John Chuckman
COMMENT – SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS ON TRUMP
This is a man who thrives on conflict and hostility. It is almost an appetite which needs feeding.
We see this characteristic in his every effort, from working relationships with staff and experts of various kinds to his threats and name-calling against other countries. His belittling epithets for foreign and domestic politicians. His relationship with the press is the same.
The only people who seem not subjected to his belligerence are extremely “safe” or “tame” individuals such as his doted-upon daughter, someone completely unchallenging, a cotton-candy personality, an Eloi-like creature, almost having the impact of a stuffed toy or dolly.
On top of the anger and hostility, there is his demonstrated lack of competence in almost everything he undertakes. If anyone, as a reporter just doing his or her job, is ungracious enough to touch a shortcoming or failing, as Trump’s lamentable handling of the pandemic, they immediately receive a hot blast of ferocious anger.
He insists on everyone seeing him as extraordinary, but extraordinary at what?
I’m not sure he could even answer the question himself. He just wants to be seen as extraordinary.
He has no perceptible talent. He is not even a good public speaker. His words are loud, bellowing, and demanding, demanding that his listeners understand how extraordinary he is.
His words offer no inspiration. He himself is the inspiration for listeners who ask very little.
As long as they hear some of the right sounds, words saying little but working almost like struck tuning forks with sympathetic vibrations – refugees, migrants, Muslims, America, Mexicans, foreign, troops, enemies, Democrats.
He has no body of knowledge about anything – from history and culture to science. Many of the assumptions contained in his words are ordinary, plodding, petty, banal. That is part of his appeal for his political base. He is “one of them.” His distance from them in wealth and position almost is not perceived.
He is “one of them” especially blessed by God in His wisdom and thereby worthy of admiration and loyalty. It is all on a gut or instinctive level. There are no ideas. There are no heroic words.
He is not at all a clever thinker, but he does possess a fierce animal cunning. It helps him in his savaging of people. He can almost smell weaknesses the way a predator smells fear.
In the end, I think the phenomenon of Trump says a great deal about America. It strips away sentimental Hollywood illusions and reveals raw, disturbing realities.
