“Proverbs for Paranoids,
3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry
about answers.”
~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
I’m
going to jump on the current political bandwagon and talk about Trump.
I’m conflicted on this issue. On one hand, I hate talking about Trump, I
don’t want to have to talk about
Trump… and yet I’m also strangely compelled to talk about him, to talk about
the phenomenon that is his success, about the demagoguery that is his campaign.
I’ll be frank: I do not like Donald Trump. His politics trouble me, and his supporters
increase my concern exponentially. What
I fear more, however, is Trump’s lack of responsibility when it comes to the
things his supporters say.
I may not have voted for John McCain, and I still
wouldn’t vote for him today (if he were running). But I’m reminded of a moment during his
campaign in 2008, popularized on HBO’s Game
Change (2012), when a supporter stood up and described democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama as an “Arab,” implicitly (although let’s
face it, not that implicitly) associating him with terrorism. As soon as the word left her mouth, McCain
leaned forward and took the microphone from her, offering the following
rejoinder:
“I
have to tell you. Senator Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have
to be scared of as president of the United States.”
People in the crowd did
not like this. McCain was met with cries
of disdain, and certain people even shouted “liar” and “terrorist,” thereby
making the association mentioned above very
explicit.[i] McCain saw it as his responsibility to
counter these attitudes, especially once they voiced themselves. I don’t think it’s too outrageous to suggest
that if he had had any shot at winning the presidency, this moment irreparably
damaged that shot.
As far as HBO dramatization goes, their depiction of this
scene communicates a specific interpretive angle: the woman who identified
Obama as an Arab, and those in the crowd that accused him of terrorism, were
drawn to McCain’s campaign by Sarah Palin.
I have no idea if that’s true, but I think it’s more than
believable. Whether or not that’s the
case, however, I cannot help but wonder what that woman must have been feeling
when McCain stepped forward, took the microphone from her, and told her she was
wrong. Was she embarrassed? Was she angry? Was she humbled? Maybe she felt all three reactions, or a
mixture of them. As I think on the
possibility of embarrassment or humility, I find myself having a very singular
reaction: good. Embarrass her, humble her. The point of education is to find yourself
temporarily ungrounded, to have to navigate your way through new information
and possibly change your position because of it. I love that McCain did what he did, and I
hope that woman felt humbled.
Of course, I doubt she did. She probably found some way to rationalize
her belief that Obama is an “Arab.”[ii] We’re all guilty of similar rationalizations,
in one way or another. But I want to
turn here to a comparable moment during Donald Trump’s recent presidential
campaign when one of his supporters called candidate Ted Cruz a “pussy.” Now, this is certainly different than calling someone an “Arab,” but both comments
generate political fallout. What I find
fascinating is Trump’s handling of the situation. After telling his supporter that he “never
expects to hear that” from her again, Trump repeated the comment through the
microphone: “She said he’s a pussy.” The
comment generated tremendous applause and laughter. After joking about the nature of his
constituents, Trump told the woman she was “reprimanded,” which generated more
laughter. After the rally, the woman
told reporters that she “knew that Trump was kidding.”[iii]
Trump’s manipulation of the moment is impressive,
although perhaps not as much when we consider whom he’s manipulating. Ostensibly, Trump dissociates himself from
the comment, and we can already predict his own defense to reporters: “I can’t
help what my constituents find funny” (or something along these lines). He bonds with them as he appears (albeit
thinly) to chastise them. I’m not so
sure we can credit this to Trump’s political skills as much as we can to the
intellect of his average supporter. Ryan
Lizza’s recent piece in The New Yorker
speaks to the magnetic irrationalism of Trump’s campaign: “State and national
polls consistently show that he draws strongly from all four ideological
segments of the party. His strongest
supporters are less educated and less well off; his fiercest opponents are
Republicans with advanced degrees and high incomes.”[iv] The lack of consistency within his own
campaign reflects the ideological quagmire of his supporters, what we might
describe (tenuously) as a brand of radical nationalism informed more by a
paranoiac pathos than by any sense of critical thought.
If it isn’t obvious by now, I don’t care much for Trump
supporters. Or, at least, for a
significant portion of them (after all, one shouldn’t generalize…).
Lizza’s article in The
New Yorker divulges some of the disreputable underbelly of Trump’s
campaign, specifically as it surfaces among his supporters: “The racism of some
Trump supporters has been well documented.
