Donald Trump's Excellent Adventure

I think I'm on to something – finally! I've been puzzling for a long time now – really since the 2016 campaign – as to possible reasons for the absolute, unremitting, fanatical hostility and hatred directed toward Donald Trump. I mean, add up all of his real and alleged offenses, from “colluding” with Russia right down to his ever-changing hair color, and they still don't add up to what would, in normal times, be considered ample reason for the never-ending campaign on the part of pretty much everyone to force him from office – which, when it involves the Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence apparatus, amounts to a coup (or coup attempt – at least so far). Not to mention, most if not all of his alleged character flaws, gaffes, offenses, illegal activities, etc. have been characteristics of, or indulged in by, any number of previous presidents as well as countless members of Congress over the years (decades, centuries). And yet they've never gotten a reaction of this magnitude, which borders on psychosis (or maybe “borders” is too mild a term). In fact, most have sailed through the political waters with nary a hair on their head getting mussed. And yes, Trump is an outsider, which is considered a major liability, if not an outright sin, among the Beltway crowd and the ruling elite – but is he really that much more of an outsider than, say, Carter was? Or Clinton? Or Obama? Far from working their way up the ladder rung by rung, each of these appeared pretty much out of nowhere and wound up on top of the heap. (And if they were mere figureheads, empty suits, and scapegoats, well... that's the way the presidency has evolved over the years, isn't it? You take office and are handed the script, and woe unto you if you ignore it.)

So what can I point to as the source of my enlightenment – on this one issue at least? It's the film “BlacKkKlansman” by Spike Lee. Unlikely? Bear with me for a moment. When I saw that film I have to admit I was utterly baffled. As social history it was crude and ham-handed. As a political commentary on race relations, it was pretty pathetic – brimming with ridiculous stereotypes like the perfectly matching afros of the young black activists, and the Klansmen, who made those guys in “Deliverance” look like Rhodes scholars. And then you have the stilted dialogue that kept sucking the life out of scenes that might otherwise have been halfway decent. And as some sort of “thriller” it fell totally flat, except for the only halfway decent part of the film, the action scene toward the end, which at least can be credited with good timing and camera work.

That's what I thought, and that's what I continued to think. But then I realized my mistake. I had been judging the film based on the premise that it was a serious piece of work. Then – shazam! – I realized it was a comedy! And that all the stereotypes and wild exaggerations contributed to the overall comic effect... and that, based on this new perspective, the film was actually a success.

But wait! – you'll say -- Spike Lee was not trying to make a comedy. This was a Serious Film with a Social Message. Well, maybe it was intended to be, but sometimes films wind up succeeding in ways that the writer and director never intended, and which they would find upsetting – as witness any number of films over the decades that used to be described as “so bad it's good”. These have provided a fertile resource for MST3K RiffTrax and its imitators, spoofing, and “ironic” film festivals and “creature features”. (I guess the moral is, if you can't make a good movie, make one so bad that it's memorable for that reason at least. Ed Wood owes his claim to fame to some people's urge to bathe in badness.)

Now, declaring “BlackKkKlansman” a comedy doesn't detract from the intent of the people who made it, only from the execution – or, if that is not to be questioned either, from the ignorance of the audience. (I prefer the execution theory.) The point is that intent can run aground on other people's expectations. The creator expects their world to be recognized by the audience, but the audience has a world too – a diversity of worlds, in fact. We are used to this phenomenon in art, but it's also true in politics, and the result can be startling at times.

So now let us turn to our much-beleaguered and besieged president. It is no exaggeration to say that he is holed up in the White House in a state of complete isolation from the rest of Washington, except for his staff (or at least the loyal portion thereof, however many that may be). His domestic initiatives have been thwarted by Congress, and the few that have passed that hurdle have been stopped dead in their tracks by the judiciary... and foreign policy is, as far as I can tell, in someone else's hands. So really, he doesn't have that much to do... and yet everyone criticizes him for taking time off to play golf. Well, what would you do if you'd been living a hyperactive lifestyle for decades and then found yourself a prisoner in the White House? Watch daytime TV? Learn a new language? Try macrame? I mean, really, the guy must feel like a caged jungle cat in the National Zoo.

