Trump

Again, I have to confess to a morbid fascination with the Republican party of late.  Here again, I am not the first to say it, and I probably won't be the last, but it is difficult to "normalize" Donald Trump as a candidate.  He has played the republican party for a sucker, and they didn't exactly fall for it, but couldn't quite believe "it could happen here."   It has now happened, or is coming closer to happening, and their scramble to "unify" the party at one level points to a deep pathology that would be pathetic were it not, mostly, irrelevant.  While I might revel in their disarray, I don't know that the American public much cares if the republican party is united or not.  They continue, as it were, to miss the point of Trump.  He is not the result of party politics, but he has transcended party politics.  He doesn't have a "platform" on the issues, and whatever he has said in the past, is now "just a suggestion."  It is, of course, by definition, "just a suggestion." Anything said by a candidate is "just a suggestion," but it is either a direction that will be pursued or it is not.  One believes that Clinton or Sanders will do their best to take the country in the direction of their "suggestions," but with Trump the whole matter of platform is irrelevant.  He is the Nietzschian messiah, the one who has transcended the corruption of the politics and has "sacrificed himself to make American great again," to use the words of one responder to a critical Post article.  

The idea that Trump has "sacrificed himself," is ludicrous, but one cannot help but hear the resonance of the responder's language.  In the end, we have to remember that Trump is the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, not because the party elites selected and promoted him as such.  He is the presumptive nominee DESPITE their promotion of others, DESPITE their denigration of his candidacy, and he is where he is because "republican voters" have put him there.   The Trumpian theme song should be Megan Trainer's "it's all about that base, 'bout that base, no treble," because the shrill voices of the republican elite have had little or no effect on the Trump ascendancy, and he is where he is because the "republican voter," the "republican base," have put him there.   The Posts, both Washington and Huffington, Politico -- really all the more conventional news sources, even Fox News -- want to treat Trump as a "candidate" for a constitutionally defined "office" in the US government.  The office happens to the be presidency, and so has outsized importance, but they really want to cast the election as a run for "office."  Trump is not running as a "candidate" for a constitutionally bound "office," whose policy platform will help put America back on track, but as the new messiah, as an American savior.  The office, and the constitution that defines it, will be irrelevant.  Once elected, once given a mandate of the people, Trump and only Trump will be relevant.

Trump, of course, is a "huge" narcissist, a narcissist's narcissist, but to diagnose his core pathology is just too easy.  It's credible, for example, that he called a news source, posing as someone else, to sing his own praises and boast of his sexual prowess, among other things.  He believes, and so too should you believe BECAUSE he so absolutely believes in himself.  He is Trump.   I want to believe, however, that it will all prove to be a monumental practical joke.  There was a season of American Idol, where a truly awful singer was put forward by the "voters" in the audience.  As the field narrowed, and more and more were "in" on the joke, they continued to put him forward, not because they believed he was a good singer, but because they could.  In the end, he didn't become the next American Idol, and one hopes the idolatry of Trump is just as shallow, but one suspects not.  It may be a monumental practical joke, but it's altogether too credible that he is where he is because the "republican voter," the "republican base, actually WANT him there.  Beyond his core pathology,  it is again just too easy, based on past statements, to diagnose his attendant pathologies.  He is a racist, a xenophobe, a misogynist, among other things.  The evidence in support of his pathologies is just too extensive, and again just too credible, to be ignored.  Those pathologies SHOULD matter to the republican voter, the republican base, but in the end they just don't seem relevant, but why?

