Welcome to From Insults To Respect.
Today, millions of people continue to believe in President Trump. Given what we have learned about him, does it make sense to insult these believers by viewing them as crazy? Let’s give this question some thought.
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This week, I went to a community theater to see a play. It involved two married couples arguing over how to discipline the 11-year old son of one of the couples who had violently attacked the son of the other couple. In no way did the subject of the play have anything to do with political issues. Nevertheless, one of the audience members proudly came wearing a huge red, white, and blue bucket hat– puffy on top, and prominently displaying Trump’s name. He also wore a shirt that looked like it could have been made from the red, white, blue and stars of the American flag. In all appearance, this guy plainly looked like he worships our current president. In light of the series of actions of President Trump, many Americans view such worshipers as crazy.
I’m not suggesting all of those who still support Trump actually worship him. I have met voters who say they still support him even though they don’t particularly like him, but nevertheless believe he is better than any of the candidates who are likely to be put up by the Democrats in the next presidential election. What I am here referring to are just the Trump supporters who truly worship him despite knowing the current situation.
The Current Situation
Here, I describe just some of the major events that might lead people who had in the past believed in Trump to change their minds.
September 2005, Trump is caught on tape advocating “grabbing women by the pussy.”
Between 2005 and 2010, Trump ran a costly course promising to help real estate hopefuls break into the business, something he called Trump University – only its false promises of success proved a total flop. In 2018, a judge ruled that Trump must pay out $25 million as part of a settlement.
In the Spring 2023, E. Jean Carroll won her case when a jury found Trump was liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
On January 13, 2023: The Trump Organization was convicted of tax fraud and fined $1.6 million in relation to 17 charges, which included falsifying documents and allegedly inflating asset values for loans and insurance purposes, while simultaneously undervaluing them for tax purposes.
On May 30, 2023, Trump was convicted by a jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records “to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity.” The records pertained to money allegedly paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to not reveal details of an extramarital affair she said she had had with Trump in 2006.
Very early in Trump’s current administration, he pardoned people who assaulted the capital, including those who were convicted of violently attacking police officers.
By early 2026, hundreds of legal cases had been filed against different parts of his agenda, meaning his administration has spent millions of dollars of tax payer money fighting court battles alongside governing. One of the most recent involves the Supreme Court declaring his tariffs are unconstitutional, thereby leaving his administration to figure out how to pay back the millions of dollars his tariffs had collected. That’s one hell of a mess. Meanwhile, the tariffs never led to the great boom in U.S.manufacturing jobs that Trump had promised.
Trump had claimed that to close our southern border, a border wall had to be built. Despite most of the border wall having not been built, he now brags he has closed the border and claims no one else was able to do it until he did.
Well, there is no way to fully determine how many people are currently illegally crossing the border, but authorities say the best way to estimate this is by determining the number of apprehensions that are currently occurring there. Below, in Figure 1, the record of apprehensions is laid out for the past 25 years. It indicates that during the Obama Administration (2009 to 2017) the border crossings had been at about the level that it is now. This continued for the most part during Trump’s first term (2017 to 2021) with a large bump around 2019, and then quickly returning to the Obama era levels. Shortly after Biden took over, there was a huge jump in border crossings until bipartisan efforts began to strongly complain. Biden responded with much stricter policies and by his last year in office border crossings began to drop, quickly returning to the Obama era levels.
Figure 1: 25 Years of Apprehensions at the Southern Border
As we can see below in Figure 2, it continued to drop a little more during the first month Trump began his second term, a period prior to any of Trump’s border policies actually having time to be instituted. This lower level has remained through the rest of his first year back in office.
This current level is somewhat questionable because Trump has installed an administration that he selected to make him look as good as possible. Some of their efforts have not always been viewed as completely on the level. For example, Trump had promised to release the Epstein files upon his return to the presidency. He refused to do it until Congress passed a law that was veto proof requiring him to do so by a specific date. It is now several months past that date, and Trump is now refusing to release over a million of them. His current administration is backing him on this clear violation of the law. Meanwhile, FBI agents have been quiting, refusing to carry out his demands. So any evidence Trump’s administration provides must be taken with a pinch of salt.