And yet, he seems to be enjoying himself – immensely at times. He gets up at CPAC and goes “off script” for over 2 hours. He's working the crowd like an evangelist – or a borscht circuit comedian.  He's just as feisty as the guy who took that fabled ride down the escalator what seem like ages ago. He's not hunkered down like Nixon, roaming the halls late at night talking to the portraits on the walls. And he's not zoning out like Bush II, or “retiring in place” like so many of his predecessors once they ran out of steam. He's having a good time, and this is cause for deep suspicion. What's his game?

Or, what was his game, and has it morphed in some way over the last 3+ years? Some have theorized that he never actually wanted to be president – that it was just some kind of massive stunt – and that he was just as surprised as anyone when he actually won (or appeared to, or... well, whatever). (He is in the White House, folks, so suck it up! He's not being controlled like some puppet by Hillary and Bill hiding in the basement.)

I've never been very impressed by the “not serious” argument. Given the guy's life history, I don't think he ever got anywhere near a game he didn't think he could win – and yet, being a master of the “deal”, he always has a backup plan – and not only a Plan B, but a Plan C, D, E, etc. as he recently said. Yes, on some level I'm sure he was perfectly able to imagine losing the 2016 election, and prepared to go back to New York and settle back into his gold-plated mansion in the sky. But he did win, and as far as I can tell had a plan all ready to go in that event – unlike certain other presidents who could be named. So, on Inauguration Day 2017 a new day dawned in American politics – something truly new under the sun. Not just an outsider, but a radical outsider – different in every way from what everyone had come to expect, and demand, from a president. Personality-wise, there is zero overlap between him and any of his predecessors. Style-wise, ditto. Management style, ditto. You name it, whatever it is, he is as different as he would be if he were a Martian beamed down from a hovering spacecraft, and, believe it or not, some people find this upsetting – not least members of the Washington establishment, who have played just one game one way for as long as anyone can remember. But their set of expectations seems to have percolated, over time, to the general populace – and a large portion of the latter are even more visibly upset than those in Congress and elsewhere in the government, who have at least learned to put on a poker face, or an approximation of one, when times get tough.  (It's pretty much a truism that rioters are always way more upset than the people planning, and supervising, the riot.  The latter tend to be cool-headed schemers by comparison, and their histrionics are at least partly a calculated act.)  

But as I said before, even this is not enough to explain the rage, hostility, and open warfare being directed against this one person – and he is, after all, just one person, and yet he has riveted the attention of the media and the entire entertainment industry. He is the lead story on every newscast on every network, nation-wide, every day. He is the main subject of every late-night talk show, and even of all “awards” programs (save of the country-western music type). He has, as the saying goes, sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and continues to do so on a daily basis, and his opponents won't have it any other way. He fills their field of vision; he is Godzilla rising up out of Tokyo Bay. He has come to dominate their lives... their thinking... their emotions... even their physical health. (He has apparently caused a boom in the psychotherapy business, especially on the East and West Coasts.) And every day he remains in office just rubs more salt into their festering and suppurating wounds. What power! What total dominance!

And here's the real kicker – he likes it. Just as someone once said there is no such thing as bad publicity, Trump rides every wave that comes along – high, low, good, bad, it matters not. His enemies feed him bile and poison, and he just grows fatter (figuratively, at least). Sure, he'd prefer it if people respected him and valued his programs and initiatives, and were willing to help him get things done, but if not, hey... (insert video of the famous Trump shrug). He believes in what he is doing, but he also believes in himself – and you can say, well, that's just, you know, narcissism and egomania, etc. Well, excuse me, but how many presidents can you name who weren't narcissists on some level, and who didn't have overly-developed egos? (insert sound of chirping crickets) The difference is that Trump never flinches, or ducks, or hesitates, or – especially this – apologizes. And compared to his predecessors he spends a minimum amount of time “walking back” and “clarifying”. Self-doubt is simply not in his repertoire, on any level. And so he sails on, delighting his loyal core supporters and enraging his opponents more each day.