It is heretical to suggest that his pathologies reflect the pathologies within the American public, but the conclusion seems to be inescapable.  Trump gives license to our baser impulses in ways that a comedian like Andrew Dice Clay could not give license to our baser impulses, but was "entertaining" nevertheless because he gave himself license to parade those baser impulses.   He is just so BAD, and falls for some into that camp of the villain we love to hate, for others a vicarious wish fulfillment.  Andrew Dice Clay, after all, is JUST a comedian, nothing to be taken too seriously, and it might have been possible to view Trump as JUST a reality show celebrity, nothing to be taken too seriously, except he was not delivering stand-up punch lines fraught with irony.   He was delivering what to many, altogether too many, was a "serious" response to the sorry state of our nation,  devoid of irony, but rife with those attitudes expressed all too apocalyptically on talk radio, and only slightly less so on Fox News, again devoid of irony.   The nation's savior would come, wearing a big R on his chest, and lo!  he appeared, not only with the R, but a ball cap that promised he would make America great again.  It is not surprising that the republican voter, the republican base, filled with a steady stream of fear and loathing by the paranoid ranting of talk radio and only slightly less paranoid ranting of Fox News, responded.  It would be surprising if they had not responded.

The Alter of Wealth

So, on to the heresy.  He is Trump, our savior, first and foremost, because the American people worship at the alter of wealth.  Americans have always had a complex relationship with wealth.  Max Weber traced it brilliantly in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.  Although a broad brush, in the absence of the catholic assurance of salvation that came through the authority of priests and their absolution, one had to look for "signs" to assure one's self that one was saved, one of the "elect."  First among the "signs" was, of course, wealth.  Here, I should probably distinguish between monies sufficient to "earning a living" and "wealth."  It is one thing to earn enough money to live, even to live comfortably.  It is quite another thing to accumulate capital in excess of a comfortable life, money that can be saved or invested.   In the protestant ethic -- and this should sound familiar -- one was simply expected to work hard enough at one's calling to "earn a living."  It was a minimum condition.  We weren't in Eden.  We were fallen men and women, cursed with the original sin to labor, and so we should labor.  Those who did not labor were damned, both in this world and the next, while those who did, fulfilled God's command.  If one followed one's god given calling with enough zeal, enough faith, then one would not only "make a living," but accumulate wealth.  It became the principle sign of one's "election," one's favor with God.  Although there were prohibitions against ostentatious display of wealth among our early christian forebears, it didn't hurt that wealth was also brought with it social recognition and power.

How easily this connects up with the more contemporary idea of "meritocracy."   Although Jefferson's phrase, "pursuit of happiness" opened the door a bit to secular "signs" other than accumulated wealth, behind it nevertheless lay the notion of labor in the "pursuit."  Again, as a sort of minimum condition, one was expected to labor in order to "merit" or deserve one's happiness.     Labor, of course, differentiated the "aristocracy," those who inherited their happy condition, from the "meritocracy," those who labored with greater success and accumulated the sorts of wealth that brought social recognition and power -- those who "merited" or "deserved" their happy condition.     Hard work, in other words, was a minimal condition, but those "labored with greater success" had, one assumed, personal characteristics that allowed them to do so.  They had "intelligence" or "grit," to use the popular term for dogged perseverance, that allowed them to gain wealth along with the social recognition and power wealth bestowed.  Their wealth was a sufficient indication that they were more "meritorious" human beings, a "natural" as opposed to an "inherited" aristocracy, and so deserved their happiness.  One hears the converse of this as well.  The coal miner who has just been laid off saying, "if god had given me the smarts and I'd gone to school, I could've been boss."  One hears the resignation, not only to one's inferior status, but one's inferior "merit" as a human being.  They "merit" their poor fortune.

