Party, I suspect, is irrelevant to the donald. He transcends party. He represents, however, the full flowering of GOP in all its inherent contradictions. I want to say that the sort of fractious ineffectuality we see in the body politic can be laid at the feet of the Republican party as it has grown more and more extreme. Here's why, at least my limited take on it.
First and foremost, with the possible exception of the regelian functions of military and police, there is the attack on government itself. It is one thing of course to demand a fiscally responsible, limited government -- the sort of Jeffersonian dictate that the government that governs least, governs best -- but it is another thing to attack the very notion of government itself. The government itself is the problem, and the tea partiers, among others, were elected, not to govern, but to dismantle government, bit by bit, from the inside out. beginning with the hated Affordable Care Act, and then moving on to the DOE, the EPA, and all those functions of government originally created and charged to provide systemic and regulatory solutions to perceived problems within education, environment, et cetera. It is not surprising then that the "outsiders, and currently the consummate outsider, the donald, are rising into national political consciousness.
Setting aside the fractious ineffectuality, one has to admit that the "insiders" have helped this along. Beginning with Nixon and Watergate, moving through Clinton and Monika Lewinsky, the latter Bush's outright lies concerning the WMDs in the middle east. Then too there is the popular culture's take on political office. We have come quite a way from the West Wing to House of Cards -- a comparison that deserves a full post -- but suffice it to say, from a president that one could admire to a president that is not only a lying, cheating politician, but a bona-fide murderer, "the terror itself." Both were democrats, but one has to admire Netflix' balance. The republican challenger comes off as little better. I could go on, but it's difficult to imagine a parent saying defining a child's aspirations as "you too could grow up to be the president of the United States," easier to imagine a parent saying "you too could be honey-boo-boo or Donald Trump."
In the latter case, of course, it's very highly unlikely. As has been demonstrated sufficiently, the donald is not a self-made man. He did not start from scratch, but from a position of privilege. Given his starting point, his accumulated riches are not that terribly impressive, but are, as Picketty demonstrates, simply the natural growth of capital within the current environment. There is little social mobility within the US today, in part because the cards are stacked against it. We want to believe in social mobility. We want to believe that our children will have it better than we had it. And there are always the few exceptions that prove the possibility, if not the likelihood, of social mobility, but the reality is something quite different. Our faith in the so-called American Dream is just that -- a faith maintained through willful ignorance, a willful disregard of the available evidence -- and is no more rational than the most perverse religious faith. Indeed, it is just as damaging. Faith in the American Dream, the possibility of rags to riches success, tends to rely on the notion of meritocracy, that those who have succeeded have something "special," no doubt a bigger and more powerful brain ("for the bumper sticker philosophers, "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich"). The meritocracy, however, is itself a myth, though it serves to validate, to justify what is essentially a capitalist, post-agrarian, post-industrial but still, an inherited aristocracy.
In the absence of government, in the absence of a strong social democracy, the question is no longer "how will we be governed," but "who will govern." It is essentially a tory conservatism of the sort that we haven't seen since Hobbes. The Democrats and the GOP are asking essentially different questions, and they are no longer reconcilable. The progressives still believe that progress, that a more perfect union, can be achieved through systemic government. I used the DMV as an example earlier not without irony. No one loves the DMV, apparently not even the people who work there if one judges by the depth of boredom in their eyes, but it is, one could argue, necessary. I WANT a systemic approach to the licensing of drivers, no matter how imperfect, because I WANT to be safe on the road. I WANT to have some assurance, no matter how imperfect, that other drivers understand the basic rules, basic safety, and mature enough, and the list goes on. It is admittedly a bureaucratic approach, and it does take taxes and fees to sustain the bureaucracy, and the Democrats are still asking, "how can we make life better, solve problems, through admittedly bureaucratic government action."
The donald, however, is tapping into the resentment felt by those that have fallen through the cracks of bureaucratic government, of the social state, and of course the cracks are widening, more and more people are falling through. Last night, Lora suggested that she "disagreed with almost everything he stands for, but Trump is right about one thing, we need a strong president." She was reading that the State of Idaho was thinking about expanding medicaid, which caused a visceral reaction. It has become apparent, particularly with health care, that Lora and I are falling through the cracks in the bureaucratic, social state. We seem to be excluded from medicaid and the VA because we make too much money, and in reality we cannot afford the private insurance provided through the exchanges. We will, quite literally, lose everything if either of us has a major illness prior to our reaching medicare age. By a "strong president" she means essentially "one who can command unity," a sovereign in the Hobbesian sense. We have bought into the notion of meritocracy as measured by money for so long now that it seems natural that someone like the donald, someone already in the public eye, someone will self-profess boat loads of money and "success" and all that "success" implies, should emerge as the "one who can command unity." Unlike Romney, who had some modicum of modesty, the donald toots his own horn with some alacrity.
It is wistful thinking, however, that the "one who commands unity" will do so to fix problems within the health care system, particularly if he is running on a GOP platform. The only way that problems within the health care system can be address is through "tinkering" with the system, making gradual improvements, or more radically, deciding on a different system altogether. The democrats are taking that approach. Clinton is the tinker, Sandars the radical, but both still see government (with, yes, its inherent tax funded bureaucracies) as the potential solution. Nevertheless, name the problem and the donald, so far as one can see, is proposing himself as the "one who can command unity" and "fix the problems." He doesn't need to propose policy, or systemic approaches, because he will ultimately "command" the best solution and one should trust him to do so because, well, he has sufficient endowment below the waist and above the neck to do so. That he has sufficient endowment is self evident in his "success" thus far.
The difficulty lies in the very notion of "one who commands unity." Those who come to power propelled by the resentments of the populace demonstrate a very predictable pattern of behavior once they are in power. It probably goes without saying that the resentments of the populace are rarely, if ever, cohesive. Lora and I have our resentments around the healthcare systems, but one can imagine the unemployed mine worker in West Virginia has his resentments around the EPA and the regulatory demise of coal as a fuel. Likewise, those in manufacturing who have lost their jobs to China or in the service industry who have lost their jobs to lower wage immigrants, might have some resentment against the "trade deals" and the "immigration" policies that don't seem to serve their interests. Likewise, poor southern white have long felt resentment toward black communities, and perhaps feel it even more deeply insofar as the EEO considers the African American, and not him, a privileged member of a "protected class." Finally, those who resent Roe v Wade, those who resent any infringement on their "right to protect themselves" with assault rifles, et cetera. There is plenty of anger and resentment to go around, but there is no solid core EXCEPT the anger and the resentment. It is, however, a powerful and propulsive force, a forty foot wave, behind any demagogue willing to surf it.
For those who come to power propelled by the resentments of the populace, once in power, what if they actually do set about "commanding unity." Just to suggest the stage, those who make their money drilling for natural gas might have a different take on the demise of coal as a fuel. Those who have made their boat load of money "outsourcing" jobs to places like China might have a different take on particular aspects of the "trade deal." The list goes on. Ultimately, the only way to "command unity" is to quell opposition, and if the opposition is held strongly enough, the only way to quell opposition is through violence and the fear of violence. It's not surprising that Trump felt his "first amendment rights" breached by the protestors in Chicago, without giving much if any thought to the "first amendment rights" of the protestors themselves, and the repeated calls to "get him out of here" is a small sample of things to come. The first right to go is the right to free speech, the very right that allows us, not only to express opposition, but to quibble over what might be the best policy, the best form of bureaucratic response. The only policy is the policy of the "one who now command unity," and if it doesn't serve you, if you continue to harbor resentments, and feel betrayed, it might be wise to keep it to yourself.
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