The Topic of Discussion Is....

[320 Years of History]

I don't know why it is, but for some reason, Donald Trump seems incapable of choosing a topic of discussion and sticking to it. Folks here who support his candidacy also exhibit the exact same difficulty. Now, the thing that makes it odd that folks have trouble with keeping on topic is that every adult in the country has a background that, by all rights, should make them quite adept at focusing on the topic, yet, they, like Trump for some reason just won't.

For example:

• Around the house
  • When your and spouse, partner, or child are discussing something, anything, pick the topic, do you address the topic or do you talk about something else. For example, if you are debating with your spouse whether to buy the cute Cape Cod on the north side of town or the rancher on the west side, does one of you go off on a tangent about some other house, the car, the kids' school, an in-law, or whatever? I suspect you don't.
  • When the school calls and tells you that "Johnny" got in a fight with Billy, do you bring up your other darling child "Louise" who is so well behaved and never gets into fights? Of course, you don't.
  • When your friend visits to watch or discuss a baseball game, do you bring up something having to do with golf every time they mention anything having to do with baseball? Hell, no, you don't.
• At the office
  • When your subordinate needs a counseling message, do you put up with their saying, "Well, Mark over accounting did 'whatever' did essentially the same or worse?" You know you wouldn't and you know they are unlikely to do so.
  • When you go to get a loan, do you talk about the reasons the bank should loan you the money or do you use as the basis for giving you the loan, the fact that your friend got a loan or a given interest rate from the same bank? Of course you don't talk about someone else's experiences, and neither does the loan officer.
• At school
  • Assume you were asked the following history essay question: "Identify and explain at least one change or development prior to 600 C.E. that supports the assertion that trade and exchange across cultural lines have played a crucial role in human history, being perhaps the most important external stimuli to change." Would you write about events after 600 C.E? Would you write about non-human animals? Would you write about civil wars? Would you write about human nature, which hasn't changed at all in the past 5K years? Now, one might write about those things, but one would do so knowing full and well that one would score very poorly on the question.

So why is it that Donald Trump and his quislings so frequently do exactly that? Yes, in politics it's called "the pivot," but the pivot is the most absurd thing in the world to do when someone wants an answer to the question they asked and one's answer to that question is what determines the "grade" they'll give one.

Why do I bring this up? Well, because we keep hearing from the Trump world that nobody wants to talk about Trump's policy positions. If Trump wants people talking about his "whatever" policy, HE would talk about that and not about rigged systems, or women he plans to sue, or anything other than his policy. If he wanted folks to talk about Hillary Clinton, HE'd talk about Hillary Clinton. If something were to come up that is unfavorable to him, HE'd give an interview or press conference devoted exclusively to that topic, address it head on and not bring it up again.

It's really simple, the way conversations work:

1. One party introduces a topic.
2. Another party responds directly to that topic introduced.
3. Back and forth ensues on that topic as necessary.
4. The parties agree on something, even if it's agreeing to disagree.
5. When no party has anything more to say on that topic, or an agreement has been reached, the conversation ends.

Whatever transpires over the course of the discussion, if it's a debate, the parties involved prosecute their argument by maintaining laser focus on the key topic, not by introducing every other stinkin' topic they can think of that has nothing to do with the central topic. Indeed, anyone who's ever competed in even high school forensics knows that the moment you veer off topic, you lose the debate. Going off topic tacitly tells your opponent and the judges that you have run out of topically germane points to raise in refutation of your opponent.

So when the topic of conversation is something positive or something negative about Donald Trump, Trump has to either agree or disagree and argue for his strengths or against his weaknesses, not argue that someone else has more or fewer weaknesses/strengths. The topic is either "what's good about Trump" or "what's bad about Trump," and that's what has to be addressed before talking about what's good or bad about someone else. Now, once the "Trump" discussion is complete, by all means, introduce the topic of what's good or bad or otherwise about someone other than Trump.

 

[Damaged Eagle]

Is there a topic here?

*****CHUCKLE*****