Monday, May 6, 2019

Donald Trump's 'Kentuky Derby' tweet makes literally no sense


 It's easy to dismiss any one of Donald Trump's tweets as ephemera because, well, there are just so many of them. That goes double for a Trump tweet about a sporting event given the fact that he, uh, isn't an expert in that arena.
hem. 

And yet, there's just something about the President's tweet on Sunday about the result of the Kentucky Derby that makes it impossible to simply ignore. Because it's about more than the tweet. It's about the man behind the tweet. A man who also happens to be the leader of the free world.

First, the tweet:
"The Kentuky Derby decision was not a good one. It was a rough & tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby - not even close!?" (Trump later corrected his original tweet -- spelling "Kentucky" properly.)

12 comments:

  1. The people who write these kind of articles and those who link to them with the intent of bashing the President all genteel like are lacking that political slavishness of us soldiers in Army Trump.

    We get it. The President is expressing his frustration at witnessing a truly outstanding race horse and team brought low on a technicality.

    Deep down, just about everyone feels a great horse did not get its recognition because of a serious move by the horse that broke the rules and/or a jockey error. There's a certain amount of angst in that first moment of finding out that the horse was disqualified. It brings up in our mind those times in our own lives when we were so close to victory, even tasting it a little, only to have it snatched from us and leaving defeat in its wake.

    We imagine, whether true or not, that on reflection the President will reconsider his Tweet. But for the moment, we feel like we're right there in the White House with the President and he's expressing what we're all feeling initially: "We wuz cheated! Aargh."

    It's that kind of national team building that contributes to the cohesiveness of the electorate that put Donald Trump in power. It's like being part of a private club, Mar-a-Lago on a continental scale.

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  2. YES WE MUST SLAVISHLY SUPPORT TRUMP NO MATTER HOW STUPIDLY HE BEHAVES BECAUSE HE IS OUR DIVINELY APPOINTED LEADER

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  3. It's not de rigeur that everyone become a Trumpista. It's just recommended for peace of mind during these trying times.

    The alternative is being locked in a losing battle to stop, or at least mitigate, his wielding of power. His ascension to the world stage does suggest some level of divine intervention. I can't say for sure, since the only intervention I know of without question was my mundane act of voting for him. Which, by the way, it's worth reminding myself, was a futile act given the Electoral College and Maryland being so heavily Democratic.

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  4. Kalonymus AnonymusMay 7, 2019 at 3:12 PM

    Democracy doesn't mean you cannot criticise the leadership. Why were the Obama years so "good" and the Trump years so "bad"?

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  5. Torah Jews believe that everything that happens in the world, is orchestrated by Hashem.

    Hence, we believe that Hashem put into the minds of some 63 million people to vote for Trump, and more importantly, He made sure that enough of these votes, were in the states that Trump needed in order to win the Electoral College.

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  6. Kalonymus AnonymusMay 8, 2019 at 3:51 PM

    And more specifically, Hashem has a war with amalek in each generation. In Ww2 Churchill was a shaliach in this war. Trump is now the shaliach. Obama was helping Iran. Hilary Clinton was IMHO far better than Obama, but for a reason, Trump is in power.

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  7. sources? the Netziv AND OTHERS DISAGREE

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  8. Are you suggesting that the Netziv (and other unnamed sources) would posit, that in our case, Hashem really wanted Hillary to win, but man confounded Hashem's plans, and made Trump win?
    Sounds a bit far-fetched...
    BTW, can you please provide a source for this alleged Netziv?

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  9. הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה, וּבְטוֹב הָעוֹלָם נִדּוֹן. וְהַכֹּל לְפִי רֹב הַמַּעֲשֶׂה:

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  10. You didn't respond to my question, and also neglected to provide the source for this alleged Netziv.

    The Mishnah in Avos (3:15/19) הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה, is hardly a "proof" to support your contention, since this can be understood as addressing the classic tension between divine foreknowledge and free will, stating that in fact there is no contradiction.
    הכל צפוי
    There is "divine foreknowledge"
    והרשות נתונה
    yet this does not interfere with man's "free will".
    See Rambam's commentary (ad loc.) and Rabeinu Yonah (ad loc.).

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  11. Kalonymus AnonymusMay 9, 2019 at 1:27 AM

    Let's try to get the bigger picture on this argument.
    A couple of examples: The Torah says we will be exiled and massacred if we sin - so according to Nachmanides, the Shoah was also aa punishment and hence the nazis - yemach shmam, were only doing a Mitzvah, whereas Rambam would argue they were not forced to do so.


    Then Hashem tells Moses that he knows we will sin anyways, after Moshe passes away. So how is that - free choice? If it is written in the Torah before we entered EY, then did we have free will in sinning? what if we chose not to?



    I heard from a shiur by Rav Milevsky ztl that the Meshech Chochma takes great exception to the Raavad's comments on Rambam, about free will vs G-d's foreknowledge. Raavad apparently says Hashem sees the future like an astrologer and Meshech Chochmah, many centuries later, uses harsh words against the Rabad!

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  12. Kalonymus AnonymusMay 9, 2019 at 2:16 PM

    So these sevaros of Rambam, Zohar, Ramchal, Ohr hachaim, Netziv etc. - how many of them are "divine" and how many human?

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