David Smalley’s Pre-election, Anti-Trump Screed

Introduction 

Let me be clear, I really don’t like defending Trump. 

I also don’t like it when people engage in wild conspiracy theorizing and slander. 

I mean, let’s be honest: the man is obnoxiously loud, rude, self-important, and kind of oblivious to customs—but then, he was a registered Democrat up until he ran for president in 2015. 

And, to further be honest, he wasn’t my first pick either. I was a Ted Cruz supporter and I was disappointed that he lost the nomination. In my opinion, the reason why Trump rose to the top was because people tried to out-Trump Trump, and you simply cannot do that against Trump and expect to come out on top. 

And while the Trump presidency has been a stomach ache-inducing roller coaster ride, it has been fairly much business as usual, aside from the apoplectic media attempting to induce apocalyptic paranoia in the population. 

Is Trump perfect?

Trump is Trump. He’s “Donny from Queens” and he doesn’t pretend like he’s better than anyone else. 

Then I saw this Tweet from David Smalley, and I decided to use his own argument against him, which got me blocked on Twitter. 

But I have means that he doesn’t know about. Anyway, I saw that he had posted an anti-Trump screed on his Patreon page. 

Most of the points that he raises have been addressed by others, some of which I addressed here, so it’s a little late to the party and rehashes some long-debunked talking points that I’m not interested in rehashing because honest, rational people admit and move on. 

Let’s get into this. 

The Appeal to Patriotism

David opens by appealing to patriotism, which when a hard-core leftist starts appealing to your sense of patriotism, get ready for the slap, because it’s coming. And it comes in the form of questions:

“So what if you were to find out that not everyone in America had the same opportunity that you thought they did? What if we had policies that hurt some people more than others? And what if we were secretly celebrating people who were Anti- American? Would you want to know? Would you want to do something about that?

Now, at first blush, these seem to be genuine questions, but not so fast. 

It’s fairly obvious to say that not everyone has the same opportunities. Where I live, my education, my circle of friends, my choices all effect any opportunities that I have. If I want to have different opportunities, then something has to change in that chain of relationships. 

When it comes to policies, we want those that offer the most freedom. That’s why I believe in policies like school choice, where education dollars collected through taxes are attached to the child so that schools have to compete for those dollars by striving to actually educate kids. But the decision for how those dollars which have been essentially extorted from taxpayers actually benefits those who use them. But when it comes to political policies, that is where debate needs to occur so that they benefit everyone as much as possible, and limit harm, whatever that might be. 

The third question is something that sounds good, of course it plays on a measure of ambiguity. What does it mean for something to be “Anti-American” and who gets to decide what those things are? I’m a believer in the founding principles of this nation: rights to life, liberty, and property, and equal justice under law; equality of persons. 

The final two questions are the kicker because he’s already invoked emotional language that needs to be parsed out and explained, and if you aren’t paying attention then you get sucked along for the ride. 

That’s not to say that these aren’t valid questions, but they’re so ambiguous that the camel will be in the tent before you know it. 

Failing at History and Political Philosophy 

David then dips into his argument by posting a screenshot Twitter thread from Trump back in 2017, where Trump asks a simple question: what next? Now David plays on a certain historical and philosophical ignorance of his audience. He asks a question,

“What could be more Anti-American than turning against America, starting your own country, creating a new flag, and killing American soldiers?

This is somewhat debatable, especially when you look into the political philosophy of the time, as well asthe general beliefs of the people at the time. The division of the nation was underway decades before the first shots were fired. People often didn’t think of themselves as “Americans” other than the fact that they lived on the American continent. People were Virginians, or New Yorkers, or Tennesseans. The states were largely seen as sovereign over their own affairs and the guiding political philosophy that seems enshrined in the Constitution was that the federal government served to settle disputes between states and coordinate them in times of war. 

When the South seceded from the United States, they did so under the presumption that they entered the union voluntarily, they could leave voluntarily. While the economic and social issue of slavery was the wedge, there was a measure of hostility that existed between the states because of how they saw themselves. This is why people who were not slave owners (ie the vast  majority of the population) not only supported secession, but volunteered to fight, not for the Confederacy, but for their states. 