Trump, first and foremost, is wealthy.  He believes so thoroughly that he labored with greater success than virtually anyone else that his wealth becomes for virtually everyone else a sufficient indication of his inherent superiority, his inherent greatness.  He believes so thoroughly that were he to labor on behalf of the American people, then clearly the American people should believe, have no reason to doubt, that they would benefit.  Position and policy are irrelevant.  Trump is bestowing himself on the American people.  Trump, of course, won't release his tax returns for a variety of reasons, or so we can speculate.  They might reveal, for example, that his business interests are the sort that allowed for "out-sourcing" of American jobs, denying otherwise good Americans the opportunity to meet the minimal condition, to labor and "earn their living."  They do not want a "hand out," and despise those who do, but they DO want the opportunity to have a job and profit from their labor.   They might reveal, for example, that his accumulated wealth isn't quite what he makes it out to be -- that he might not be so "naturally endowed" as his hubris might want us to believe.  Though he portrays himself as the consummate "deal maker," his powers are already under question.  For the bumper sticker crowd, it's not so much "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"  It's more, "if you're so smart, why aren't you richer?"  He started with a fortune that would make most power ball winners envious, and whatever his labors at the deal might have been, they were not as wildly successful as he would have us believe.  Had he invested in an indexed mutual fund, or so it is estimated, he would have had the same gains.  Finally, they might reveal, for example, that he labored essentially not at all -- that most of his accumulated wealth came not from his vaunted "deals," many of which led to well publicized bankruptcies, but from simple capital gains on his inherited wealth.   His tax returns, in short, might prove to the fatal pin-prick to his inflated, fatuous (and one suspects flatulent) hubris and the confidence of his worshipers.

At the Alter of Hate

The other day, for reasons that are mysterious to me, I was thinking about the Salem witch trials.  Perhaps because they're reviving Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" on Broadway and they interviewed the director or one of the actors on PBS.  Something of that sort.   It was written about the Salem witch trials.  I won't summarize the plot.  The historical events are familiar enough in broad outline, and it is easy enough to poo-pooh something like the witch trials as a wholly historical aberration,  something that couldn't possibly happen today, because, well, we have moved beyond witches and such things.    I am not so sure we have, and we find politicians, like Cruz, or his father, literally "demonizing" Obama and Clinton, seeing them and their agenda as nothing less than the work of satan.  That Cruz was held to be the last hope to "stop Trump," itself says something.  It also says something that the republican base rather roundly rejected him for Trump, along with key members of the so-called republican elite.  Turn about is fair play, I would guess, and we have Boehner supporting Trump and calling out Cruz as "lucifer in the flesh," though one suspects Boehner meant "lucifer" metaphorically, not literally.

The play was intended as an allegory, and Miller, as is widely recognized, used the Salem witch trials to make a point about McCarthyism and the "rooting out" of communists and communist sympathizers during the early 50's.   Here again, it is easy enough to poo-pooh something like McCarthyism as a wholly historical aberration, something that couldn't possibly happen today, because, well, we have moved beyond our fear of communists.  Here again, I am not so sure.  One of the reflex charges against Obama, one that will certainly be leveled at Clinton, is "socialism," a charge that is held to be self-evidently "true" and self-evidently "bad."  This too has its religious roots, but they are obscured by a more secular discussion of economics.   Man's original sin condemned him to "labor," both as a punishment for the sin, but also as a means of redemption.  Our puritan forebears were, consequently, not big on charity.  The destitute were destitute for one of two reasons, either they were "out of favor" with God or they lacked sufficient character to knuckle down and go to work, either of which was sufficient reason to withhold charity.  If one gave charity to the destitute, it would only reinforce their lack of character, remove the incentives to self-reliance.  "Socialism, "of course, is government "charity" writ large, and anything that smacks of an "entitlement," a benefit bestowed without the redemption of labor, is just self-evidently "bad."  Obama-care is "bad," not because it is ineffectual at providing American's with health coverage, but because the subsidies that make such coverage "affordable" are an entitlement, a government hand-out, that comes without the redemption of labor.

Hence, at least in part, the emphasis on "jobs."  Hence too, at least in part, the revolt against "taxes," or at least certain forms of taxation.  If one suspects that their tax money -- money that came as a result of their labor -- is being used to support the indolence of others, well then how "wrong" is that?  I doubt that even the most vehement of fox news commentators really believe that Obama plots in the back room to destroy America, but I don't doubt that they believe, really believe, that any "entitlement" whatsoever undermines the character of the American people, to include medicare, medicaid, and social security.   Here's the turn.  The republican base, those who have signed up with Trump, those who might be classed as the so-called "angry white men," don't want a government handout, and as I said, they despise those who do.

