However, I do struggle with the idea of putting our interests ahead of global interests in all cases. Maybe I'm not up to speed on a working definition of Trump's philosophy here (I struggle to ever see him articulate philosophies of any depth as it is). Certainly open to hearing your thoughts on the matter.
Well, first, I guess my mention of respectful disagreement is due to me being more than a little gun shy about that at the moment. I was accused of belittling someone recently and that has bothered me a great deal. I certainly don't want even a hint of that in our relationship.
Regarding the above quote, perhaps a word of explanation is in order. In regard to that, I will say that I do not regard Trump as being particularly articulate in enunciating a philosophy. I think he says things crudely. In a way, I find it interesting that I have found myself supporting Trump as I do. I assume you were aware that before the election I self described myself as a never-Trumper. Mad seems fond of mentioning that, by the way.
I was a Rand Paul fan until he was eliminated. I generally gravitate toward men who speak well. I am particularly fond of Alan Dershowitz, for example. Despite his liberal leanings, I generally like Bill Maher and think he is interesting. Trump is generally not my type. I have never understood the visceral hate that some have for him nor the love that others seem to hold. I just kind of like didn't like him.
But after the election, I found myself liking his policies on trade. And from there I saw what he was doing with ISIS and then there was the moment when I came to the realization that MS13 actually represented a significant threat that needed to be addressed.
As for his philosophy, I see it not in words but in terms of specific actions. Take ventilators for example. A month ago, we were building a stockpile of ventilators. We built way more than we actually needed. Maybe it was because we initially thought we needed a lot more than we actually did. As I recall, at one point, Governor Cuomo insisted that he needed 30,000 ventilators and had only received 4000 from Trump. As it turned out, 4000 was more than enough.
But after it was clear that we were building many more than we needed, Trump didn't slow the production. He kept it full steam ahead. Then he started talking about requests from other countries for ventilators and, finally, this month, he has shipped ventilators to a number of countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and the UK. But notice that he didn't do it until it was abundantly clear that our needs had first been fully met. As I see it, he is capable of benevolence and the reason he maintained production of ventilators and didn't slow it was in order to be able to be benevolent. He knew what he was going to do with the excess, but he first made sure it was not at the expense of our own needs.
At least, that is the way I see it.
