TRUMP

BAD WAYS TO CRITICIZE TRUMP 239
briefings 723 and retaining executive producer status on The Apprentice.
724 The premise here, apparently, is that we want Donald Trump
to spend less time working on reality shows and more time exercising
the power of the presidency. But that seems an insane thing to desire.
For progressives, it would probably be better if Trump spent four years
continuing his reality show act than if he started thinking about which
countries he’d like to bomb. (Same logic applies to the wall. Here’s
a quick tip that all progressives should follow: if he doesn’t make an
effort build the wall, don’t tell him he’s a hypocrite and a failure.)
Likewise with Trump’s self-enrichment. A number of people have
dwelled on his “conflicts of interest,” suggesting that Trump will
unconstitutionally use his new powers to seek new business opportunities
abroad, exploiting the office for financial gain. But if we’re being
honest, this is probably the best outcome progressives could hope for.
We should pray that Trump wants money rather than power, because
building hotels in Singapore is one of the least destructive possible
uses of his time. Corruption may be bad, but for progressives who
care about human rights, Trump’s corruption should be very low on
our list of worries. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out before, 725 we
should almost hope that strongman-leaders are corrupt. If they’re corrupt,
they might not do too much harm; you also can buy them off
with money. But if they’re sincere yet megalomaniacal, there’s no end
to the evil they will do. A corrupt con man will drain your treasury,
but an honest ideologue could massacre six million people.
The question anyone writing about Trump should think about
before making a criticism is as follows: does anybody really give a crap?
For example, which do people care more about: Trump being friendly
with Putin or about the potential disappearance of their Medicaid
benefits? Do they care more about Trump tweeting some slur about a
news anchor, or about the threat of nuclear war? Focus should be kept
on those things that affect people’s lives the most.
There are bad potential critiques of Trump at every turn. When