So who is getting the government hand-outs?  This would be an occasion for facts, and the facts are readily available, but it's not about facts. It's about how one "feels," which normally comes with an unapologetic apology, "I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel."  There is a level of hypocrisy involved.  Many of the angry white men get, or will get, their entitlements.  They'll take them, or scam the government if they can get away with it, but they do so with a deep sense of sanctimony, "I am just getting back some of what shouldn't have been taken in the first place."  If they are thieves, they are thieving from the biggest thief around, the taxing government.  "I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel."  The one's they truly despise are those who take from the system never having been a contributor to or victim of the system, and we all know who they are, don't we?  It's the blacks, and the hispanics, or at least the urban blacks and hispanics, those who live their whole life sponging off  the American tax-payer, those taking their welfare checks and food stamps.   "I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel."

Some of the republican base and those supporting Trump are simple racists, as his endorsement by the KKK indicates, and it is perhaps convenient for the actual bigots that lines of poverty and lines of race correspond.  More are likely have complex racial attitudes.  For them, it seems that every government action designed to alleviate out and out racism, or what might be called "systemic" or "institutional" racism, has the flavor of an entitlement or a preference.  Here again, this would be an occasion for facts, and the facts are readily available, but  here again, it's not about facts.  It's about how one "feels."  The entitlement is galling enough, particularly when it seems perfectly apparent that their lack of self-reliance, that their dependence on government hand-outs, has contributed to the moral decline of the black community.  "I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel."  The preference, however, goes over the top.  I suspect every one of the "angry white men" can tell how he was passed over for a job or a promotion because the employer is trying to meet some "quota."  I suspect every one of the "angry white men" can tell how he was "more qualified" or "better suited" for the job or promotion than the one who actually got it.   It might actually be true, but to continue with the "past preference" for white men insures that white men would be better qualified and better suited.  "I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel."

Whether out and out racists, or simply those who want to reset the clock to the social setting of the 1950s, it makes little difference.  The racial and ethnic resentments remain, and Trump has, in every sense of the word, capitalized on this resentment throughout his campaign.  The so-called republican elite has been ineffectual in addressing his more outrageous, his more overtly racist remarks, not to mention his misogynistic remarks, in part because they too have been capitalizing on this resentment for at least the last three decades.  It will fall on deaf ears to suggest, as one should, that any real gains toward equality for minorities, to include women and the disabled, came as a result of government action and legal protections.  It will also fall on deaf ears to suggest, as one should, that there is considerable hypocrisy among the republican elite's McCarthy like witch hunt of the slightest "socialist" tendency.  The base, as a matter of course, expects the so-called elite to be hypocrites.  Of course they want tax cuts and of course they want to make up the difference by a corresponding cut in entitlements.  The base responds with a resounding "so what?"   The base too wants tax cuts -- doesn't everyone? -- and yes, they should cut entitlements, especially those that contribute to the moral and economic lassitude of the "undeserving."  That Trump might be as cynical as the republican elite is irrelevant.  He clearly understands and gives unpolished voice to their resentments.

At the Alter of America First

As I have been thinking about this over the past few days, there is curious division within the American psyche.  On the one side, there is the "gated community" mentality, which finds various expressions within the Trumpish camp among the republican base, but perhaps the most infamous is his promise to build the wall along our southern border and to ban muslims from entering the country.  Behind the gates, of course, is wealth and a way of life that must be protected.  It pre-supposes, of course, that one's wealth and way of life is "enviable" -- that it creates not only "desire" to have what those behind the gates have, but also the self-loathing that comes of the unfulfilled envy of the unattainable.  The walls and gates are built out of fear, not of rapine, but of rape and murder -- the spree killer's urge to rise above their self-loathing by destroying that which rejects and humiliates them.  It also pre-supposes that normal civility among members of a community and the community police no longer be trusted to provide much in the way of protection.  They must create their own "security forces" and take matters into their own hands.