To call their attitude “Anti-American” is to fundamentally misunderstand what they thought being an American was. It’s anachronistic thinking. 

David’s anachronism makes him historically dismissive,

“The Civil War only lasted 4 years. That’s not heritage. That’s domestic terrorism and an attempted overthrow of American Soldiers. 

I would like to remind David, and everyone else, that “American” was something that the Confederates thought of themselves as, after all, that union was called the “Confederate States of America. And while I can detest what the Confederacy stood for as a political entity, I can appreciate it as part of my history. And let’s remember, even though the first shots were fired by the South, the first battles of that Civil War, were fought on Southern soil. The Civil War was not an attempt to overthrow the government, of the United States, which would be treasonous, but to separate on peaceable terms from an aggrieved party. Essentially, the South wanted a divorce but the north wasn’t having it.  And to call that “terrorism” is both dishonest and inflammatory. 

“Donald Trump has signed an Executive Order to protect these monuments, and threatened to use our own military force against American citizens who seek to remove these symbols of hate. 

Now, while I oppose the removal of such monuments on principle—something I have discussed here—I would like to direct David to the text of the order itself, which has an interesting paragraph:

“Key targets in the violent extremists’ campaign against our country are public monuments, memorials, and statues.  Their selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past and to erase from the public mind any suggestion that our past may be worth honoring, cherishing, remembering, or understanding.  In the last week, vandals toppled a statue of President Ulysses S. Grant in San Francisco.  To them, it made no difference that President Grant led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the Civil War, enforced Reconstruction, fought the Ku Klux Klan, and advocated for the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed freed slaves the right to vote. (Emphasis added)

Moreover, the executive order admonishes the Attorney General and executive departments to enforce existing federal laws against vandalism and monument destruction. So, what David is saying is that he doesn’t want the chief law enforcement officer in the land—that would be President Donald Trump—to enforce laws because he has a political agenda that is being disrupted by the enforcement of those laws. 

Let me say that I would have no problem with such being removed if this went through a democratic process of debate and vote. I’m opposed to violent crowds destroying and defacing monuments, like the monument to the 54th Massachusetts. But, if we’re going to be fair, then let’s have a monument to the 6th Florida brigade that they fought at the Battle of Olustee. 

Controlling the Outbreak 

Since March we’ve all been in an induced haze as a result of measures taken with regard to the Coronavirus. And while the US leads in sheer numbers over 3 million as of this writing, there are a number of reasons—from population density to conflicting counting measures—to not be necessarily concerned about this fact. If we look at the data, the states with the highest counts, just happen to be either the most populated or have the highest population density (eg New York). 

Almost 2% of New York’s population has been infected, while just under 1% of Texas’ and .06% of California while only 1% of Florida’s population has been infected. And while David feels like he needs to blame Trump—who is Constitutionally limited in his authority—why doesn’t he blame New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who has much more authority, for the more than 30,000 deaths that occurred in his state, deaths which were due to a disastrous policy of placing positive patients in nursing homes. 

David complains that we had “55,000 new cases, as of July 4”. Gee, I wonder why?

Oh, right: protests. 

David wants to blame Trump for “ providing misleading information“, but if memory serves me right, Trump had Drs. Fauci and Birx out there in front of the cameras telling us the facts, and Trump would repeat them, so the fault would be theirs as the experts on the case. So, Trump is at fault because of the experts. 

A Series of Unfortunate Events

David writes with regard to law enforcement issues,

“There is obviously something wrong with our police strategy when our cops kill 30 times the number of civilians in the next country. 

Well, first, why does the problem always have to be with the police and not the people that they’re interacting with. David employs a graph that accurately reflects one aspect of reality, but never the others. 

Now, it should be concerning that over a thousand people were killed by police, if the police were just riding around shooting random people. However, is that the case? In reality, no. 

