I've been postponing writing about Trump for a long time. But it looks like the Götterdämmerung is finally coming for him and I might not have much time left. How he got to power, why his base keeps him there, and what kind of person he is exactly, will be a topic of many doctoral dissertations to come, and every self-respecting journalist should contribute to the search for the truth. This is my take.
I don't think I'm up to a deep analysis, but this particular topic lends itself to harvest the low-hanging fruits. Let's scratch the surface by looking at how Trump is viewed by different groups of people.
The chess player
According to his most ardent supporters, Trump plays 4-dimensional chess with the clueless world. If some move seems idiotic, it's because his critics (and admirers - but hey, that's why they admire him) just can't see 5 steps ahead, unlike this "very stable genius". I would have two questions for these people. One, what has he achieved in almost 4 years with his extremely subtle game? Has China backed off? Has North-Korea denuclearized? Has the grand peace of the Middle-East been architected? Or for that matter, has the Wall been built and coal mines brought back? Where's the omelet? Second, how come his approval rating is so abysmally low - is it part of a long-term game?
The shrewd businessman
The aforementioned people I think are few in numbers and getting fewer. But there are more who think he might be a bad man, maybe even ignorant about politics and economics, but he's undeniably smart, who "has survived a lot of things". And idiots don't get to be billionaires, anyway. The most prominent holder of this view is maybe Piers Morgan, Trump's former friend (the relationship turned sour recently when Morgan started to criticize Trump's handling of the pandemic). The point on billionaires and idiots is a strong one. But people sometimes are very smart in some things and complete idiots in other fields of life. Trump started off on an inheritance of half a billion dollars. He went bankrupt half a dozen times. In the real-estate mogul circles, he was called "The Donald", which didn't sound like a reference borne out of admiration. His refusal to publish his tax reports suggests that he doesn't really want the public to know how rich he exactly is.
The reputation of his personal intelligence suffers a heavy blow whenever he opens his mouth. The word salads coming out of his mouth make Joe Biden sound like a master rhetorician. He often starts a sentence, meanders halfway, then apparently having forgotten the original thought, he just finishes with something unrelatedly nonsensical.
To cynics, the fact that he has managed to amass a firm base from nothing is a testament to his skills as a master manipulator. And he is a manipulator, indeed. But it looks like that getting the unswerving support of white Evangelicals takes only saying the "that Bible is my favorite book", and that tells more about those supporters than about the skills of the man. Getting the support of every racist in the country requires even less. Just say that they are "very fine people" and refuse to condemn them as long as its politically feasible. You don't need skills for that. You just have to sink.
My personal opinion is that Trump is an imbecile, who clearly has some talent, but I'm not quite sure what it is. I'd describe it as some kind of reality-warping power - more of that later. He undeniably has some crude charm - resembling that of a second-hand car dealer - that works on some people. This, combined with ridiculous overconfidence, some luck, and hundreds of millions of dollars can get one very far.
The fighter
Ok, maybe he is not a nice guy. Maybe he isn't even a good president. But at least he fights back! He doesn't take an insult from the libs and he hits back ten times harder! Well, he is not a fighter. He is a bully and a name caller. Shouting on Twitter doesn't require courage. Whenever he met a real tough guy, like Xi Xinping or Putin, we saw nothing of that bravado. As George Will, the renowned conservative thinker and former Republican, put it, "he is a weak man idea of a strong man".
The man of God
The most ridiculous picture of him (perfectly enacted by himself as he stood and gazed in the face of chaos with steely determination holding up a bible) mostly held by white Evangelical Christians, is that this flawed man is, like David or Saul or Cyrus before, the vehicle of God's will. A staggering 85% of them support the least Christian incumbent of the Oval Office, ever. A man with 3 marriages, who was fucking a porn star when his wife was pregnant and then paid 130 grand in hush money. Who couldn't cite a verse from the Bible. In 2019, among practicing white Protestants, 30 percent believed Trump was anointed by God. By March 2020, the figure had climbed to 49 percent. Some justification for this view reads like a
satire. This point really doesn't to be belabored any further. Although it is certainly a curious fact that religious voters chose Trump over the truly devout Ted Cruz.
The Common Man's hero
The idea that a New York billionaire, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, who graduated from a private Ivy League university and has been fucking porn stars and models in the last 50 years, speaks for the common man against the elites, is a very funny one. But actually, there is some truth to it. Trump represents what some of the common people are and what they want to be. He dislikes intellectuals, disparages political correctness, gorges on junk food, watches Fox News and he's a fan of American wrestling. In wealth and status, he is at the top of the elite. In culture, he is anything but.
