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Donald Trump, champion and avatar of the shallow state, has won power because his supporters are threatened by what they don’t understand, and what they don’t understand is almost everything. Indeed, from evolution to data about our economy to the science of vaccines to the threats we face in the world, they reject vast subjects rooted in fact in order to have reality conform to their worldviews. They don’t dig for truth; they skim the media for anything that makes them feel better about themselves. To many of them, knowledge is not a useful tool but a cunning barrier elites have created to keep power from the average man and woman. The same is true for experience, skills, and know-how. These things require time and work and study and often challenge our systems of belief. Truth is hard; shallowness is easy.
- David Rothkopf, Professor of International Relations and Political Science
This is something that I have said for a long time, but I will say it again: I long suspected that somebody like Trump would get into power in this country. A nationalist populist who would make Americans feel more comfortable with their prejudices than they have been allowed to be in a very long time. I imagined not so much another Hitler or a similar clone, outright, as so many people seem to expect. No, not like that. More perhaps like Stephen King's villainous "leader of the people" kind of guy, Greg Stillson, from "The Dead Zone."
Yes, somebody like that. Someone who would talk and treat his supporters and prospective supporters like a friend, but who would be so self-absorbed and arrogant, that he would act against their best interests in every way, even though he would be masterful either at disguising this fact, or even in portraying these acts as in the best interests of "his"people.
So, it was not entirely a surprise that the United States voted a man very much in the mold of the fictional Greg Stillson in 2016, and that many Americans would react in very alarmed fashion, and that the signs of a clear erosion of our democracy were more evident,and even transparent, than they had ever been before.
Fairly early into the 2016 presidential elections, I posted something on "The Charbor Chronicles" that included a description of Trump, an opinion from outside of the United States, that truly best personified any other summary that I had heard or read about this man before. That would be Paul Thomas of the New Zealand Herald and, just in case you missed it, here is what he said back in 2015, well before Trump's rise to the presidency was a reality, and looked anything but a foregone conclusion:
“Trump personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America: casual racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandizement, vulgarity on an epic scale. He is the Ugly American in excelsis.”
Yes, somebody like that. Someone who would talk and treat his supporters and prospective supporters like a friend, but who would be so self-absorbed and arrogant, that he would act against their best interests in every way, even though he would be masterful either at disguising this fact, or even in portraying these acts as in the best interests of "his"people.
So, it was not entirely a surprise that the United States voted a man very much in the mold of the fictional Greg Stillson in 2016, and that many Americans would react in very alarmed fashion, and that the signs of a clear erosion of our democracy were more evident,and even transparent, than they had ever been before.
Fairly early into the 2016 presidential elections, I posted something on "The Charbor Chronicles" that included a description of Trump, an opinion from outside of the United States, that truly best personified any other summary that I had heard or read about this man before. That would be Paul Thomas of the New Zealand Herald and, just in case you missed it, here is what he said back in 2015, well before Trump's rise to the presidency was a reality, and looked anything but a foregone conclusion:
“Trump personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America: casual racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandizement, vulgarity on an epic scale. He is the Ugly American in excelsis.”
Then earlier this year, I read something about a British writer who had said some interesting and revealing things about Trump. Yes, Nate White, a comedian, had a most hilarious response to the
question, "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"
Perhaps the best line from this rather lengthy piece was when White suggested that Trump was a "Jabba the Hut of privileges."
Yet, that was not all that he said about Trump. It
goes on, and is fairly lengthy. It is not a quick two or three line
read, like that quote from Thomas. But here are some short quotes of
White's description of Trump (my personal favorite, that Trump is a
"Jabba the Hut of privilege," was something that I already used in the
title of this particular blog entry):
"He is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit."
Yup.
And here's White describing how the British cannot appreciate what
passes as Trump's humour (had to use the British spelling):
"We
like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said
anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever."
White goes on:
"He
doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a
crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty."
Pretty much right on target, eh?
Then, when you keep in mind that both Australian and British comedians have done some pretty famous renditions of Trump, and that there was a gigantic balloon portraying Trump as a crying, overly privileged baby, and then you see that Trump's image was featured (negatively) in parade floats across Europe and in Asia, and that Trump was outright laughed at by world leaders assembled at the United Nations once he began to act like it was a Trump rally, and started praising himself as one of the most accomplished presidents in American history, to say nothing of other incidents that portrayed this man as a joke, and it becomes clear that he is seen as basically a joke throughout most of the rest of the world.
Just not in red state America, however, where it probably matters the most.
Keep in mind that all of this was from a foreign perspective, which contradicted Trump's own assertions that the rest of the world would respect the United States once he was in office and set things right, as he basically promised to do.
Yet one more broken promise.
