Bill James explains in a Federalist column that he has “despised Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes president.” James then goes on to detail his aversion to Donald Trump and outlines the reasons why he doesn’t believe Trump can win the presidential election.
After setting the stage, James changes gears.
[H]aving hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage; not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating.
I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Trump has had the courage to say and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that in a president. We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.” I applaud Trump for being that person.
Also, Trump is advocating real democracy in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the talking heads to understand. We have in this great nation a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules. Most of us never voted upon or agreed to these rules. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some are useless and counter-productive.
Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous and to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to it all.
