Maybe Democrats have the "Trump corruption issue" backwards.
Maybe a majority of voters secretly admire his corruption.
I got a letter from a reader. He said Trump voters like Trump's wealth-seeking grift.
Voters don't care whether Trump is getting rich; they care whether they are getting poor, and no one thinks they are poor because Trump is corrupt. Maybe Trump getting richer is a rising tide that raises all boats.
They admire Trump. They like that he breaks rules. Just look how many heroes in media stories pull off the big heist, are assassins, or are vigilantes. Even the bad guys can wear white hats if they have enough charisma.
I have made the wry joke in these blog posts that no matter how cynical I get, it's never quite enough.
Something big happened in the past 18 years: a loss of faith that the country was mostly good and fair. There was a "before" point. In 2008 Republicans nominated a self-sacrificing war hero, John McCain, for president; Democrats nominated a scandal-free, aspirational Black man. We were offering up for leadership people who represented our best selves. But the seeds were there. McCain's campaign gained populist enthusiasm when Sarah Palin, a proto-MAGA figure, was added to the ticket.
The political left got cynical about American cultural virtue as regards race, ethnicity, and sexual identity. The election of Barack Obama did not trigger an enduring sense of achievement on race. The opposite idea emerged, a conviction that America was still thoroughly racist and discriminatory in everything from our laws to our language to our cultural norms. Wokeness went beyond parody. A program manager at the Oregon Health Authority postponed a meeting with community partners, explaining in an email that "urgency is a white supremacy value." Recipients who objected were pointed to a website listing the traits of "white supremacy culture." The agency's director defended her.
The political right got cynical, too, coinciding with the election of a Black president, first with the Tea Party, then with Trump's very successful troll questioning of Obama's birthplace. It worked for Trump. Half or more of Republican voters believed Trump, not the State of Hawaii, not Obama's birth hospital, not contemporaneous newspaper reports. It reflected profound cynicism about the credibility of authority. "Do your own research" was shorthand for turning to some alternative to a supposed expert.
A "drain the swamp" message had traction for Trump in 2016. Acknowledging a swamp cuts two ways. First, that it is wrong and someone like Trump might drain it. But also, as the political left believes, that corrupt culture and institutions are intractable and systemic. So, you exploit it. You grab what you can. It is what winners do. Money, gifts, power, women. When you're a star, they let you, as Trump observed in the Access Hollywood tape. Trump grabs what he wants. Yeah. OK.
Trump is in the show-off stage, demonstrating that he accepts no limits. He makes liberal tears; that is a positive for Republicans. This week he ran campaign-style 30-second advertisements for himself, labeled "Paid for by the U.S. Government." He isn't bothering with hypocrisy. He is thumbing his nose at the do-gooders who protest that this is obviously wrong. Of course it is wrong. That is the point. He can do anything he wants.
If the whole game is rigged, only a sap plays by the rules. Trump isn't a sap.
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The saps are the people who voted for Trump believing he had their back.
ReplyDeleteTrump is winning in the same way that Charlie Sheean, a rockstar from Mars with tiger blood, was: straight into rehab. John McCain, was not the last decent Republican candidate, Mitt Romney was also a decent family man. It’s hard to imagine any Republican candidate today defending their opponent as “ No, ma'am. He's a decent family man (not an untrustworthy foreign Arab).”
ReplyDeleteCrossover voters from Rust Belt states are still hurting. Five dollars a gallon for gas is what you get when you FA&FO.
Trump may not be a sap, but he sure is a fop.Think of the mirror time he spends each day assembling his coif then troweling burnt orange foundation and concealer onto his face. Some superman!
ReplyDeleteBarack Obama's election may have triggered only a fleeting sense of cultural accord, but as much as anything that's because Democrats painted John McCain then Mitt Romney as racist and sexist.