If we go to the database that has been compiled by the Washington Post and start looking at individual cases, then we discover instances like the case of 27 year old Marcus Hartfield who—after being released from jail on a domestic violence charge—broke into a house, armed with a knife, threatening the residents in the home, ultimately refusing to drop it and even charging at the officer who responded to the call. 

Such broad brushing of events is both patently anti-intellectual and unfair to those whom we charge with enforcement of our laws. 

Does that mean that the police should have unfettered immunity from consequences for their actions? Hardly. They should be held to a higher standard and often are. But David seems to be under the impression that the police are somehow at fault for using force. He writes,

“This means hiring people to de-escalate non-violent situations, rather than police showing up with guns and forceful attitudes which can make things worse.

I would like to direct him to the case of Marcus Hartfield and ask what de-escalation measures would have worked there, when the man charged at the police officer while holding a knife? Or this instance from 2018, when a man armed with a knife and a folding chair tried to attack police officers and an innocent woman with a baby on the street.

David demonstrates that typical well-meaning naïveté of the populist left that is simply disconnected from the reality of the world and the consequences of well-intentioned policies. I would like to remind David of what happens when you get rid of the police, it resulted in 3 murders and numerous physical and sexual assaults. I’m all for seeing how money is spent with regard to law enforcement, but defunding or even abolishing the police is societal suicide. 

Money, Money, Money

I’ll just go ahead and concede certain facts: there have been a number of policies, both governmental and private, that have unjustly discriminated against black Americans. Redlining was one of those policies. However, a study by the Brookings Institute just last year demonstrated that areas that were once marked out for being majority black and therefore discriminated against are no longer such, in fact in some of those areas blacks now make up less than 10% of the population.  

David’s argument is simple not engaging with the data and is, in fact, based upon faulty data. This doesn’t mean that black home ownership is anywhere in line with white home ownership, or that accumulated  black wealth is anywhere near white wealth. The problem is the numbers themselves. 

The argument is that the “average black family” would take almost 300 years to accumulate the same wealth as the “average white family”. That’s not how wealth accumulation works though. 

Just to demonstrate this, David is worth about $3 million dollars according to this source. Now, in liquid terms, David probably has about a tenth to a fifth of that in the bank. In fact, David could probably write me a check and buy everything I own and not miss it. How many years did it take for him to accumulate that wealth? According to his bio, he’s been in the business for 15 years. That means he’s accumulated about $200,000 a year in value because of his chosen profession, which is a unique profession. 

Image Source

Now, his contemporary, and fellow comedian, Dave Chappelle—who just happens to be black—is worth about $50 million according to this source. Dave has been in show business for about 30 years. He’s accumulated roughly $1.6 million dollars of value per year because of his chosen and unique profession. 

So, it seems like the only meaningful explanation for explaining why this disparity exists is because of personal choices.

Interestingly, referring once again to the Brookings Institute, what is interesting is that, as a nation, as we have spent more and more money through wealth redistribution via social programs, poverty has essentially flatlined, and in some cases increased. The two major ways that one can escape poverty is through education in demanded fields (eg STEM fields) and not having children out of wedlock.

But let’s ask a serious question: how can black Americans get ahead? Definitely not through shuttering their businesses for 3 months, which caused 41% of them to close, or destroying them through rioting. The very means to create and generate wealth has been stolen from hundreds of black families through destructive means and not discrimination.

Drinking the Dregs

Not a slight against Kool-aid itself

After all of his side issues with the coronavirus and wealth accumulation, David finally gets to the red meat: is Trump a racist?

David writes,

“If Trump were racist, would you want to know? How could he stay in power, and have the support of some black voters if that were the case? Despite seeing a few black conservatives backing Trump in photo ops, why is Biden a strong lead among the black and brown communities?

Well, let’s look at Biden’s record on race, which the folks over at New York Magazine were nice enough to compile.

