Columns
THE PUBLIC EYE:Après Trump, Le Déluge
DT won't go away! The most recent Quinnipiac Poll ( https://poll.qu.edu/poll-
Here are four explanations.
1.Psychological: DT is mentally ill; he has the pathological variety of narcissistic personality disorder. He craves attention and, therefore, since leaving the White House, he has been undergoing a form of withdrawal. This situation has been exacerbated by the fact that Donald has been banned from Twitter and Facebook -- as this was being written Facebook banned DT until at least January 2023 (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/
Losing the competition for the US presidency would be hard on anyone -- reportedly, Hillary Clinton was very depressed after her 2016 defeat -- but particularly hard on DT because he has never been characterized as "playing with a full deck." After all, this is the guy who suggested a possible antidote to the Coronavirus was to drink bleach. DT asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails. He proposed buying Greenland. And on and on.
Since losing the 2020 election, Trump's aberrant behavior has worsened. (https://www.huffpost.com/
2. Anthropological: An alternative explanation is that since June of 2015, when Trump announced his run for President, he's turned the Republican Party into a personality cult. In effect, he's created a pseudo-religion featuring himself as the messiah. This religion operates by the DT rules:
a. The truth is whatever Donald says it is.
b. Winning is everything. Whatever you have to do to win is acceptable.
c. The American system is broken and only DT knows how to fix it. Trust him.
d. The mainstream media can't be trusted; there is no honest criticism of DT.
e. Salvation is letting DT have his way.
Some studies have shown that uneducated white males trust capitalism more than they trust religion. These pilgrims trust DT to fix their lives. Trump is their role model; someone who beat the system by playing by his own rules. Trump devotees believe if DT triumphs, they will triumph. (If you think this sounds like Totalitarianism 101, you're right.)
3. Sociological: A slightly different explanation is that Trump has provided a vehicle for millions of white, male, less-educated Americans to channel their resentment. Writing in the Washington Post, Republican columnist Michael Gerson (https://www.washingtonpost.
Trump devotees feel they have lost their shot at the American dream. DT provides them with an acceptable narrative: What happened to them is not their fault: they haven't lost out because they are poorly educated or insufficiently motivated; they've been cheated out of their deserved opportunity by a conspiracy -- promulgated by Obama and the Clintons -- that shunted them aside and favored undeserving women and people-of-color. (And Jews.)
In this context, racism and misogyny is okay; because DT says it's okay. The Trump resentment express is a closed system that says and does unethical, un-American, and violent things and then justifies them on the basis that they either aren't being reported accurately or the targets deserve payback. The resentment express theme is not only that "anything goes" but also that DT validates any behavior seen as favoring him.
4. Political: Finally, there's a political explanation; the Republican Party is intellectually bankrupt and has allowed itself to be taken over by DT because Republicans actually don't have any ideas other than protecting the rich and powerful. Think hard: what policy ideas were promoted by DT during his residency in the White House? (1) Cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. (2) Build the wall. (3)....
Next time "mainstream" Republicans excuse DT by saying, "I never liked his tweets but he had a lot of good ideas;" ask them what ideas they are defending. After cutting taxes for the rich and building the wall there were NO ideas. Think about it. Republicans were in total control of Washington for the first two years of the Trump regime. All they accomplished was cutting taxes for the rich and powerful. (And building a few miles of wall.)
When an American political Party is devoid of ideas they have no choice but to run national campaigns based upon personality. So. Republicans were steamrolled by DT's narcissism. At the time -- 2015 -- they felt they didn't have a choice. Since then Republican leaders have had lots of opportunities to chose the non-DT road but each time they have folded. Because they are intellectually and morally bankrupt.
Writing in Mother Jones ( https://www.motherjones.com/
66 percent of Republicans would like to see DT run again because he's alive and their other GOP choices are zombies. Out here on the Left Coast, the Republican party looks like it is going over the falls.
Bob Burnett is a Bay Area writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net