Topic: Politics & Elections
I take Donald Trump seriously because he has touched a nerve— undeniably. Whatever one may think of his prescriptions, it’s obvious that he’s talking about issues of great concern to large numbers of people. And he understands what the political class either cannot grasp or prefers to ignore: that Americans have lost faith in government. Through systemic incompetence and, what is worse, a blank refusal to listen to the voice of the people, the political class as embodied in both major parties, the permanent bureaucracy, the mainstream media and academia has shattered the nation’s governing consensus. Trump gets this and he knows how to exploit it.
But I must say that I find it more and more difficult to take his supporters seriously—if the vocal social media cohort of Team Trump fairly represents the whole. Indeed, having spent the last few weeks perusing their commentary on Twitter and elsewhere I’ve come to the conclusion that they rival the campus-based grievance mongers for boorishness, ignorance and bad faith.
If I were Trump I’d be worried about the fact that he has attracted to his banner a decidedly odious bunch of anti-Semites, racists and broad-spectrum bigots. Yes, we should all be concerned about the Islamofascist threat—but does that require intemperate denunciations of all Muslims? And yes, illegal immigration is a scandal—but will racist hate speech solve the problem? Trump’s own rhetoric on immigrants and Islam edges close to the racist/xenophobic line—and pretty obviously it encourages some of his supporters to step over that line.
Then there’s Team Trump’s near-total inability to entertain criticism. Here again the mob takes its cue from Captain Bombastico himself. Trump has evolved a crude but effective technique for dealing with his critics. Did you say something negative about The Donald? Then you’re a pathetic loser, a failure, an inconsequential nobody who’s at three percent in the polls and possesses a face that only a mother could love, etc. His supporters follow the same playbook, e.g. their reaction to National Review’s “Against Trump” special issue. As recently as August of 2015 the candidate was singing the praises of conservatism’s flagship publication. But now? National Review is pathetic! Nobody reads it! It’s garbage! It’s going down! And the candidate’s own diatribe was slavishly echoed by his claque. Indeed, their reaction to NR’s attack was reminiscent of the Isamofascist reaction to Charlie Hebdo: How dare some lousy magazine dishonor the name of the Prophet?
Hatred and malice are usually accompanied by ignorance and here again Trump’s supporters do not disappoint. For instance, they’ve glommed onto the notion that what America needs is a national CEO in the White House: a canny business mogul who understands the art of the deal. It does no good to point out to them that the presidency is a political office having few points in common with corporate leadership. The idea that President Trump could run the executive branch of government like a corporate autocrat has captured the imagination of his supporters. They refuse to see that it’s a fantasy. Ditto the idea that President Trump possesses some magic deal-making formula enabling him to browbeat Congress—which he doesn’t.
Donald Trump is, as I’ve noted before, one of those people who has the great advantage of seeming much less intelligent than he really is. He also possesses impressive political skills. These qualities have taken Trump a long way and may yet gain for him the GOP presidential nomination. But his oafish, know-nothing, bullying, hate-spewing supporters represent the dark side of this Force that threatens to upend the American political process. Repulsive as they are, they may very well upend their hero.