A lot of people who find his low-brow quality unappealing nevertheless see him positively as a wrecking ball swung against the corrupt establishment and the "status quo". It's great to sound sophisticated by throwing around expressions like those, but what they think they mean exactly? And what has Trump destroyed of them?
At least not a Democrat
Many on the Right are disgusted with Trump, but they think the Democrats are even worse. The reasons vary from the Dem's alleged intention to curb religious freedom (why the fuck would they want to do that?!) or to introduce socialism. The roots of the sentiment of the "Flight 93 Election" - that is, Americans are in the very last moment to stop the irreversible destruction of their country - predates Trump. Even otherwise intelligent people living on a strict Fox News diet genuinely think the Russia-investigation was a total hoax and it's proof that there is no depth the Democrats wouldn't sink to grab power. The Ukraine-scandal they never even heard of. Trump is very bad, true enough, but he has to be put up with to avoid something even worse.
The main Republican argument for Trump in a similar line was that repulsive he is, at the end of the day he would push the Republican agenda. Tax cuts and Supreme Court nominations. The "but Gorsuch" argument is now a joke even among them. Risking at least 8 years of Democrat domination - with a free hand in their own nominations and tax policy - for this, maybe, maybe pays off, but it doesn't sound like a master plan.
The victim of left-wing media
Republicans and other supporters blame the liberal media for ignoring the President's achievements and magnifying his errors. And that's what their moderates say. If they want to mount a credible defense, they should try harder. Jim Mattis or John Kelly are not left-wing ideologues. George Will recently called for the removal of not only Trump but of his enablers as well. George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Colin Powel publicly confirmed that they won't support him in 2020. The most anti-Trump magazine online, The Bulwark, is run by former Republicans. The National Review's portrayal of Trump is devastating (which they balance with constant broadsides against the Left to stay palatable to their readers and donors). The New York Times and CNN have a political bias, and they are sometimes very annoying. But one, they are the paragons of objectivity compared to their equivalents on the Right, and two, the contribution of their bias to the state of things is in the noise margin.
His defenders take the story of Trump ordering security forces to disperse peaceful protesters so he can have a photo op, and the element they find most outrageous in it is that the media reported about tear gas whereas, in reality, it was "just" smoke canisters and pepper balls. The days for assuming good faith here are long gone.
Let's see some of the pictures of Trump that live in the heads of his critics.
Russian stooge
Many on the Left think that Trump is secretly, but obviously is Putin's pawn. I disagree. I always felt that Hanlon's razor applies here perfectly.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Putin probably wonders what he did in his previous life to deserve all the good he gets now, but I don't think he needs to do anything for it. Trump is damaging America not because he's a foreign agent, but because 1. he reliably puts his personal interest before the country 2. he has no idea what he's doing.
The racist
If the far-right and the everyone else left from the center agree in one thing it is, to the former's pleasure and the latter's horror, that the occupant of the White House is a racist. It's probably a fair generalization that not every Trump supporter is racist, but every racist supports him.
Trump has said a lot of inflammatory things about Mexicans, Latino judges, black congresswomen, and "shithole" African countries. He refused to decline the endorsement of David Duke. He pushed the birther conspiracy. Still, I'm not convinced. I think most of these are rather involuntary blurts of a buffoon, or shameless appeasement of his base who, he clearly thinks, are racists. And more decisively, I'm yet to see a racist who is not also an anti-semite. Trump's beloved son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a practicing Jew, and even his wife Ivanka, Trump's favorite child, has converted to Judaism. Trump is also obviously pro-Israel. It's not beneath Trump (well, nothing is) to pent up racial hatred if he thinks it's good for him, but I don't think he gives much thought to such matters.
The fascist
The next adjective many of his critics too easily grope for is "fascist". There are some reasons for that. Trump loves military parades and surrounds himself with generals - until they resign or get fired or criminally indicted. He visibly salivates when he talks about dictators. "I have total authority" - he babbled on a recent press conference. But it's all bluster.
Mussolini and Hitler were horrible human beings, but they weren't ignoramuses. They regrettably read a lot of crackpot philosophers and built up some grand ideology they dedicated their lives to. Trump isn't interested in anything related to philosophy or ideology, or seemingly anything but himself. He doesn't even seem to be that much interested in power. Power entails responsibility, and this is the last thing he wants. He made the usual incoherent and contradictory noises during the pandemic when the perfect opportunity opened for a wannabe-dictator, and that was the end of it.
"I accept no responsibility at all" could be his political epitaph. Trump just wants to be popular. At the end of the day, his shallowness applies even to his authoritarian instincts.
The con man
This is spot on, no caveats here.
