A unique analysis of presidential temperament by the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
Do you remember the time someone insulted Donald Trump and then Trump punched him in the nose?
Neither do I. Because nothing like that has ever happened.
Instead, people attack Donald Trump with words (often) and he attacks them back with words. See if the following pattern looks familiar:
1. Person A insults Trump with words. Trump insults back with words.
2. Person B mentions some sort of scandal about Trump. Trump mentions some sort of scandal about Person B.
3. Person C endorses Trump (even if they publicly feuded before) and Trump immediately says something nice about Person C. The feud is instantly over.
See the pattern?
Consider how many times you have seen the pattern repeat with Trump. It seems endless. And consistent. Trump replies to critics with proportional force. His reaction is as predictable as night following day.
The exceptions are his jokey comments about roughing up protesters at his rallies. The rally-goers recognize it as entertainment. I won’t defend his jokes at rallies except to say that it isn’t a temperament problem when you say something as a joke and people recognize it as such. (We see his rally joke-comments out of context on news coverage so they look worse.)
What we have in Trump is the world’s most consistent pattern of behavior. For starters, he only responds to the professional critics, such as the media and other politicians. When Trump responded to the Khan family and to Miss Universe’s attacks, they had entered the political arena. As far as I know, private citizens – even those critical of Trump – have never experienced a personal counter-attack. Trump limits his attacks to the folks in the cage fight with him.
And when Trump counter-attacks, he always responds with equal measure. Words are met with words and scandal mentions are met with scandal mentions. (And maybe a few words.) But always proportionate and immediate.
Does any of that sound dangerous?
What if Trump acted this way to our allies and our adversaries? What then?
Answer: Nothing
Our allies won’t insult Trump, and they won’t publicly mention any his alleged scandals. They will respect the office of the President of the United States no matter what they think of Trump. If Trump’s past behavior predicts his future, he will get along great with allies. Our allies have been fine with every president so far, and they haven’t all been perfect humans. The worst case scenario is that Trump calls some prime minister goofy. We’ll all be used to it by then, including the prime minister in question.
But what about our adversaries? It seems that Trump will get along fine with Putin. And Trump says North Korea is China’s problem. Compare that to Hillary Clinton trying to publicly emasculate Putin (with words) while talking tough about North Korea and forcing them to act tough in response. Clinton seems like the dangerous one here.
To continue reading: Presidential Temperament
