I’ve never met Donald Trump and probably never will, which is fine with me.  I don’t like his public persona.  His conceit and braggadocio make him obnoxious.  He is profane, contentious, unreliable and inappropriately manages subordinates often in public (Twitter) instead of in confidence.  I have a difficult time finding in him good leadership qualities or an overarching positive philosophy, political or otherwise.  Someone should shove his phone with the Twitter app far up inside him where the sun don’t shine, as he might put it.  He’s a city slicker. I’m a cowboy.  In short, I’m not a fan.

I’m a cardiologist, too.  Over the almost forty years I’ve been doing this I’ve had more than a few colleagues much like Mr. Trump; brilliant and arrogant jerks who threaten and cajole patients, administrators, other doctors and nurses to accommodate their personal aggrandizement or schedules.  I’ve witnessed an array of abuses that would fill a book.  (In fact, they provide abundant material for my several novels published or in progress.)  I know and have worked side by side, day by day with those with a Trumpian personality disorder and it has been unpleasant.

My personal experience has greatly amplified my disdain of Mr. Trump’s personality yet, as an objectivist, I applaud much of what he has done.  Admittedly in the legislative arena only one substantive bill, a tax reform, has been passed in his first year, due in part to the diversity in the Republican party and uniformity of Democrats.  Yet he has done a lot of good with his pen.  (And a lot of bad with his phone . .  ba-dum Pum!)  A number of analysts believe his first year has been more conservative than President Reagan’s.  He has eliminated vast amounts of regulations of the record setting regulatory Obama years and, in so doing, has fostered economic recovery.  There is a great deal more to do, particularly in medical regulations which drive costs up and quality down.

Perhaps unwittingly, Mr. Trump has illuminated the overwhelming bias in Washington, network media and in many “liberal” states.  (I place liberal in quotation marks as it has become a misnomer.  The Democratic party, once a bastion of free thinking and expression, has suffered ideological creep and has become illiberal in that it suppresses expression and supports goose-step political belief patterns.  These are fast becoming fascist states, the inevitable evolution of socialist ideology.  Many or most that vote Democrat are blinded to this and vote based on an illusion from the past.  This charade is promoted by media.  If one gets news only from network news and Yahoo, it would be difficult to vote other than Democrat.  But I digress.)

He has addressed head-on international issues that have grown due to procrastination.  He, apparently, recognizes that not making a decision is in itself a decision with consequences, something that physicians know all too well.   Lawyers and politicians, on the other hand, tend to benefit by putting off hard decisions.  Simmering conflicts of the past two decades or more, are being confronted, communication intensified and contingencies developed.  Uncomfortable, perhaps, like a discussion with partners or mates about irritations, but necessary to live in peace.

His election resulted in the resistance movement, a set of behaviors that reveal that personal and party animus has overcome both rationality and the fiduciary duty to govern.  This movement affects both Democrats and centrist or elitist Republicans.  We have gradually seen the unmasking of corruption in the upper tiers of the FBI and Justice Departments, a good thing to reveal.  It seems likely that more evidence of sedition in the so-called Deep State will become public in the next year or two.

We are governed by men.  To paraphrase Lincoln, a man without flaws has few virtues.  I’ll never enjoy the personality or querulous behaviors of the petulant Mr. Trump.  However, I acknowledge the reduction in central government and economic growth that has come about because he is in office.  I appreciate the light shined on the corruption within the government, the exposure of rampant media bias and the beginning revelations of an imbedded culture of D.C. (known as the deep state) that is pervasive in the influential pinnacles of our country.  Thank you, Mr. President.

J J Perry MD

Author of “Between Love and Money” as Martin Filson and “REAP 23” as J J Perry.  “Malpractice” is to be published later this year.