Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Posted a hot take on the Trump assassination attempt in a subscribers chat on substack
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Insightful read. I am more agnostic than you about the really-long-term prospects of the US republic, because its capacity to reinvent and self-correct itself out of doomsday trajectories and dire predicaments is second to none, and usually ends up defeating many a pessimistic expectation. Of course, this only works until it doesn't. In the medium term, I would add a point about Trump himself, at the risk of undeservedly embellishing his character and reading too much into events far removed from me (as I am neither a US citizen nor resident). If you remember that election night in 2016, there was this idea that Trump himself had neither expected nor wanted victory (see https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html for example). Trump was, after all, living a very comfortable Manhattan life, being wealthy beyond measure and free in his agenda and movements. That all changed when the punishing exigencies of the POTUS role befell upon him. 1/2
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Is it possible, then, that he is different person now than he was then? Not that he merely got attracted to the prestige and addicted to the power; it's clear his ego is entirely capable of that. But that he perhaps became more... dignified by the burden of responsibilities, and grew a calling? Call it a messiah complex, or a genuine belief in some personal vision of his for the country, which many argue he was devoid of in 2016, when he was perceived as a mere grifter. 2/3
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