Now, one could ask – and it wouldn't be a bad question – is this any way to conduct a presidency? Aesthetic considerations aside, don't we have a, let's say, slight credibility problem here, not to mention an efficiency problem? Doesn't Trump create feedback loops that only aggravate things unnecessarily? Hasn't this turned into less an administration than a shtick? Well, it's possible, but you also have to remember that Trump didn't just pop up out of nowhere – outsider status notwithstanding.  He is a product of his time and place just as we all are.  The pathologies in our political system have been growing and metastasizing for decades now, and have contaminated all other aspects of our life as a nation. So what was supposed to come out of all of this in 2016? Another no-face, same-old same-old, empty suit who would just keep us slouching down that same dreary road? Frankly, I prefer a troublemaker – a bull in the china shop – someone who skillfully absorbs all shocks from his opponents then gives them back even more. And Trump fills that bill. No one else could have, or would have. The Republicans will not, under any circumstances, give Trump credit for bailing them out in 2016; in fact, they're resentful and hostile (and not a little bit mortified). And they're digging in their heels at every opportunity – warming up for 2020, at which point, if you thought the DNC played a dirty trick on Bernie Sanders in 2016, wait until you catch the RNC's act when it comes to Trump in 2020. (This, of course, assumes that he is still in office at that point, and I haven't checked with the odds makers yet on that score.)

So yes, the gripe against Trump – that which puts the Resistance over the top – is that he just keeps on truckin', like the Energizer Bunny. They will argue that he is highly – outrageously – flawed as a president, and as a human being. But that's not what has them gnashing their teeth; it's just an easily-recognizable talking point. Nor is it that he is some kind of alien life form, as far as the D.C. crowd and the elite establishment are concerned. It's the fact that his campaign, election, and administration have all the earmarks of a gigantic hoax – and yet they actually happened, and continue to happen. It's more than just annoying, or scandalizing; it's disorienting, and devastating. “Shattering”, to adapt the title of a book on the Hillary campaign. To put it another way, the surreal has become real.

And I use the term “hoax” as opposed to fraud. Many of his opponents will claim that he won the election in a fraudulent manner; I'm perfectly willing to accept that his election was authentic. I'm talking about a deeper issue – a psychological issue, if you will. His opponents don't reject the results of the election simply based on suspicions of fraud, or “collusion”, or “meddling”, or because he shouldn't have won simply because of who, or what, he is, but because a high degree of unreality has been introduced into their lives. The antics of Antifa, and the self-pitying writhings of the “snowflakes” on college campuses are just the tip of this iceberg.

Deep-seated expectations create deep-seated reactions. The most surprising thing, perhaps, is the extent to which people have, over the years, developed a hard-and-fast set of implicit “rules” for the way things ought to be when it comes to the presidency. This is not about etiquette or diplomacy, which are the common points of reference; it goes far beyond that. Trump – in all innocence, perhaps – may have assumed that people would be willing to accept him on the same terms that they've accepted his predecessors – pro or con, friendly or hostile, but not as the equivalent of the Golden Horde riding across the Asian steppe in order to lay siege to Vienna.

And while Trump doesn't exactly have a good “bedside manner”, politically-speaking, the situation is far from being his fault. The fault, I believe, lies in the fact that we, as a people, have developed the thinnest of thin skins. We are like eggs without shells, scared of our own shadows. And this phenomenon has been developing for quite a long time – certainly since the 1960s. So the political game has been a delicate balancing act all this time – make enemies as need be, but don't push them to the brink. And then along comes Trunk – the “trigger” to end all triggers – and people can't decide which is more frightening, the idea that he's putting on an act or the idea that he might be serious. So they do what people have done down through the ages when they are presented with an avalanche of unfamiliar stimuli but have no way of imposing order on them – they panic. And this is what we're seeing now – anger and hostility for certain, but also rage, hostility, and panic. And the question should not be where did Trump come from, and what is to be done, but why we have become so vulnerable and helpless.

The Spike Lee movie may or may not have been a hoax, or a shtick, or a trick – but it happened. Maybe Spike Lee was serious, and maybe Donald Trump was, and is, serious. But that's less important than how things are perceived, and that, in turn, is based on a lifetime of conditioning, expectations, imagery, education (both good and bad), propaganda... that entire array of influences that determine what we are willing, and able, to call “reality”, and what we are unwilling, and unable, to accept or even perceive because it violates not only our picture of the world but our picture of ourselves. An “existential threat” doesn't have to be physical danger, something threatening death. It can also be – and can be more threatening as – danger to our world view. To the Resistance, Trump and his administration are a nightmare from which they can never awake until he's gone, and it is this that determines their every thought, word, and deed. The problem is that the nightmare is of their own making.

P.S. (for the Resistance) – The fact that Trump pulled off a wildly improbable win in 2016 may indicate that “they” didn't want Hillary to be president under any circumstances. Your homework assignment is to quit bellyaching about Trump and try to figure out who “they” are. (Hint: It's not the Russians. Hillary is a much better friend to them than Trump will ever be.)