Figure 2:
Returning to the issue of immigration, a poll conducted in January by The New York Times and Siena University found that 63 percent of voters disapproved of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics, feeling it had gone too far. Particularly upsetting is that upon ICE killing two Americans, his administration made statements about what had occurred clearly in contrast to what the American public could see with their own eyes in video recordings. Then, even more egregious, the administration officials declared before any investigation that those who were killed were domestic terrorists.
Trump’s Justice Department recently filed a lawsuit against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell that a federal judge quashed saying it was obviously just for retribution because Powell had refused to lower interest rates that Trump wanted. This is costly, and completely wastes the time of judges who have better things to be doing then dealing with such frivolous cases.
Now, Trump has started a war with Iran, after pledging, when running for office, he would not engage the U.S. in foreign wars instead focusing on problems right here at home.
He had promised to lower consumer prices; they have instead risen.
Finally, recent polls indicate many who voted for him in the last election have turned against him, with his current approval level sitting at about 38 percent.
Given The Above Well Known Set Of Facts, Is It Useful For People To Consider Believers In Trump Crazy?
Considering someone as crazy is typically viewed as an insult. If you call someone crazy, it is likely to elicit an angry response such as, “No, I’m not crazy, you are!” Perhaps creating such animosity is fine with you, but here on this blog I advocate considering the value of converting your insults to respectful exchanges. To that end, let’s consider the great master of such endeavors–Abraham Lincoln (See HERE for a full discussion of this).
In 1865, Old Abe had been reelected president for a second term. Seeking to unify the nation as the end of the brutal four-year Civil War was in sight, he attempted to rise above the anger and divisiveness and start the process of healing. In his inaugural address, he asked his fellow country folk, referencing the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:1) to “let us judge not that we be not judged.” He concludes with these immortal words:
“With malice toward none with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Throughout the Civil War, many in the southern states truly and passionately believed they were fighting for a noble cause consistent entirely with their religious beliefs. Although Lincoln felt differently, he still asked his citizens to have malice toward none with charity for all. And in America, we honor the principle of religious freedom.
Can we not find it in our hearts to view the people whom I symbolize as the man wearing that huge red, white, and blue bucket hat– puffy on top, and prominently displaying Trump’s name, not as crazy, but rather as having deeply religious views. This doesn’t mean we should or shouldn’t vote for Trump supporters, but, rather, it provides us the understanding that those who believe in him, when he speaks, provides the spark that lights up their religious faith.
My Best,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
We have all experienced name calling, insults and teasing, even the greatest presidents, the most talented athletes, and every member of your favorite band. If someone insults you, calls you names, or teases you, it does NOT mean that you are a bad person.
Now, as I was wondering what to write about for this week’s post, I noticed C-SPAN had just announced the results of its 
“Did Stanton say I was a d–d fool?” asked Lincoln at the close of the recital.
he inference is erroneous. Lincoln, so far as I could discover, was in every respect the actual head of the administration, and whenever he chose to do so, he controlled Stanton as well as all the other Cabinet ministers.” Fry related a conflict between President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton which concluded with the following dialogue in Stanton’s office. Stanton said: “Now Mr. President, those are the facts, and you must see that your order cannot be executed.” The President cordially replied: “Mr. Secretary, I reckon you’ll have to execute the order.” Stanton objected: “Mr. President, I cannot do it. The order is an improper one, and I cannot execute it.” The President stared down the shorter Stanton and firmly issued an order: “Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done.” And indeed it was.
As for the Gettysburg Address—one of the most powerful speeches in human history, one that many American schoolchildren can recite by heart (Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth …) and a statement of national purpose that for some rivals the Declaration of Independence—a Pennsylvania newspaper reported, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and they shall be no more repeated or thought of.” A London Times correspondent wrote, “Anything more dull and commonplace it wouldn’t be easy to produce.”
I think Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who had served as the Vice President of the Confederacy, well expressed what many who had an opportunity to get to know Lincoln came to feel about him. Thus, in a speech several years after the war, Stephens recalled getting to know Lincoln when they both served together in the House of Representatives prior to the war. “He was warm hearted; he was generous; he was magnanimous, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all.'”
