{"id":1452,"date":"2017-01-11T20:45:36","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T20:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/?p=1452"},"modified":"2017-01-11T20:53:26","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T20:53:26","slug":"sometimes-character-matters-even-for-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/2017\/01\/11\/sometimes-character-matters-even-for-politicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes character matters even for politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was thinking about the latest Buzzfeed and CNN news regarding soon to be President Trump. I can understand why Mr. Trump and Republicans are quick to challenge these descriptions as unsubstantiated. The situation sounds very much like the trick a foreign government would pull in order to threaten a politician\u00a0in a Tom Clancy thriller.<\/p>\n<p>I must say I don&#8217;t really know what to believe anymore, but I think I understand why these tawdry descriptions are getting so much play. Mr. Trump&#8217;s behavior during the campaign and other indisputable revelations that shared his previous behavior led everyone to have to deal with his character flaws. He is sexist, racist, and a bully. I can only conclude that his supporters were willing to ignore such traits because they believed his promises of a rosy and carefree future.<\/p>\n<p>A little thought experiment. Should the Russian prostitute story have featured President Obama as the leading character would anyone have seriously believed what they were reading? I just don&#8217;t see this as possible &#8211; even among the haters. With Trump, the scenario seems consistent and very believable. It might even seem a thing he would brag about to friends.<\/p>\n<p>This is the thing about character. What others believe about our core values provides a context for interpreting our present and portrayed behaviors. I cannot say the things described by Buzzfeed and CNN happened, but what was described would not seem &#8220;out of character&#8221;. If you brag about grabbing\u00a0women in an inappropriate way, descriptions of other sexual perversion do not seem that far fetched.<\/p>\n<p>There is one interesting irony in this situation. Presently, you have Mr. Trump complaining about conspiracy theories portraying him in a negative and exploitable way. This reaction from someone who promoted the theory that Mr Obama was not qualified to be President because he was not born a U.S. citizen, that the father of Ted Cruz was involved in the assassination of JFK or that Hillary Clinton was involved in the killing of Seth Rich.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that experession about sowing and reaping? How did that go again?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was thinking about the latest Buzzfeed and CNN news regarding soon to be President Trump. I can understand why Mr. Trump and Republicans are quick to challenge these descriptions as unsubstantiated. The situation sounds very much like the trick &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/2017\/01\/11\/sometimes-character-matters-even-for-politicians\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1454,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions\/1454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}