Trump's Sins: A Missing Piece: Historical Perspective.

Last evening news broke about D. Trump's US presidential campaign. I watched for a while on CNN. They were hysterical about the magnitude of the story. The story: a reporter from the Washington Post had published a video from 11 years ago in which Trump is heard to say demeaning, sexist, comments about women and his thoughts and behaviour towards them.

Some commentators felt that this publication could be the death knell for Trump's presidential bid. The commentators came down very hard on Trump. No one dared excuse his comments, even his most loyal backers.

And then, in a campaign first, Trump tweeted a half hearted apology. This was followed, after consultation with his team, a video post where Trump reframed the apology in more humbling terms, clearly as a damage control exercise.

But to my mind something was missing. For lack of a better phrase this moment, I'll call it historical perspective.

Not one commentator made reference to how society's attitudes to thoughts, words and conduct like Trump's had morphed over the last few decades. Not one, and I viewed many commentaries reactions.

Another thing that has changed over the last few decades is society's views related to the difference between public statements and conduct and private statements and conduct. Again no commentator I heard made reference to this phenomena.

While I have never been to an intimate bridal shower, based on a loose recollection of the odd tidbit shared with me by participants, some women will say and do things at a private gathering like this that they would never consider saying or doing in public. This because it would be shocking and offensive to do/say those things in public, in a mixed gender environment. Those women would be pilloried, and would squash any prospects for public office had their private behaviour been known publicly.

In days past, within certain bounds, it was considered fairly acceptable to keep the public and private spheres separate. What guys said at the hunt camp, tended to stay at the hunt camp.

The world has indeed changed. There is now no refuse or safety for comments made in the private sphere. Everything is considered to be as if it were done/said in public.
And everyone is measured as if the current conventional wisdom has always been the conventional wisdom. And that is the problem.

I carry no brief for D. Trump. He is a goof ball, and is not in the least suited to be President. It would be disastrous if he were to be elected I speculate.

Trump's sin is that he has failed to keep pace with the changing orthodoxy in Western thought.
I have not the slightest doubt that Trump's core beliefs have made some changes consistent with society's changes. I do not believe that his 2016 beliefs are the same as those he seems to have held in 2005. On the scale of acceptable gender views, he has surely improved.

Have his beliefs come into alignment with today's currency? Almost certainly not. He is, at his core, I figure, still way behind the curve. Call him a dinosaur if you wish, a species that is long extinct. But in this epithet, lies a clue about the weakness of his detractors. Dinosaurs last lived 65,000,000 years ago. Trump is only behind the curve by about 50 years.

If I had more time, I'd speak about North American attitudes 50 years or so back. ( and I'd speak about my Dad, and his experiences of 70 years ago as an engineering student at the close of the Second World war.) And I'd also bring in comments about what it was like 100 years ago. You know times were significantly different then. Trump's comments would seem far less out of place back then. Not that many would ever have heard or seen them, because they were private, and would have stayed private.

For a good little piece that touches on these points consider Jonathan Kay's item in The Walrus.
sins-of-the-past

I close by offering a personal view. Let us be mindful of how society's attitudes change over time. And when we presume to judge others, let us remember how much and how fast society has changed. It is hypocritical to begin with the premise that today's prevailing attitudes have always prevailed.