The phrase, America First, of course, is historically evocative of the America First Committee before the advent of the second world war.  Its most famous spokesperson was Charles Lindbergh, but it was a "principled" movement, supporting four basic ideas, all of them "gated community" in effect.  The first principle was self-defense.  The second and third, avoid entanglements in foreign affairs and the expenses associated with such entanglements, both of which weaken one's ability to provide for self-defense.  The fourth, if strong enough, in part due to our geographic isolation, no foreign power can successfully attack the US.  The attack on Pearl Harbor put an end to the America First Committee, but its thinking is endemic. The popular expression goes something like this:  "we have enough problems here at home, and should attend to them."  Just as the American First Committee expressed sympathy for the plight of the jews in Germany, the popular expression today goes something like this:  "I'm not sure why our troops have to solve YOUR problems."  Unlike Pearl Harbor, the attack on the World Trade Center, aside from the desire to go forth and punish the perpetrators, reinforced the need for better self-defense, and the Trumpian call to disentangle ourselves from NATO and the "unfair" expenses associated with our entanglement in European affairs, would free up the cash to bolster our own security forces and build a higher wall.  The Trumpian base wants a stronger military, not so we can more successfully defend Europe or Korea, but so we can more successfully keep the hordes on the other side of the wall.

As an aside, there is also a popular belief that we are "enviable" -- that we do not need a wall, like the Berlin wall, to keep people IN.  We do, however, need a wall to keep people OUT.  There is a normal human tendency to resent those who resent us, and another popular expression of anti-entanglement and anti-interventionist thought goes something like this: "We go in, help them out, but are they thankful?  Do we get gratitude?  No, they hate and envy us all the more."  I have been re-reading many of Tony Judt's essays of late, and in one, "It's Own Worst Enemy," he tells us, "the 'cultural' anti-Americanism is shared by Europeans, Latin Americans, and Asians, secular and religious alike.  It is not about antipathy to the West, or freedom, or the Enlightenment, or any other abstraction exemplified by the United States.  It is about America."  It is, he tells us, a function of "our self-assurance, the narcissistic confidence of Americans in the superiority of American values and practices, and the rootless inattentiveness to history -- their own and other people's."  It is, perhaps, more galling to all the rest of world, who might actually prefer that we hunker down behind our wall, in part because they need us.  American occupies a unique position of uncontested strength within the world, both militarily and economically, and does so despite all the  fox news talk of imminent armageddon.  As Judt put it, "America is indispensable."  The foreign reaction to Trump  as the "leader of the free world" stands as a case in point.  He exemplifies "self-assurance, the narcissistic confidence in his own superiority, and his benighted inattention to anything that might be called a "fact," and yet they will need him.

And for what will he be needed?  Much, but let me start with a simple observation.    If there is anything Trump knows, he should know that we cannot have modern communication and transportation technologies and a modern capitalist economy and live in isolation.  Although the mostly rural, mostly blue collar base that Trump draws upon might live in the illusion of provincial isolation.  They might believe that they can enhance the isolation by "building the wall," not simply to keep out the job stealing Mexicans, but also the imminent threat of the jihadist muslim.  The world is far more deeply interfused than any one person could begin to detail in a single lifetime, much less a single paragraph or two, so let me make another simple observation.  Our current military "doctrine," such as it is, might be called a "unilateralism."  Obama would prefer, I think, more bilateralism, or even a multi-laterism, but that would require behaving with a humility sufficient to compromise our interests on behalf of others. We more often than not do retreat to unilateralism, mostly because we can.  Our geography has given us unprecedented internal security.  Neither Canada nor Mexico could be remotely considered a "military" threat to the US homeland.  Neither would or could conceivably mount a war of territorial aggression.  Our military is not and never has been a "defensive" force, but a military force designed for intervention across the globe -- designed, that is, to project force where needed to protect "American interests."  If the wars in the middle east are, as some suggest, "all about oil," well, to be honest with ourselves and others, we have an interest in securing a steady flow of oil from reliable and stable partners in the middle east.  Reliable and stable does not mean "nice."  I doubt that Trump's base gives a rat's ass about which abusive dictator runs which subjugated country in the middle east, but they do care about a steady and cheap supply of fuel for the suburban that takes Johnny and Mary to football and soccer practice.  We are, as some suggest, usually with some disparagement, the world's police force.  Not unlike the traffic cop on the corner whose presence causes passing cars to check their speedometer, not without resentment, our over-whelming military presence causes the world to check their "interests" relative to the US, again not without resentment.  So long as we are willing to project force to protect our way of life here at home, the world will continue to check their "interests."  Do we really want to withdraw from that role?

