A pragmatist is a person that deals with real problems. Problem is that Trump sees problems where they don’t exist and ignores actual problems.
(1) Iran has no direct fight with the US. It’s less of a boogeyman than the Saudis (who actually fund and support terrorism) are.
(2) Our streets are safer than they were since the 1960s. There’s no massive crime wave sweeping the US, other than in isolated local cases like Chicago.
(3) High cost of college is a real problem. I see no problem with free/cheap community or public college. His home city of NYC has had CUNY, which was either free or dirt-cheap (and GOOD) for the last 100 years. Heaven forbid that we spent a bit more on public education and less on coercive policing and military bullying abroad.
(4) His current attitude to the War on Drugs is straight out of the 1960s through 1980s. Moral panic. He’s seeing it as a numbers game (jail more people) instead of a medical problem (treat addicts, make sure people can get treatment for painful conditions instead of self-medicating).
(5) Coercive, racist, and excessive policing are real problems in the US, no matter how much he may thump his fist about “law and order.” The goal should be to reduce the number of crimes, not jail people, and generally live and let live as far as victimless crimes.