Biden…

• • Was for desegregation until he was against it, taking the figure of the typical “white northern liberal that desegregation was necessary for the south but not the north.
  • Voted with Jesse Helms to kill desegregation at the federal level. This act was labeled by the NAACP as “an anti-black amendment” and the only Black Senator at the time, Ed Brooke (MA-R) referred to it as, “the greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.” This fact connects to the problem of black wealth because a study in 2011 demonstrated that black students who went to desegregated schools earned 25% more on average than those that didn’t.
  • Helped to create one of the most racist and punitive justice systems in the developed world that even gutted established prison education funding, bragging about it as late as 2015 as his namesake crime bill that established a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine offenders (mostly black) and powdered cocaine offenders (mostly wealthy whites).

But, fortunately for so many politicians, American voters are largely a forgiving bunch. 

But David wants to push the issue to the other side of the aisle, and so he dredges up a controversial quote from the now deceased Republican strategist Lee Atwater. I’m not going to repeat it here, you can see it for yourself here. Also, when you follow the link there is also a rather poor recording of the conversation which takes place from about the 15 to the 19-minute mark, the context of which was a question about appealing to “racist voters” and Atwater’s point is that the racist is under the impression that the policy or position will potentially hurt the object of their hate, however the opposite is often the case. Interestingly Louisiana politician Huey Long is mentioned as an example of someone who used what could have been construed as being racist to actually help blacks. Context is always key.

David brings up the issue of the “fourteen words” allegedly used by white supremacists. 

So, did you notice that I used fourteen words in that sentence just then?

And that I used fourteen words to compose that question just then as well?

And that fourteen words were used by me to compose that previous question too?

It is almost like it takes fourteen words to compose a coherent sentence sometimes.

Dang it, I did it again.

Well, why is that important, because David brings up a Trump tweet from June 30, 2020, writing,

“White Supremacists have a saying called “The 14 words.” It’s often repeated and shared online to show solidarity among other racist groups to let each other know they’re on the same side.

The tweet in question—if you don’t count the hashtag—does have fourteen words.

But if we’re going to argue that because someone tweets a sentence with fourteen words in it that they’re signaling to their white supremacist friends, well, David, how do you explain this?

Yes, it’s a joke.

Well, he tries to pad his argument by writing,

“And they (white supremacists) often defend the use of the confederate flag as being “our Heritage” capitalizing the ‘H’.

Well, anyone who follows Trump’s tweets with any regularity will notice that he often capitalizes nouns in order to emphasize them, like this tweet

And this one

But interestingly, not this one, which uses some of the same language. 

Now, I don’t want to accuse David of being a conspiracy theorist but…

Another piece of evidence that David musters is a T-shirt that is for sale on Trump’s campaign website that he says, “bare (sic) a shocking resemblance to the Nazi Part Logo.”

Yeah, and it also bears a close resemblance to the eagle, globe, and anchor emblem of the United States Marine Corps.

Or even this one from a license plate

 

Not to mention the fact that it is very similar to the seal of the US Speaker of the House

David goes on to criticize Trump’s Juneteenth rally that took place in Tulsa, by recounting the Black Wall Street Massacre that occurred there in 1921 over that Memorial Day weekend, an event that was likely spurred on by misleading newspaper accounts. (Nice to know that Fake News is not merely a modern occurrence.) David, in light of these events, asks,

“…[W]hy is it, that during the midst of a national outcry and protests over racism in all 50 states, Donald Trump scheduled a rally in the same location, of Tulsa, OK on Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery? 

Well, specifically, Juneteenth is a Texas holiday, and is given recognition by various states though it is not nationally recognized, because it commemorates the final instance of the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, TX, on June 19, 1865, until chattel slavery was finally outlawed that December by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in every state.

Now, I’m going to admit that Juneteenth wasn’t on my radar; in fact, I had only heard it mentioned in passing by a few people before the media blew up the fact that Trump was having a rally on that day, before rescheduling it to the 20th. In fact, I would almost guarantee that 99% of the people complaining about this had never heard of it until Trump became president. In fact, it wasn’t until 2018, when the United States Senate passed a resolution recognizing it (remember Trump was elected in 2016) that it was given any kind of official recognition aside from passing presidential recognition. David has to admit that Trump has made specific recognition of Juneteenth for the past 3 years, but then goes on to ask,

“Is it just a coincidence that he chose the site of the massacre on the holiday ending slavery?

