in the world according to peter thiel, the technology entrepreneur and billionaire, liberals and journalists are easily distracted children. preoccupied with the words that come out of donald trump<u+2019>s mouth, they are not taking <u+201c>seriously<u+201d> the republican candidate<u+2019>s diagnosis of what is hurting the country: wars, trade and government regulations. speaking on monday at the national press club in washington, mr. thiel argued that mr. trump was the best choice in the presidential race because he will not get the country into wars, will fix the problems caused by international trade and will remove government regulations that are hurting the economy. americans should focus on that big picture, mr. thiel argued, rather than taking <u+201c>literally<u+201d> everything mr. trump says. <u+201c>what trump represents isn<u+2019>t crazy and it<u+2019>s not going away,<u+201d> mr. thiel said. going by mr. thiel<u+2019>s logic, we should ignore mr. trump<u+2019>s reckless statements about using nuclear weapons . we should not worry that the candidate has claimed to know more about the islamic state than the generals. forget his proposals to boost the size of the armed forces, and that he said he was <u+201c>the most militaristic person there is.<u+201d> instead of bothering ourselves with mr. trump<u+2019>s statements, mr. thiel said we should worry that hillary clinton could escalate tensions with russia because she might try to enforce a no-fly zone in syria. in other words, don<u+2019>t pay attention to what mr. trump says but definitely be very concerned about what mrs. clinton says. mr. thiel, a libertarian who has taken many controversial positions, has supported mr. trump for months now. he spoke at the republican national convention on the same night as the candidate. recently, mr. thiel revealed that he was giving $1.25 million to support mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign, a donation that many in silicon valley have criticized . as he did in his speech at the convention, mr. thiel on monday painted a dystopian picture of the economy, which he said had been devastated by the technology bubble of the 1990s and the housing bubble of the last decade. he appeared to blame the problem on government regulations and said mr. trump understood that and knew how to fix it. but mr. thiel offered no evidence to back up that claim. in fact, mr. trump himself has engaged in the kinds of speculative investments and profligate use of debt that contributed to an earlier real estate bubble in the 1980s. mr. thiel also misunderstands what led to the technology and housing crises he laments. the excessive lending and irrational exuberance in those industries was caused in large part by the lack of effective regulations and enforcement. but as mr. thiel said, this is not the time to get bogged down in details. let<u+2019>s focus on the big picture. vikas bajaj is a member of the editorial board.
peter thiel<u+2019>s fantasy trump
vikas bajaj