my response to your staffs referal of me to your prior comments.

Submitted by Ray Exley (United States), Jul 27, 2016 at 18:28

Dear Dr, Pipes,

I thank you for directing me to your more nuanced comments about Hillary and Trump, and I agree with essentially all of your observations, but my interpretations are different from yours, and I respectfully suggest you may be misunderstanding Trump's grandstanding, and all of the other things he does which anoy you, and put you off.

Consider what Trump wrote in "the art of the deal". I have not read it, but I have been told by an extra ordinarily intelligent friend, that she feels that the essence of the book is understand whom you are negotiating with and what will move them to do what you want them to do, even if it might not be in their best interest, or at least they don't see that it is.

Consider what Trump has accomplished with his antics, he got the Republican nomination without any support from the party, actually despite their interference. And, he did it primarily with all of the free air time he got because of his antics. Current estimates are that prior to the convention, he got free advertizing valued at at least2 to 3 billion dollars, because of this antics. He could not have done that in a conventional way.

And, again with Hillary spending a fortune, and Trump spending almost nothing they are even in the swing states, which is the essence of his election.

I think you should consider the fable of "Briar Rabbit", which ends with him getting what he wanted, by convincing his opponents that was not what he wanted. That is he out though his opposition, and used their limited thinking against them.

Do you think Trump might be doing that? And, if you don't think there is a method to his madness, you might be right, or you might just be selling him short, because he is much more cleaver than you think he is. Which often means something about the person drawing the negative conclusion, but I won't go into that.

Truman was vilified for many of the same things you find so distasteful in Trump, particularly what you view as irrational non though out behavior, (Truman was villified as he might use the BOMB, but he prevented General MacArthur from doing just that), and now most historian now consider him and his presidency a remarkable success, but he was not viewed as a calm considered person at the time, and he displayed in office now of the erratic behavior which his opponents attributed to him, but the use of his comments.

I don't know Trump, and initially I reacted to him as you have done. But, when I see what he has accomplished, I wonder if we are not seeing the master of the "Art of the Deal" at work.

Yours

Ray Exley

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