that are opposed to basic American values and that fly in the face of common sense. These include the idea that America is a fundamentally, irreparably racist country, that one’s opinions should be judged on the basis of one’s race and perceived past grievances, that everyone is entitled to a free college education and free social housing, that biological sex doesn’t exist and that biological males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, that children as young as five should be taught ideas about gender fluidity, and that even their own parents shouldn’t be informed if they decide to transition.

The Democrats were able to maintain the fantasy that these extreme ideas were in line with mainstream opinion for a while, on momentum and due to idiosyncratic circumstances, such as Donald Trump’s weaknesses. But lies and fantasy always eventually come home to roost. It’s a beautiful thing seeing them finally meet reality in this election. And one can only hope that, in response, the more moderate, sensible members of the party are able to overcome the extremists that, as usual, have ruined things for everyone else.

In nominating Harris, the Dems for some reason thought that running a wildly unpopular VP without a primary was a good idea. And in the final tally, Harris herself deserves plenty of blame for running a dismal campaign. She appeared to stand for basically nothing other than vague notions of “hope” and “love”, another way of saying, “vote for me because I’m not Donald Trump” (that worked once, but it won’t work again). She avoided media appearances and interviews, and difficult conversations. She seemed flustered by the few she engaged in. She appeared scripted and rigid, and much less authentic than her rival. She mostly stuck to her prepared talking points. And she was unwilling or unable to distance herself from the myriad failures of the Biden administration, and to explain why she’d do things as president that she couldn’t have already done as VP.

Worst of all, her campaign lied constantly. They continually called Trump racist, taking comments out of context and with no real evidence, and claimed that he opposed a much-needed immigration bill, without discussing any of the involved nuance, such as the fact that the bill in question was actually an appropriations act that would’ve handed over $100bn to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They labeled Trump rallies white supremacist, Nazi love fests, in spite of the fact that Trump had a very broad, diverse base of support, including many prominent Jewish leaders. They got hung up on offhanded comments made in poor taste by a comedian. The dismal legacy media played along with all of this. In other words, they made all of the same mistakes they made in 2016, appearing to have learned nothing. If the Democrats and left-leaning media had instead chosen to engage on the issues, they might’ve prevailed.

The best thing that can be said about Harris is that she’s a normal politician, but what we need today is anything but a normal politician.

Thing #3: Burn It All Down 🔥

We’ve done a pretty good job of covering why things are such a mess right now, and the extent to which the Democrats are responsible for this mess and for their own election meltdown. But the title of this issue is “In Defense of Donald Trump.” Let’s get to that defense.

You might not personally feel that the house is on fire and that things are as bad as I’ve laid out, but please accept the fact that many millions of your fellow Americans, myself included, do feel this way. What’s more, we feel outrage and disgust at the state of our politics, and at the fact that we let things get so bad in the first place. The outrage and disgust of the ordinary American at the state of our politics today knows no limits.

Americans who feel this way don’t want to elect another “normal politician” who supports this or that favored policy in the hopes of positive change. They want to burn the entire system down. They feel that the system is so broken and so corrupt that it can’t be fixed from the inside, by an insider, no matter how enthusiastic or well-meaning. This is the most succinct summary I can offer for why Donald Trump won, and why he won so bigly.

Like it or not, Trump represents the best chance of doing this today. As I said above, he’s deeply flawed. He’s not a very good person. I desperately wish there were someone else to lead the charge, but due to the weirdness of our electoral system and the extent to which Trump successfully captured the Republican party and effectively held it in thrall even after losing an election, he’s what we’ve got to work with right now. This election was basically a choice between civil politics as normal, and throwing firecrackers into the existing system in the hopes of elites finally waking up to the plight of the masses, and of finally effecting some real change.

The best, most charitable thing that can be said of Trump is that he’s his own man. For all of his flaws, when he speaks he comes across as authentic, relatable, and in charge, none of which could be said about the opposition. (Underestimate the importance of authenticity at your peril.) For this reason, and because he’s not beholden to any particular faction or group of lobbyists, he does stand a chance of changing some of the things that need to be changed.

