Donald Trump and the Problem with "Winning"

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kim Kardashian West said of her husband’s fantasy BFF and partner in dragon energy, “There’s obviously a lot that we don’t agree with, but I want (Donald Trump) to win. I want him to succeed because it’s our country. It’s so crazy that everyone doesn’t want that.” 

Like a lot of phrases, words and ideas associated with Donald Trump, I have a huge problem with the concept of “winning” both in general and as it applies to Donald Trump. So I don’t find it all crazy that everyone doesn’t want Trump to ‘win.’ 

For me, Trump “winning” isn’t merely a matter of the economy doing well or crime rates going down. Of course I fucking want that. Everybody wants that. But my conception of a winning economy is very different from Trump’s. I don’t give a fuck about the billionaires and corporate oligarchs that are the primary beneficiaries of Trump’s economic policies. For me, free healthcare, free college and a fifteen dollar an hour would all represent “winning” economic policies. For Trump and his hyper-capitalist cronies, those would mark profound defeats not just for the Republican party but for civilization as a whole. 

Of winning! 

For Trump, “Winning” means appointing a hard-right, anti-abortion judge to the Supreme Court who will thrill his base of creepy, soulless creepy Christian hypocrites by getting Roe Vs. Wade overturned and abortion outlawed. It means those beautiful, beautiful monuments to Confederate generals will remain in public squares as an eternal tribute to the fact that there were, in Trump’s mind no doubt, good folks on both sides. 

For Trump, winning means that when Trump unilaterally decides to ban trans patriots from serving their country via a fucking tweet the military will be forced to implement his crazed, hateful whim instead of rejecting it more or less outright as a deranged man-child crazily over-stepping his boundaries. 

For Trump winning means a press that is as effusive and sycophantic towards Trump as InfoWars, Breitbart and FOX NEWS and as vitriolic in their contempt for his opponents, both within his party and outside of it. For Trump, winning means unabashed racial profiling and football players being forced to stand for the National Anthem or get blackballed from the league. It means legalizing and even encouraging discrimination against the LGTBQ community on the basis of “religious freedom.” 

For Trump, winning means denying climate change despite a preponderance of evidence for ideological reasons. For Trump, it means destroying not just Obama’s legacy, but also his image as a dignified and inspirational figure of unimpeachable integrity because Trump cannot stand the idea that a cool, detached, elegant black man is more loved by the public than an angry, belligerent, racist white man. 

Pretty much everything outside of a thriving economy and lowered crime rates that Trump considers a “winning” policy I consider a horrible loss for our country. But it goes beyond that. I am sickened by Trumps’ obsession with winning because it is so child-like, simplistic and reductive. 

I hate Trump’s obsession with winning because it divides the world into the two stark categories of winners and losers instead of striving for a world where everyone has a chance to succeed and one country’s success isn’t by definition another’s horrible failure. 

Now Donald Trump has got the Glow! 

Call me a crazed globalist, but I suspect that the United States AND the world would be better off if the attitude of the leader of the most powerful country in the world wasn’t “Everybody else is out to fuck us, even our allies, but with me in charge, I’ll fuck over everybody on your behalf!” 

That paranoid worldview appeals to Trump’s crazed cult of personality, who have deeply internalized their Fuhrer’s obsession with “winning” and “losing” and “winners” and “losers” but it depresses, saddens and enrages me all at the same time. 

Trump infamously promised us so much winning that we’d get tired of flawless victory. Brother, I was exhausted by your sad, toxic concept of “winning” before this whole nightmare even began. 

I make my living through Patreon, and hoo boy, you can make me feel like a real winner by pledging even a dollar over at http://patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace that’d be nothing short of