Trump was the antidote to Obama.
Obama was the man of reason, moderate and thoughtful in tone. A professor. A philosopher king.
Donald Trump is the exemplar of warrior virtues: Achilles. The Roman soldier. Beowulf. The plain spoken hero of Western movies. Humans are attracted to courage and certainty. They understand a man motivated by "glory" and a demand for respect.
Trump exemplifies warrior virtues, not Christian ones. Voters liked that.
Trump exemplifies warrior virtues, not Christian ones. Voters liked that.
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| Sweet Jesus |
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| Compassionate Jesus |
The most frequent images of Jesus are the Catholic one of Jesus being tortured on a cross or the mild mannered view of Jesus as the tender lover of baby lambs, with a soft face and hands, and a compassionate face, dressed in a clean robe: empathetic Jesus. The kind Jesus. Loving Jesus. The Jesus who gets killed by Roman soldiers--the ones who lived by warrior virtues, not Christian ones.
Americans experience warrior virtues and watch them and in fact admire them, but we do not write about them and teach them as modern virtues. We see them in movies and we relate to them in images of soldiers and police officers--but at arms length. We celebrate warriors in art and popular culture, but with reservations in everyday life.
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| Dirty Harry: "Make my day!" |
Movie-goers admire and cheer "Dirty Harry", but of course the HR Department and Legal Council at his police department would have no choice but immediately to discipline and fire a policeman who acted like him because he would get the city in deep, expensive legal trouble. Indeed, in the movie those bureaucrats in fact appear, portrayed as weak, pathetic villains. However, in a real-life version of Dirty Harry, the sober stewards of the public treasury would protect the taxpayer from lawsuits filed by another warrior hero, the plaintiff attorney.
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| Achilles kills an Amazon |
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| Patton |
We may not recognize our own hero-worship in our search for politicians. Obama was a kind of poet hero. Trump and his media allies emphasized that image, describing Obama as Hamlet, a weak, "feckless", indecisive leader. Obama responded intellectually to this attack, not emotionally. He disagreed, yes, but he did not get angry. It was the wrong approach, helping prove the accusation. The image stuck. It made political room for an different kind of hero, the strong one, the one who was an American Putin.
Trump worked to transfer the Obama weakness meme to Hillary, describing her as "weak", "sickly", lacking "stamina", dying of Parkinsons, anything other than hawkish. The only people who understood her to be hawkish were Democratic progressive doves. It was a disaster for Democrats.
Warriors are attractive in art and literature and when admired from a distance, but warriors get a nation into trouble. We romanticize Generals Patton and McArthur (praised by name often by Trump) but we elect an Eisenhower as leader. Warriors are reliable as fighters but not as builders. They get fired or killed.
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| Michael Flynn |
The warrior hero does not seek peace or harmony. He seeks glory. The warrior hero is loyal to his tribe and his army, but his first loyalty is to his own pride. The warrior hero is sensitive to and insults, and saving face requires that slights be revenged. They always hit back. They do not apologize for "winning"; they celebrate it. It describes Trump to a tee.
Donald Trump stages his rallies in positions of dominance and power: dark blue suit standing behind a big lectern. He makes a big entrance with booming heroic music. In his speeches he demands respect for himself and for America: Make America Great Again. We will win, win, win, win, win, and win some more.
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| Click to see a variety of cable news clips |
Trump looked strong standing in front of the American flag announcing the air strikes. He was praised by his friends and by his enemies both. Trump did not say the media lies and is an enemy of the people when they were fawning over him.
There is public debate now questioning whether this will be a one-off, "measured, proportionate" response to Assad. Trump campaigned aggressively but condemned foreign interventions. Some doves voted for him. However, simultaneously he sounded very bellicose. He negotiated the contradiction by saying that great strength and ferocity avoids war. Sometimes it does. It might work out for him.
However, warrior heroes seek glory, not peace. In the history of Achilles and Beowulf and the hero of the Western movie there is a showdown. This is not simply dramatic storytelling. It is the psychology and imperative of seeking glory. Trump is a glory seeking warrior among similar glory seeking warriors. They, like Trump, need to save face. They, like Trump must push the boundaries. He will be challenged and he must--must--respond. So, too, must other warriors, including leaders of China, North Korea, ISIS, Hamas, Russia, and others.
Trump will create a political environment that will elicit a public response. Perhaps people will tire quickly of war and war drama, which will set the stage for a peace candidate. But in 2016 we saw Trump demolish Kasich and Jeb! and others with a mild tone. Americans may well want to choose between alternative warriors.
What is not yet clear is whether Democrats have such a leader.
3 comments:
About a year ago UpClose laid it out. Americans fearing ISIS terrorism and porous borders would find scant reassurance in a democrat who would not (1) name the enemy as radical Islamic terrorism and (2) vow vigorous enforcement of border laws. It was a no brainer then and now-- except to current Democratic leaders who would shut down the government to prevent robust border spending, and vow to stymie extreme vetting of Islamic countries. I assume Trumps neo-nationalist party could not be happier with these principled stances and hope Democrats campaign on them in 2018 and 2020. Trump may have the USA under such military threats from Russia China and N. Korea by 2020 that only defense hawks will have a chance of winning. Dems appear to be fresh out of those.
“Quiz: Whose campaign website says this?”
The website states this position: "America needs a strong border policy that protects American citizens and American jobs. We should welcome those strivers who *** play by the rules".
Hints: (1) The candidate's campaign contributions are 93% from out of state "progressive" groups. (2) His website does not mention Trump, the wall, or oppose deportations. (3) He's hawkish on national security surveillance and supporting "our military and intelligence community to keep Georgians safe."
The candidate is millennial John Ossoff, the great Democratic hope, says Rachel Maddow, to win the Georgia special election for Congress. He may be teaching us three lessons. First, democrats can't win light blue and light red states by ideological attacks on popular Trump policies. Second, progressive funders, at least, are thinking its better to win with less principled positions than to lose altogether. And third, to win, progressive policies must be stated in watered-down generalizations, e.g.. Orsoff doesn’t denounce Trump's "Muslim ban" or defend Muslims by name, but instead says on his website it's wrong to "slander entire religious groups and that it's unconstitutional to ban anyone from entering our country on religious grounds." Under his formula, progressive should not embrace, indeed not even mention at all "refugees" or "asylum" on their websites.
Orsoff has a very liberal background, but he’s made clear he wants no on calling him a “progressive”. As the Washington Post says in its article promoting him: "Ossoff paints himself as a pragmatist". (https://goo.gl/ZyGM9w, Apr 9, 2017). And if you are pushed to take on Trump directly, keep it frivolous. As the Post says about Orsoff: "But he has also taken on Trump, running a campaign ad that shows him tweeting that he will stand up to Donald Trump because anyone can send a tweet.” Wow, he'll "stand up" to Trump on-- tweeting, and tweet back!
Ossoff shows what Democrats are up against in 2020: We won't win the Midwest with Eastcoast/Westcoast progressive rhetoric. But getting both an electoral majority and an energized base with Ossoff's approach is going to be tough. There will likely have to be a lot of infighting, if not bloodletting, resolved within the party in short order to be ready to challenge Trump for his second term.
Here's his website link so you can do your own word searches to see what isn't there. https://electjon.com/priorities/
Good info...it may be just a bit early to hope for any seats to flip, but I'm hopeful for at least a significant turnout in Kansas and Georgia that will help momentum into next year.
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