Evaluating Trump, Open Mindedly

MIND FORERUNS ALL CONDITIONS, instructs the Dhammapada. Mind is chief. Of mind are we made. Indeed, our lives are made by our minds, and nothing is more important than an open, receptive mind, receptive to the universe, to new information, able to discard clutter and remake itself anew. In a democracy, or alleged democracy, open minded is vitally important in assessing the performance of elected political leaders. To disparage everything, for example, that Donald J. Trump says and does merely because of personal antipathy towards Trump is not an acceptable attitude. Everyone deserves a chance, and maybe millions of chances. For example, Trump's stated aversion to foreign military entanglements is not only in keeping with similar admonitions made by George Washington, in his farewell address, it makes fundamental sense. it implies humility, and an awareness that American values are not necessarily the values of other nations, and that solutions imposed on other countries by the United States are not necessarily in the best interests the nation being influenced by American policy, but of other nations, most especially the United States itself. foreign intervention of any sort, military, diplomatic, or economic, comes with a high price, and the Untied States has repeatedly paid high prices, in death, financial cost, and morel burden, for its traditional interventionist policies. it seems unlikely that Mr. trump is concerned with any of these costs other than the financial; give him credit, he is a man who watches closely the bottom line. But the philosophy he espouses is arguably wise, and a majority of Americans probably agree with it. Unfortunately, most of Trump's behavior, in terms of public policy and verbiage, remains difficult to understand or justify. How can anyone deny the reality of climate change, and, as president, refuse to take actin to ameliorate it, considering that the United States Department of Defense has for years identified human made climate change as the greatest threat to American national security? The D.O.D. would seem, to an objective minded individual, to be as reliable an authority as nay on the planet. If Donald J. Trump has committed an impeachable offense, surely his refusal to defend and protect the country against is greatest threat, the greatest to its very existence qualifies. Trump's supporters are no less enigmatic. Computers and fact checkers have monitored and marked every comment the president has mad, and catalogued the factual misstatements. the lies number more than eight thousand, eight thousand verified, documented, provable, recorded outright lies, many if not most of them so blatantly, egregiously false as to evoke amazement that anyone would have the audacity to say such thing, anywhere, under any circumstances, let alone in front of millions of people, including hundreds of immediate witnesses. To behave like that, it is necessary for a liar to believe his own lies, which is even more alarming that anyone could issue such an endless cascade of blatant lies, believing them. and yet, from all indications, people who support Trump simply do not seem to care. They never even bother to make mention of Trump's incessant lying, as if it wasn't actually happening, of, in their parlance, were "fake news" Events which are recorded on audio and video and available for anyone's perusal are most assuredly not "fake news"; they are proven reality. Trump supporters have not only revealed their moral bankruptcy and lack of integrity, they have painted themselves into a corner by virtue of not having abandoned their support, or not having at least raised an outcry demanding that Trump clean up his act. They are now stuck with him, and have nowhere to go. Tragically, they fail to realize that submitting oneself to the humbling process of confession and redemption is among the most liberating process known to civilized humanity.