Apparently, if we have a quick and easy way of dealing with such "threats" -- nuclear weapons.  They are not, I should add, military weapons.  They are instruments of mutual terror, and to use them would be the equivalent of strapping on a suicide vest with the intent of wiping out life on earth as we know it.  So long as we are not so desperate as a species to commit suicide, we have lived and will live with the nuclear terror, in part because we cannot "un-invent" them.  We are concerned with nuclear proliferation because there may well be those who believe, really believe, that strapping on the nuclear suicide vest might be a good idea within a war of genocidal aggression -- a quick and easy way to wipe out the indigenous population that is always of the "wrong" ideology or religion or ethnicity.  It is also a quick and easy way to wipe out a "problem" -- BOOM! -- it's gone.  The bellicose talk regarding ISIS and Islamic extremism during the convention cycle may have been just that, bellicose talk, of the sort one hears from a local red-neck three beers into his diatribe about the "towel heads" when he suggests we should "just nuke the f---kers."  If Islamic extremism is a problem, don't mess around with "troops" or "regime change," just deal with it, wipe the problem off the face of the earth -- BOOM! -- it's gone.  In an interview response to Meet the Press, Trump straps on the suicide vest to fix a problem with a nuclear war of genocidal aggression.  As commander in chief, he would authorize the use of nuclear weapons to combat Islamic extremism, adding "and thanks to Obama's failed policy in Iraq and Sytria, they're beheading Chrisitans all over the world."   Although it could be argued that the second Bush used 9/11 along with an illusory threat of WMDs cynically as a pretext for other more conventional middle east ventures, the non-proliferation doctrine nevertheless stood.   Like the gun control adversary who sees "more guns" as the solution to gun violence, Trump has suggested that even more nuclear weapons are the solution to potential nuclear threats.  In response to North Korea's program, he has suggested that South Korea and Japan obtain nuclear weapons, in part so we can withdraw the troops stationed in South Korea and Japan. Here's the thing.  Do we believe if Kim Jung Un is a rational actor?  He has said  North Korea "must always be ready to fire our nuclear warheads at any time" because enemies were threatening the north's survival.   Although one can doubt the overall capacity, there is some capacity, and if he really believes South Korea has or will have nuclear weapons, and can use them independently of the US, do we trust them NOT to act preemptively?   Do we respond in kind if one or the other does?  Here again, our over-whelming military presence assigns us the role of the world's police force against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other WMDs.   We are the world's deterrent.  Do we really want to give up that role?

The answer in both cases is a qualified "no."  I say "qualified," in part as a recognition that it is always possible to serve either role "better," and it begs a question of what exactly would count as "better," which in turn begs the further question of just exactly how one would go about achieving "better."  This is a matter, however, not for demagogic bar room diatribes, but rational democratic debate.  Not unlike Great Britain in the 19th century, we are currently the first among nations, and our military prowess guarantees it, but the ostensibly christian base should remember matthew 20:16.