At one rally in Las Vegas in mid-December, attendees punched a black
protestor while others yelled, ‘Shoot him,’ ‘Kick his ass,’ ‘Light the
motherfucker on fire,’ and ‘Sieg heil.’”[v] Comparisons between the president and Hitler
are nothing new. They started back when
George W. Bush came into the presidency, and they continued when Obama became
president. I cannot recall, however, any
supporters of either Bush or Obama actively exclaiming “Sieg heil” during campaign rallies.
Judging from the quality of the vocabulary leaving the lips of Trump’s base,
this is a different kind of political candidate.
Trump’s is the perfect candidacy for that woman whom
McCain shut down back in 2008. It is the
candidacy for those who want desperately to say all their politically incorrect
sentiments, and to do so at a venue that breeds cognitive dissonance and
emotional irrationalism. It shouldn’t
come as any surprise that Trump feeds on the outbursts of his supporters. This is the same candidate who criticized
McCain’s war record (Trump prefers people who don’t get caught, remember). It also shouldn’t come as any surprise that
Sarah Palin endorsed Trump, leading her flock of redundant seagulls to perch
patriotically on their candidate’s stump.
The Trump Stump.
It’s like a tramp stamp, but more painful and infinitely
more embarrassing.
Trump’s defenses are ironclad despite what should be
severe criticisms. He brushes them off with
ad hominem attacks and other juvenile methods.
His supporters believe him because of his apparent confidence. This appearance of confidence is an important
political tactic. In the view of his
supporters, personal authenticity trumps (oh, the inevitable pun) media
accuracy. As one supporter interviewed
in The New Yorker said, “‘I’m dead
set unless I find out something down the line […] But I’m not going to believe
what the media tells me. I have to hear
it from him. The media does not persuade
me one bit.’”[vi] Of course it doesn’t. That lying, corrupt, propaganda institution
that is the left-wing liberal media.
Sounds pretty evil, yes?
The overarching story of the New Yorker article is how Trump’s candidacy is changing the
GOP. It’s an interesting read, and one
that I recommend. But I have another
take on Trump’s success that I want to touch by way of conclusion. Trump reaches his constituents because he
talks about national issues in a manner that they feel touches them. He appeals to low-income, blue-collar workers
who feel cheated out of what they believe they’re owed. The candidacy of a Jeb Bush, or a Ted Cruz, appeals
to business owners; but Trump’s constituency consists of those employed by
business owners. This is a powerful
base. His campaign has toned its muscles
on an implicit class differential, appealing to a particular demographic of
working-class right-wing Americans. When
Trump does speak on issues such as immigration, or national security, or
religion, he does so in a way that connects these issues to the immediate
experience his constituents (the immigrants are taking your jobs, ISIS is threatening your
safety, secular politics are limiting your
ability to practice religion). This is a
necessary tactic, since Trump knows that to expand the scope of his arguments
would mean to lose his base. His voters
need to see how these large issues
are affecting them directly.
The problem is that not all of these issues affect us
directly. They affect us indirectly,
through various channels and other cultural dynamics. We live in a complex world, not one that can
be distilled from the campaign stage.
The vision that Trump puts forth for his voters is not an accurate description
of the world. It is not even close. It is a paranoiac fantasy. It caters to his supporters’ egos by making
them feel as though each and every one of them is the center of the universe. In this case, it’s incredibly easy to point
to various minority groups – immigrants, Muslims, etc. – as scapegoats. To give the impression of direct impact, of
the immediacy of cultural factors, one has to be able to identify and classify the cause. It isn’t a new strategy by any means.
Hitler did the same thing.
Objection!
Withdrawn.
[i] This episode is fairly
well-documented, but those interested can read more about it here: http://www.politico.com/story/2008/10/mccain-obama-not-an-arab-crowd-boos-014479
[ii] The problems with this sentiment
are, of course, numerous. For starters,
“Arab” is a vague term that does not specify religion, nationality, or cultural
values. There are also millions of
people of Arab ancestry living in America, and who identify themselves as
American citizens. I doubt she trusts
any of them either (and just to be clear, Obama isn’t one of them – but should
it really matter if he was?).
[iii] Full story here: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/08/politics/donald-trump-ted-cruz-waterboarding/
[iv] Ryan Lizza, “The Duel: Understanding
Trump vs. Cruz,” The New Yorker, 1
Feb. 2016: 42.
[v] Ibid, 40.
[vi] Ibid, 43.
