This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The question in this blog headline has stumped me for years, though, on occasion, potential answers have crossed my mind.

Many who supported Trump just wanted someone who would oppose government.

But, why would reasonable Americans support a man who has no experience in government, who actually detests those in government, who holds women as nothing other than sexual objects, who criticizes everyone who doesn’t agree automatically with him, who practices racism, and who…?

You could go on and on.

Now, this epitome of narcissism wants to be president again.

Perish the thought.

Well, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan came up with some additional answers in a column she wrote last week.  Here are key excerpts that appeared under this headline:  The Indictment Can Only Hurt Trump:  Even his loyal supporters will understand that his mishandling of documents endangered U.S. security.

Noonan reviewed columns she had written about Trump eight years ago, in the summer of 2015, when he first sought to enter government life.

• In early July, just after his public announcement, Noonan saw him this way:  “Donald Trump is an unstable element inserted into an unsettled environment.  Sooner or later there will be a boom.  He has poor impulse control and is never above the fray.  He likes to start fights.  That’s a weakness.  Eventually he’ll lose one.”
• But, she added, Donald Trump has a real following, and people make a mistake in assuming his appeal is limited to Republicans.  His persona and particular brand of populism have hit a nerve among some independents and moderate Democrats too.
• “They think he’s real, that he’s under nobody’s thumb, that maybe he’s a big-mouth, but he’s a truth-teller.  He’s afraid of no one, he’s not politically correct.  He’s rich and can’t be bought by some billionaire, because he is the billionaire.  He’s talking about what people are thinking and don’t feel free to say.”
• Noonan said she grappled with what she saw as a spreading movement. “His rise is not due to his supporters’ anger at government.  It is a gesture of contempt for government, for the men and women in Congress, the White House, the agencies.  It is precisely because people have lost their awe for the presidency that they imagine Trump as a viable president.”  
•  “When citizens are consistently offended by Washington, . . . they become contemptuous. They see Trump’s contempt and identify. What the American establishment has given us the past 20 years is sex scandals, money scandals, two unwon wars, an economic collapse, an inadequate recovery, and borders we no longer even pretend to control.  They think:  What will you give us next, the plague?”  Trump voices their indignation.

So, now we have Trump under two indictments, the second of which, at the very least, raises a question about his ability to protect America’s national security interests.  Apparently to indicate his own importance, he sequestered a variety of classified documents at his Mar-A-Lago retreat in Florida, open for nearly anyone to see.

He has no instincts to support America’s well-being.  What he wants is for everyone to know how important he is – or at least he was.

For my part, I hope the “was” remains.

And, I cannot imagine what still prompts smart Americans to support this stooge.  In light of his antics, if that is what they are, there is no rational explanation.