If all of this is true of Trump himself - and it pretty much is - then what can we say about Trump supporters. After all, Trump the man is a terrible person, and an even worse so-called leader. That much is almost beyond dispute. However, Trump would not be in the news headlines constantly the way that he is if he did not have tens of millions of people who seem to blindly support him, no matter what he says or does, and no matter how little what he promises bears any resemblance to what he delivers.
Is there a way to more or less encapsulate them, and their apparently confused mindset?
Well, the quote at the very top, which I actually got from my mom's Facebook page, comes pretty close to doing just that.
Here, we have someone who is able to reveal what it is about Trump the man that appeals to Trump supporters, and how they refuse to believe that this one man is not everything that they hope and believe him to be, even though for the rest of us, it is blatantly obvious that he falls far short of the mark of being what he pretends to be. A very stable genius? Then why does he sound and act like a complete imbecile? Is it to serve as some kind of cover to make people underestimate him? Closer to the truth is that he really is as much of a moron as he appears to be. So, is it that he is the arbiter of truth, as he proclaims? This man lies so much, that even political allies acknowledge that he plays fast and loose with the truth. As for his campaign promises, he never delivered on some key promises, such as forcing Mexico to pay for the wall, or defeating ISIS within one month, or creating a healthcare system that would be cheaper and more affordable for everyone, and which would cover everyone. None of that came to pass, and neither did that forced respect from the rest of the world that he promised, and which I made mention of earlier.
So, what the hell is it about him that his supporters just love so much? Is it really just that he manages to piss off liberals so much, and they love it so much when he does that? Has the standard of a so-called leader sunk so low, that pissing people off is the mark of a successful presidency? Really?
Well, David Rothkopf, the author of the article on foreign policy from which I took the above used quote about Trump supporters, has some fairly deep analysis about what it is, precisely, that makes Trump supporters so sure of themselves, and of their man. When you see Trump supporters, they blindly support their man come what may. He infamously once suggested during the campaign that he could shoot someone in the streets of New York City during broad daylight, and still not lose any support. The sad truth is that he was probably right. There has been so much buffoonery and predictably disgusting behavior and actions, and yet they love him and refuse to yield an inch to those of us who try and argue that this man is nowhere near as great as they think, much less as great as he himself proclaims to be. They just keep on giving their unconditional support, and the country keeps growing less democratic, and is viewed by the rest of the world as a greater threat than it has ever really been regarded as before.
Here is the fuller quote, which is actually only a part of the overall article that he has written on what he refers to as "the shallow state." That seems as appropriate a label for the government under President Trump as I have heard, frankly. Here is the quote:
The shallow state, on the other hand, is unsettling because not only are
the signs of it ever more visible but because its influence is clearly
growing. It is made scarier still because it not only actively
eschews experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special
skills, tradition, and shared values but because it celebrates its
ignorance of and disdain for those things. Donald Trump, champion and
avatar of the shallow state, has won power because his supporters are
threatened by what they don’t understand, and what they don’t understand
is almost everything. Indeed, from evolution to data about our economy
to the science of vaccines to the threats we face in the world, they
reject vast subjects rooted in fact in order to have reality conform to
their worldviews. They don’t dig for truth; they skim the media for
anything that makes them feel better about themselves. To many of them,
knowledge is not a useful tool but a cunning barrier elites have created
to keep power from the average man and woman. The same is true for
experience, skills, and know-how. These things require time and work and
study and often challenge our systems of belief. Truth is hard;
shallowness is easy.
This, to me, feel quite a bit like the truth. What Trump supporters clearly seem keen on avoiding is too much nuance. They seem to want easy answers to what are actually very complex questions, and my own belief is that what attracted them to Donald Trump in the first place is the self-assured, easy and convenient answers to what ails the country. Trump was masterful at incorporating grains of truth to fit into what is either his worldview, or if not his worldview, then the worldview of the majority of his most enthusiastic supporters. One example of this would be suggesting that the system is rigged, which it is. But to portray himself as a victim of this system, when he is, in fact, a poster child of the very privileges and false sense of entitlement that the major beneficiaries of this rigged system have become, is more than a little disingenuous. Again, it seems to blatantly obvious that this man is a pampered jackass and megalomaniac, who's narcissism has truly reached epic proportions, that it makes most people wonder how so many people seem to have missed this glaringly obvious fact about him.
Please do yourself a favor and read this article. This is very important, and he raises many interesting points, even beyond this one part about Trump supporters, and their desire for superficially easy answers to the complexities of a world that, it often feels, is spinning out of control. Please click on the link below and give Mr. Rothkopf's article a look:
The Shallow State Forget the conspiracy theories. Something much more dangerous is seeking to gut our government and change the character of our society. By David Rothkopf | February 22, 2017:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/22/the-shallow-state-trump/
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