Trump: Tribal Leader

Triumphant David, leader of the Tribes

Donald Trump is gathering up the American Tribe.   To understand Donald Trump read history. 

Think King David, the great Biblical King of the Jews.  

Think Alexander the Great who gathered up and led the Macedonian Greeks.   

Think Andrew Jackson, leader of the common man, removing Indians and fulfilling the destiny of a continental power controlled by white men and women.

Donald Trump does not simply rally his forces within his walled city.   A tribe defines its home base, then ventures forth to reclaim the riches held by foreign tribes unjustly taken from them.  He will make America great again.

Trump rally Set-Up

Donald Trump does not do Town Hall events from the floor or a low platform.   He takes an elevated commanding position, behind a substantial lecturn, and looks down and out at the crowd.    

He commands respect.   He praises the audience for being part of the movement.  He berates protesters who dare invade the wall.

The modern national state, organized around rules and bureaucracies, is a new thing in Western civilization, just a couple of hundred years old.  Modern states emerged out of feudal kingdoms that linked language and ethnicity to political power.  Thus France.  Thus England, then Great Britain.

But humans have been organizing themselves into tribes and confederations of tribes, linked by ethnicity and language, since the beginning of written history.  Great leaders rise up, inspiring people with their strength and charisma, motivating others with a grievance to redress or an rival enemy to defeat.   They cruelly vanquish their rivals, which people accept as a sign of strength and the mandate of heaven.  (Read the Bible, read Homer)

Donald Trump has recognized a grievance.  America is in transition into a multi-ethnic state within a global system and it has diminished the role of "regular Americans."   They feel the economic distress at competing head-to-head with workers in low wage countries, they notice that phone systems require them to push #1 for English, they identify crime as coming from low status people of color.   They are even displaced at the top of the meritocracy as youth with Indian surnames win spelling bees and the valedictorians of their high school have names like Wong, Fang, and Lee.

Donald Trump openly and comfortably defines the American tribe--who is in and who is out:
 https://www.facebook.com/drumblog/videos/1301893479840401/


Trump's Americans are native born.   They speak English.  They are white.  They are Christian.  They live inside the American borders.   He describes an American tribe as invaded and stolen from by foreigners.  He references the "Trojan Horse" of infiltration.   He says he will exclude Muslims and Mexicans.   He will make immigration much more restrictive, accepting only those worthy of entry into the tribe.  We will have trade deals that are great for us.   "We will win, win, win, win until you are tired of winning so much."

Donald Trump is compassionate within the tribe.   Unlike his Republican opponents who pushed austerity as policy for the average American who were urged to accept the slow benefits of trickle down tax cuts for "job creators", Social Security cuts, and Medicare, Trump broke orthodoxy by protecting benefits and endorsing compassion for the sick and injured.   "We can't let people die in the streets," Trump said, in support of broad access to health care.   Ted Cruz criticized this; Trump stood his ground.   Americans first.

Donald Trump is cruel outside the tribe.   Exclude Mexicans.  Exclude Muslims.  "Waterboard and worse."  Bomb.  Re-negotiate trade.  Make Mexico pay for the wall.  America First.

Democrats are uncomfortable with Trump because he appears to exclude many Americans who consider themselves within American privilege but outside the Trump/GOP tribe:  women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, non Christians.   Hillary has identified these groups as her team, the people who face unfair barriers.

Trump's challenge will be to show that he--unlike the old GOP--includes women and gays inside the Trump team wall.   He has already broken with the GOP on gays and gendered bathrooms, and he is widely considered by the GOP conservatives to be "squishy" on abortion, so change may be underway there.

"Not yet ready"

Republicans of a strong constitutionalist orientation--Ryan, Romney, the old GOP establishment--are uncomfortable with Trump because he says openly what they have agreed to say with indirection and "dog whistles."   It is openly un-Constitutional to make religion--an outright ban on Muslims--a test for entry to America.  It is openly un-Constitutional to deport as foreign those children born on American soil.  It is openly un-Constitutional to defy our treaties and commit what we have agreed are clearly war crimes of torture and targeted assassination of families.  The GOP establishment, however, realizes that their base voters actually approve of banning Muslims, deporting "anchor babies", and torturing people suspected of being enemies.   The GOP Establishment solution is artful hypocrisy.   They don't oppose Muslims, they oppose Syrians; they don't want to deport native born Americans they want to test the 14th Amendment; they get White House legal counsel to re-define torture.    

Trump offends them by plain talk.  He is a tribal leader, not a Constitutional leader.   

Long before the November election the GOP establishment will have made its peace with Trump.  Trump has re-defined the GOP and they will go along.   It is solidifying as the white Christian party, but one that will be tolerant of gays and "protective" of women on abortion by restricting it.  

If Trump is persuasive enough and Hillary can be delegitimized enough then Trump will win.  Voters want change and they enjoy watching Trump be interesting.   David fighting Goliath would have been ugly and bloody and not suitable for TV audiences, but it would have been very interesting to watch.   Trump is good TV.  The GOP will survive and possibly thrive under Trump's leadership.   But for the immediate future it is not a party with strong policy positions, it will be a party of identity.  And the one unifying glue that will hold it together is that is is the party that opposes Hillary Clinton, that rock solid touchstone of the GOP, the idea that ends all dissent and unifies the party.