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Originally Posted by Dudd
I don't think Trump is to a lesser extent at all, to me that's his defining feature and the one major takeaway from the his rise. Just sheer aggression will take you very far in life because most people are unable to deal with it and will back down rather than fight back. But it seems like that's been a staple of his entire life. In business, it seems like his go to move was to just screw everyone over because what the **** are you going to do about it?
It'll take you far in life if you're born into a position of power, or wait to start doing it when you're in a position of power. In many cases people who want to fight back cannot. A great example from my own life: I was doing contract website development/management work for a company, and when they decided to move on to a new person they stiffed me on the last month they owed me for. They refused to pay, so I told them I'd sue. They offered me a percentage of what they owed me - I forget if it was a quarter or half. I called two lawyers who both told me that I'd win, but I'd lose money on the whole thing because the legal fees would outweigh the win and I wasn't guaranteed to get all of that back. So I took the offer and I'm still bitter about it to this day.
The company had a lawyer on retainer... Basically, once you have a lawyer on retainer, you can blatantly screw over anyone who doesn't on a matter of up to a few thousand bucks.
Trump did that on a larger scale, but had a team of lawyers and could threaten to tangle someone up for years before they'd see their money... He was leveraging his legal team and their lack thereof.
If I tried to do that without a lawyer on retainer as, say, a small business owner, I'd find my ass in court and I'd either end up paying out the wazoo to hire a lawyer, or losing and paying what I owed and likely a penalty.
That sort of blatant aggression only works when you are playing from a position of power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dudd
During the Republican debates, Little Marco and Low Energy Jeb! had no idea how to respond to being straight up called names and just sort of fumbled around with some mix of weak jabs back and awkward attempts to try and debate policies.
I don't know whether it was dumb luck on his part that the GOP voters didn't care, or whether he was smarter than everyone... But that stuff wouldn't fly in a Democratic primary and their responses would have worked. Maybe they just misread their own electorate - quite likely the real issue.
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Originally Posted by Dudd
So yeah, I would say Trump's go, go, go, it just manifests itself differently than a law school debate because his other defining characteristic is absolutely zero intellectual curiosity. But it doesn't matter if you know nothing about the military or know nothing about health care, all you have to do is bloviate about how you know more than the generals and Obamacare's a disaster but I'm the master dealmaker and anyone who wants to discuss details is spreading fake news. If you're comfortable picking fights, you have a huge advantage because almost everyone you pick a fight with wants nothing more than to end it as quickly as possible, even if that means they get the worst of the exchange.
Very true, but it also has to do with his base having zero intellectual curiosity and a desire to over-simplify everything so that their common sense solutions (aka now his) are the best answer.