Yes, David, believe it or not, there are such things as coincidences.

David then goes on to mention Trump’s next rally, set for August 27, 2020, in Jacksonville, FL, which is the anniversary of something called “Axe Handle Saturday”. Interestingly, the city of Jacksonville, played a vital role in the civil rights era, due to having a fairly open space surrounded by popular, if segregated, businesses. It was in light of those protests that eventually devolved into the event, which occurred on August 27,1960, which eventually moved the city to desegregate the lunch counters the next year. In light of that history lesson, what else is going on that week?

 

Oh…right…the Republican National Convention is scheduled that week.

Then David has to bring up the much ballyhooed 2016 endorsement of Trump by notorious racist David Duke. In a video that David himself links to, Trump does seem reluctant to denounce or disavow anyone specifically, but does make a point to denounce such positions, but specifically says that he may not be intimately familiar with specific positions of specific individuals. But this goes back to the Atwater quote and good politics: let the racists think what they want about specific policies and let the results speak for themselves. But even Politifact has called such allegations of Trump’s non-denouncement as “Mostly False”.

And, David wants to dredge up Trump’s father’s past arrest for an event involving the Ku Klux Klan; however the very source that David cites, states,

“The information available in the New York Times article made it difficult to figure out whether Trump’s father was directly involved in the melee or was simply a bystander, falsely accused or otherwise the victim of mistaken identity during the chaotic event. There is no indication in the article that Trump’s father was a member or supporter of the KKK. (emphasis added)

Now, the article does the typical nit-picking that one has to do in order to paint Trump as somehow being dishonest, but has to admit,

“Posts that discuss simply the detention — for which there are no existing arrest records — without context are misleading. (emphasis added)

David is simply using the typical guilt by association tactic employed by political leftists.

Similarly, because Trump Management Company was one of the largest such companies sued for housing discrimination at the time, as if it were the only one, as the source David cites notes, 

“…there were cases brought against various companies, but the point here is that Trump has said… (emphasis added)

Now there’s the issue of the “white power” video that Trump shared. David writes,

“Trump claimed he watched the video, but didn’t hear the man say it. The problem with that is, it happens within the first 4 seconds of the video, it’s the loudest thing in the video, and the man yells it twice.

Well, if you haven’t seen the video, here it is in fuller context (h/t The Telegraph), and you will notice that the people in the golf carts are being called “racists” by the crowd when the man at the lead of the carts mocks them by yelling back in a sarcastic tone, “Yeah…you got it…white power.”

The point is, that if you’re fine with what the protesters yelling at these Trump supporters and calling them “racists” and what not, after all, according to Politico, regarding the incident,

“The golf-cart motorcade was met by anti-Trump seniors standing alongside the same road, who held counter-protester signs that read “Trump bigot and racist” and “Donald Trump white trash” and shouted profanities toward the supporters. One among the senior crowd called a supporter a “Nazi racist pig.”

Then them being mocked by someone, shouldn’t cause much of an uproar…unless you’re afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome and a bad case of confirmation bias. 

And then there was the 4th of July Mount Rushmore speech. Now, the issue is over the fact that Washington owned slaves, and may have even purchased teeth from slaves,  and that Jefferson likely had an illicit relationship with a female slave, and that Roosevelt was simply a man of his time, reflecting the values and mindset of his time. And let’s not forget Lincoln, who at the height of the Civil War had to deal with an uprising that was—for the sake of argument—of not-unprovoked Dakotas over unpaid annuities promised by Indian agents. While some 300 Dakotas were eventually tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in a kangaroo court, Lincoln—in order to preserve the peace and prevent retaliations from whites in the face of a greater injustice—commuted over 250 sentences paving the way for the execution of 38 remaining prisoners. And there is no doubt that the sculptor responsible for the design and construction had racist sympathies if not an outright racist himself. But, as the Lord said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” But let’s also remember, the reason why we’re here to even have these discussions is because of the four men on that monument: Washington and Jefferson as the founders who saw the potential in independence and liberty; Lincoln who ended a particular injustice; and Roosevelt who was the one who ushered in the modern America. 

