HALF-FULL REPORT 10/21/16
“Either we are going to win this election or we are going to lose this country.”
That sums it up, doesn’t it? Either/Or. It’s a binary choice. Trump made this clear in an extraordinary speech yesterday (10/20) in Delaware, Ohio. I strongly encourage you watch it entire.
When the Pub candidate race began some 18 months ago, I was repulsed by Trump. I still was when he gained the nomination, and very grudgingly supported it only because the alternative of Hillary was a nightmare from which we might never wake up.
Now he’s causing me to think of Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). For many years, the 12 volumes of his monumental A Study of History has occupied a pride of place in my library. (The link is to Wikipedia not Amazon, as the latter only offers abridged versions, not the entire set which sells for over $1,000 on Ebay.)
Toynbee’s thesis on the rise and fall of civilizations is one of “challenge and response.” Civilizational success is determined by the extent of using challenges as opportunities to grow; failure comes when that ceases.
Yet Toynbee’s thesis applies to the lives of individuals as well. They can grow and succeed as moral human beings in response to personal challenges. As I watched the third debate Wednesday night and his Ohio speech yesterday, it dawned on me that this has happened to Donald Trump. This is not the same man of yesteryear.











