LOL!!! Camille Paglia is an extraordinarily discerning person, whom I've admired for many, many years. She has the most finely calibrated B.S. Detector of any cultural commentator I know of, and she spares no one, Left or Right, if she sees shenanigans -- not even a "cultural icon" like professional feminist agitator Gloria Steinem. I think she gets Ted Cruz "to a Tee" here. Brava, Camille!
Just had a thought pop into my little head, just five minutes ago, right out of the blue. (I do get thoughts every now and then.) It is this: The people who loathe and disparage Donald Trump aren't so much loathing and disparaging HIM as they are loathing and disparaging the Trump VOTER.
And who is the Trump voter? Largely working class folks, folks in the trades, middle-class people. Those of us smug about our fine college educations often think such people are hapless, stupid, clueless about how to manage their lives without expert help. Certainly they can't be trusted to run our government.
And then there are the hardcore elitist types, like Tim Cook of Apple, and other captains of industry not to mention banking, that have become "patrons" and funders of the corrupt state in exchange for government protection of their interests at taxpayer expense, who get a rash just thinking about what the world would look like, if such folks were in charge. Not to mention how their privileges might be denied to them, if the government were run by "the common people," the "great unwashed."
Trump has genuine empathy for such people. He knows they are the ones that are being shorn like sheep to maintain the corrupt status quo, notwithstanding all those pious tsk-tsk-tsks about "the evil one-percenters." That's just so much camouflage, designed to conceal actual reality from view while the predators continue to depredate without constraint.
It has been my experience that great wisdom lies in the people at large; and some of the wisest people I know have been people in the trades.
FWIW
p.s.: Just in case the link doesn't work for you, the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language defines "depredate" as:
Steal from, typically using force; plunder:Examples:
"many types of predators depredate bird nests"
"wandering flocks of pigeons depredating barley crops"
And who is the Trump voter? Largely working class folks, folks in the trades, middle-class people. Those of us smug about our fine college educations often think such people are hapless, stupid, clueless about how to manage their lives without expert help. Certainly they can't be trusted to run our government.
Who are you, betty? You are not the woman whose words I read with regularity for so many years here on FR, because you were so unfailingly intelligent, eloquent and fair. Reading some of your posts of late, when those posts concern Donald Trump and his political opposition, I have scratched my head in disbelief, wondering where the fairness went.
I am a vehement opponent of Donald Trump, and have written much regarding how I came to join that particular camp. And my writing has included much negativity regarding the man and what I believe he represents. At the same time, I have never personally disparaged any Trump supporter. Not his allegiances. Not his perspective. Especially not his personal motives for his political viewpoint. Not one of the above.
You suggest that those of us who oppose Donald Trump (people who are often 'smug about their college educations') do not actually dislike Trump himself but, instead, actually dislike 'working class folks, folks in the trades, middle-class people'.
That you, never having personally met me or others who will not support Donald Trump and are very vocal about our dislike of him, would attribute to us a personal distain for that segment of America that was (and still is) most responsible for America's rise in becoming the most moral and prosperous civilization in the history of mankind, is beyond inconceivable to me.
My Dad, the most incredible human being I have ever known, was a blue-collar worker for fifty years, often working 10-12 hours a day to put food on the table for his family during the 50s and 60s, and whose intelligence, sense of duty, industry, honesty, and love of country were second to none. He instilled in me, and virtually everyone he knew well, a deep and abiding reverence for 'working class America', and I have lived my life sharing that message.
I am a part of a group here in our township that is working on a program that we hope will allow us to speak at schools in our area of the state, presenting a program called 'The Case for Working With Your Hands' (based loosely on This article by Matthew Crawford).
And I am by no means alone. I would estimate that close to half of my (and my husband's) friends are college-educated 'professionals' and well over half are blue-collar workers, tradespeople, stay-at-home mothers, and the like. And I know, for a fact, that not a one of those friends has a negative opinion of the kind of people you theorize that we 'loathe and disparage', for any reason, and certainly not by virtue of the fact that we are not supporters of Donald Trump. To even intimate so is a stereotyping that is beyond unjust, and it hits me, personally, at the core of who I am, as well as reflecting poorly on many of my friends and family, who most certainly do not deserve to be the recipients of such unfair negative stereotyping, simply by virtue of whom they are supporting/not supporting in this election cycle.
You will note that, in this response, I have not once attributed personal motives/perspectives to your assertion, even when that assertion painted, with a broad, black brush, both me and many of the people I love/loved and whose opinions I cherish. Such broad, negative generalizations have no place in civil debate.