The Troll
I left this to end, for multiple reasons. First and foremost it's obviously true. Being a troll is hurled against him both as an accusation and an excuse, even praise. Secondly, this view provides the most credible excuse for many of his actions. If I wanted to defend Trump, this would be the strategy I'd use.
My own brother holds the view that for Trump, this whole thing is a stand-up comedy. He says outrageous things to "own the libs", to distract attention, and most of all, just for the sheer fun of it. This view gives a lot of fans a tool to justify actions that would otherwise be a clear sign of idiocy, personality disorder, or just general ugliness (this last they don't mind). Since the time I heard this opinion, I started to consciously apply this lens to view Trump's actions. But it cracked quickly and repeatedly.
Claiming out of the blue that your father was born in Germany when he was not, for absolutely no reason at all, is either a sign of glitch in one's mental capacities or ... what? It's not funny, it has no consequence at all, the best positive explanation for this that it was to distract the media from something else.
If the Sharpiegate was meant to be a stand-up, it put people's lives in danger without being funny at all. Encouraging taking an untested drug and publicly musing about the efficacy of sunlight and disinfectants is only amusing for someone who is even more depraved than even Trump's most fiery opponents claim him to be.
And last, when George W. Bush released an almost perfect message on Twitter calling for unity in times of the pandemic, Trump responded by attacking Bush for not standing up for him when he needed it. 100,000 people died, the economy is in a coma. And this is the answer? It's not the message of a troll. It's of someone who doesn't have a modicum of empathy, who doesn't care anyone but himself. Who can't even see how much damage it will cause to him (this was the first time even his Evangelical base stirred uncomfortably).
For a short time, I thought that was the nadir. But a couple of days ago Trump just said on TV that George Floyd must look down happily from heaven when he sees how the American economy is booming. It's something beyond grotesque.
The examples could really go on with no end, and no moral bottom.
The verdict
When one sets off to argue against Trump, the first obstacle to overcome is the shocking realization and acceptance that the case has to be made at all. This feeling never gets old. The incompetence and depravity of Trump are so obvious, his missteps are so egregious that it's almost beyond comprehension how other people can not see it. As Sam Harris said,
"With Trump, there are secrets, but there are no mysteries. What you see is what you get." Every time he opens his mouth, it puts a constant strain on the mental muscles to find a favorable interpretation of them. Charles Murray, a Never Trumper Republican,
warned against this before the 2016 presidential election.
"But I cannot end without urging you to resist that sin to which people with high IQs (which most of you have) are unusually prone: Using your intellectual powers to convince yourself of something despite the evidence plainly before you. Just watch and listen to the man. Don’t concoct elaborate rationalizations. Just watch and listen."
This entails a sense of hopelessness. As if all the norms on which one could set his foot on before 2016 had eroded. There are hundreds of utterances of Trump, any of which would have meant the end of a political career of anyone. For Obama, one reference in a conversation to his "perfect call" with the Ukrainian president would close the debate. If George W. Bush had said "the Kurds didn't help us in Normandy" as a justification for abandoning them, or if had assessed the Syrian situation as "there is a lot of sand to play with for everyone", the Republicans themselves would have sent in the paramedics immediately.
My own antipathy towards Trump makes it hard to find positives in him. But there is one thing I cannot deny. He has something that seems to be some kind of reality-warping power. Everyone knows incompetent buffoons who somehow always crawl higher and higher, who have the air of importance around them, and no one really can explain why and how. Trump is the Superman of them. His winning of the elections against all odds and predictions was almost miraculous. As a billionaire, he sold himself as the savior of the poor. He made fundamentalist Christians, of all people, his strongest supporters. And without any of the threats available to real dictators, he destroyed and remade a whole political party in his image. More people stood up to Hitler, risking their lives than Republicans to him, risking...what exactly?
Rudy Guliani went to extreme lengths to avoid going down in history as an almost heroic figure leading New York through the storm of 9/11. Watching an interview with him today is a joyride for masochists. The man is barking mad. There are dozens of renowned public figures and intellectuals like him. People with real achievement behind them, with a reputation of a life lived with honesty and integrity, and they abase themselves with single-minded devotion to stay in Trump's good graces. Incomprehensible.
Trump is a pathologically narcissistic person almost incapable of empathy. He is petty, vindictive, thin-skinned. He doesn't know much about anything and doesn't care for them. He is a despicable human being. Not like Stalin or Hitler, but in a shallow, small-time way. And yet, he has mounted the fiercest attack on America, since...maybe ever. Whether he's wrought lasting damage on the American society or provided a hardest-ever stress test to it, from which it will recover being stronger, I don't know. Maybe Sam Harris is wrong, after all. Trump
is a mystery.