The moral of the story being that you can nit-pick and point out the various moral failings of people and still be willing to celebrate specific achievements. Remember that David most likely composed his screed on a device that was either built by or possesses components made by slaves. I don’t see him reeling in disgust from his iPhone.

The Religious Animal

David questions—as does virtually anyone with half of a brain—whether or not Trump is a Christian.

Is he?

I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t really care. 

But out of fairness David gives 9 examples of whether or not such is the case:

• • Church membership: Trump claims to be a member of a specific church but the pastor says that he has never attended. I’m a member of a specific Presbyterian church, but I haven’t been to that church in…whew…25 years since I joined the Southern Baptist church, does that mean that I am not a member of that church? No, of course not.
  • Trump didn’t want to talk about his favorite Bible verses because he considered that to be “private and personal”.
  • David refers to the dispersal of  “peaceful protestors” in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC (which weren’t all that peaceful) the day after the fire at Saint John’s Episcopal Church. Now, we can debate the propriety of the photo op, or even the message it might send, but it requires us to be honest about the events.
  • Trump has a past as a serial adulterer. He’s even cheated on his current wife, who was his mistress during a previous marriage. And he’s regularly paid off those women.
  • Trump has had numerous allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at him, and David even mentions a lawsuit that named him as a co-defendant in a civil suit along with Jeffery Epstein, a case primarily of defamation which was dropped by the plaintiff a month after its filing.
  • Trump’s rhetoric, which is notoriously street-level.
  • His alleged mocking of a disabled reporter, even though in the same speech, he mocked someone else in a similar manner.
  • Trump has called the placing of Black Lives Matter logo a “hate symbol”. Well, BLM admittedly hates western values, so I guess so.

David asks, “Would Jesus approved of this?”

Considering the fact that David seems to have doubts about the historicity of Jesus, that seems to beg all sorts of questions. But, I’ll go with “Probably not,” but then again I think the question intends to assume that Christians are supposed to be perfect rather than obedient. And then I never claimed that Trump was a Christian. 

Could he be a believer? Yes. 

Could he be inconsistent and undisciplined in his faith? Yes. 

Could he have just lived in a place and in an environment where he could simply equate church membership and good deeds with being a Christian? Oh, absolutely.

I don’t hold Trump up as an example of much except of what it means to possibly misunderstand the gospel and mouth platitudes. 

And Then There’s Israel

The whole Israel/Palestine thing is a mess that essentially goes back to the Muslim occupation of the Holy Land and the various ethnicities that inhabit it as far back as Roman Emperor Hadrian having renamed it to spite the Jews following the Bar Kokhbah Revolt. Further, to say that the conflict is “not about religion” is to oversimplify the issue because it primarily centers on the claims of primarily Arab Muslims and the aims of the Hamas ruling party. Israel is, after all, the only liberal democracy in the region. The whole “illegal Israeli occupation” trope is really tiresome when there is no debate that Israel has been consistently attacked by its Muslim neighbors essentially since Day One and has obtained some of its territory via spoils of war doctrine.

But David isn’t really concerned about this as much as he is the legal issues of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted on multiple charges by the Israeli Attorney General, even though none of the alleged co-conspirators are facing charges and have themselves stated that there was no wrongdoing.

Well…What Can I Say?

David’s screed is…well…screedy.

His “open letter” is more like a “list of things I don’t like” mixed with bad interpretation and cherry picking of facts. 

I’ll go on the record saying that Trump is probably one of the most narcissistic people that I’ve ever seen. He’s willing and able to lie at the drop of a hat, but then isn’t everyone. He’s ridiculously ignorant, and arrogant, but there’s something about the guy that—in spite of the infuriating and clueless things he says—makes you want to root for him.

I was anti-Trump right up until it came time to pull the trigger and I voted for him, and unless Jesus returns in the next few months, I’ll vote for him again, not because he’s a nice guy, or an eloquent speaker, or ridiculously humble, but because he’s simply better than any of the other choices. 

Sorry Kanye, maybe in 2024.