Then there’s his close circle of advisors. Most importantly, this includes Elon Musk. I recognize that Musk is also a controversial figure, and many people I’ve spoken to who are suffering from TDS also seem to be suffering from a version of Elon Derangement Syndrome as well. They tend to immediately write Elon off as a “crookster” or a “fraud” of some kind. I don’t fully understand where this sentiment comes from, but I suspect it has to do with the left’s inherent mistrust of billionaires.

I have no trouble believing that Elon may be a bit of an ass, but you can’t just write him off. He’s hands down the most successful businessman, not just of our age, but of all time. He puts his money where his mouth is and has plenty of skin in the game. He’s made the lives of millions of Americans materially better through products like Tesla and Starlink. He’s a true visionary and he seems truly committed to big picture causes like helping humanity become interplanetary.

Another of these causes—because it seems to be an intermediate step towards his biggest vision—is making the government more efficient and removing some of the insane amount of bureaucracy that business leaders like himself have to deal with every day. Pulling a Twitter, i.e., slashing 80% of federal government roles, departments, and spending on day one seems like a great place to start. The federal government is far too big and does way too many things, and it only ever grows bigger. (In practice, there’s no way that even Elon, even with Trump’s help, will succeed in cutting the government that much, but I’d consider any reduction important progress.)

Then there’s RFK, Jr. I’m personally still deeply skeptical of him. I haven’t done the necessary homework on his background and his historical stances, but his anti-vaccine arguments seem anti-science and, in certain specific cases, seem to have done a great deal of harm. Nevertheless, America today is a ridiculously unhealthy country and the things we’ve been doing aren’t working. I’ll say the same thing about public health that I said about economics, foreign policy, and about the state of the government more generally: the system is radically, thoroughly, deeply corrupt and broken and we need a hard reset.

I think RFK, Jr. deserves the chance to do that. It’s good that we’re already talking about public health topics like fluoridation where there’s some real scientific basis for skepticism. There’s much more we must do to improve the American food chain and fix the broken, corporate system of incentives that keeps Americans unwell and consuming more healthcare per capita than anywhere else on earth. Of course, we need to hold RFK, Jr. accountable and make sure he doesn’t pursue wackier causes like a hard anti-vaccine stance.

Then there’s Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, and others. I also haven’t done a ton of homework on them, but I’ve listened to them speak in long form interviews and they both seem extremely competent and genuinely dedicated to improving the lives of ordinary Americans.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention blockchain and cryptocurrency. I’ve been passionately working on these technologies for the past 7+ years because I believe firmly in their potential to improve lives for billions of people around the world. They’re the only way to remove the government monopoly on money, and they already give millions of people around the world a way to save and transact in currencies that are protected from inflation. As mentioned above, I’ve watched with frustration and dismay as the outgoing Democratic administration has waged a war on crypto via SEC enforcement actions and underhanded attempts to debank crypto companies and influencers, among other tactics. In fact, this is one of the reasons the Democrats lost this election so dramatically. Cryptocurrency has more support and has become a bigger issue than the Democrats accounted for.

Trump and his advisors are extremely pro crypto. Trump himself now holds several million dollars worth of mainstream crypto assets including ether, and his family is running a DeFi project. Under a new Trump administration, we should expect to see a more reasonable approach to regulation and a flourishing of blockchain and crypto projects domestically for the first time in many years. I firmly believe that this will create lots of jobs and bring an enormous amount of value to the country at large.

This is my defense of Trump: not a defense of the man, per se, but a defense of the potential of a second Trump presidency. Yes, there are many risks and uncertainties. No, the President is not omnipotent and, as in his last term, he’ll face lots of roadblocks and legal challenges—albeit less than last time since the pandemic is over and the Republicans will effectively control all three branches of government.

But we desperately need radical change of the type discussed above and I’m genuinely optimistic that we’ll see at least some of that change during Trump’s second term. I’m optimistic that the cabinet and advisors that Trump installs will be able to do what no prior administration has been able to do.

In short, the best case scenario for a second Trump presidency is that Trump himself not do much—that he be invited to play a lot of golf—and surround himself with better, more competent advisors and cabinet members, delegating authority to them.