If you can keep your head when all about you 
When Douglas argued that by freeing the slaves, this would lead to what many in the audience viewed as the absolute horror of the mixing of blood by the white and black races, Lincoln responded by pointing to the last census at the time. It indicated there were 405,751 mulattoes (a term used to refer to offspring who had both black and white parents) in the United States in 1850. He then went on to say,
All I ask for the negro is that, if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy. Certainly the negro is not our equal in color–perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been give to you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given him.
If they look back to trace their connection with those days of blood, they find they have none; they cannot carry themselves back to the glorious epoch and make themselves feel they are part of us; but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,” and they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relationship to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration; and so they are.
I am thankful to God for this approval of the people. But while deeply grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one; but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people’s resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s insightful book 
The experiences of Joni Mitchell (see 
To continue this series on the experiences of famous persons who dealt with depression, I just finished reading a wonderful book titled, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, by Joshua Wolf Shenk.
I actually began discussing the book in my last post, which has the title, “
Lincoln, up till his mid-twenties, was not viewed as being a melancholy kind of guy. Friends and neighbors saw him as sunny and persisting tirelessly. For example, during the Black Hawk War, a fellow soldier said of him, “I never saw Mr Lincoln angry or desponding, but always cheerful… the whole company, even amid trouble and suffering, received strength and fortitude, by his buoyancy and elasticity.” Also typical of comments made of him, a neighbor said, “He was the best natured man I ever got acquainted with.”
Oh, there is evidence of cracks in his sunny disposition during his early years, but they occurred during times of great disappointments, which is pretty typical of most people. For example, after he and a partner opened a store and it soon failed, as we might expect, some described him as moping around, and one person reported hearing him say he might “let the whole thing go.”
…after that event he seemed quite changed, he seemed retired, and loved solitude, he seemed wrapped in profound thought, indifferent, to transpiring events, had little to say, but would take his gun and wander off in the woods by himself, away from associations of even those most esteemed, this gloom seemed to deepen for some time, so as to give anxiety to friends in regard to his mind.
The next period in which people who knew Abe clearly saw he was very depressed began at the beginning of January of 1841. Letters reveal how concerned people became. “We have been very much distressed on Lincoln’s account,” wrote one person. “Lincoln you know was desponding & melancholy when you left,” wrote another. “He has grown much worse and is now confined to his bed sick in body & mind,” wrote another.
For not giving you a general summary of news, you must pardon me, it is not in my power to do so. I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.
Some people experience depression, and then they have a “breakthrough” or “turning point,” and it goes away. This is what happened to Leo Tolstoy.
He spent an increasing amount of time alone, which can be profoundly important as people come to terms with loss, and sort out their ideas. Crucially important for him is that he found a cause that provided him a reason to live.
He yoked his feelings to a style…of melancholy that was, more than anything, philosophical. He saw the world as a sad, difficult place from which he expected considerable suffering. “There was a strong tinge of sadness in Mr Lincoln composition,” said his friend Joseph Gillespie. “He felt very strongly that there was more of discomfort than real happiness in human existence under the most favorable circumstances and the general current of his reflections was in that channel.” 
One day I was watching Donald Trump’s first news conference since he became president. There, the remarks that I found most interesting had to do with his expressed outrage about how hateful the press has been toward him. The first time it came up, he was asked the following question by a reporter:
“Well, the leaks are real. You’re the one that wrote about them and reported them, I mean the leaks are real. You know what they said, you saw it and the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. So one thing that I felt it was very important to do — and I hope we can correct it. Because there’s nobody I have more respect for — well, maybe a little bit but the reporters, good reporters.
“And if I may follow up on that, just something that Jonathan Karl was asking you about. You said that the leaks are real, but the news is fake. I guess I don’t understand. It seems that there’s a disconnect there. If the information coming from those leaks is real, then how can the stories be fake?”
A great model to consider as an alternative to Trump’s style is that of John F. Kennedy’s. Over the whole of his presidency, Kennedy averaged a 70.1 percent approval rating, comfortably the highest of any post-World War II president. By comparison, the average for all presidents between 1938 and 2012 is 54 percent. Trump, last I looked, was at about 40 percent.
