On this slow news day, The Guardian is giving big play to a fun piece that attempts to explain the appeal of Donald Trump by way of various popular fictional antiheroes:
Last week millions of Americans tuned into a cable program featuring a wealthy white male narcissist with anger management issues, a history of viciousness towards women, and a pervading sense that there’s something amiss in his homeland. But this time the character in question wasn’t Walter White, Don Draper, Tyrion Lannister or Tony Soprano, but instead a real – if strangely orange – human man named Donald Trump. The program Americans so eagerly watched him plow through wasn’t an acclaimed drama, but a presidential debate….
Think about all they have in common – Tyrion’s cynicism and cunning, Don’s scorn for weakness, Tony’s rage, Walter White’s limitless ego. They’re all scoundrels who move through the world with an inordinate amount of swagger, and Americans, going back to 1773, love scoundrels with swagger. We love people who challenge authority and convention and get away with it. Thursday night, when Chris Wallace asked Trump if he thought a man who has declared bankruptcy multiple times was well suited to running the economy of an entire country, Trump’s response was to basically blow a raspberry and brag that he simply exploited the law….
No, I didn’t understand the 1773 reference, either (why not ’75, or ’76?). But never mind.
Interesting. And fun, since I have really, really enjoyed most of those shows.
But here’s the flaw in the idea… I respect all of those fictional characters more than I do Donald Trump. Unlike him, they all have appealing characteristics (WARNING! MULTIPLE-SPOILER ALERT):
“Trump is not the One Who Knocks.”
Walter White at least started out wanting to take care of his family after he was diagnosed with cancer. And he truly, honestly grieved when Hank was killed. So he had some actual human qualities. And he was, you know, smart — his ego was based in something.
I have NO idea why people like the guy.
Don Draper has that characteristic that Trump seems to value, although it completely eludes him: class. At least, class as style if not as a moral quality. And occasionally, he is moved to do the right thing, if it doesn’t inconvenience him. He can be virtuous — not all over, but in spots.
Trump on the Iron Throne? I need a drink.
Tyrion may be the most virtuous, admirable continuing character on “Game of Thrones,” with the possible exception of Lady Brienne. Admittedly, that’s not a high bar, but he was born into a singularly seamy fictional universe. He is even capable of wit, which distinguishes him rather dramatically from The Donald.
You’re comparing me to WHO?
Tony Soprano, being a brutal, blustering bully, comes closest to Trump. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he demanded that Trump cough up some tribute money for running gambling operations in New Jersey. But Tony is a family man, who cares about his kids and sometimes his wife. He has a human, likable quality — think about it: Would you want to sit and watch Trump’s visits with his shrink (even if she was Dr. Melfi)? I hope not.
No, if you want to find a fictional character who is as thoroughly off-putting as Donald Trump, you have to think Frank Underwood. No, wait: Frank at least is clever, and occasionally borders on being amusing.
I’m afraid the theory doesn’t hold up…
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It’s interesting that while the Republican nomination process has been taken over by the world’s whiniest narcissist (actually that could apply to any of them but it’s the Donald I refer to here) Bernie Sanders is quietly drawing huge crowds, 28,000 at his last event. This should be getting more press time and attention than it is. Bernie is a good man with some terrific ideas that have captured the attention of many voters who have no patience with the increasingly outrageous income inequality in this country. Hillary has adjusted her campaign speeches to take many of Bernie’s popular policy positions into account. I predict when the voters finally have their say Bernie will do much better than anyone expects. Hillary has lost as a big favorite once. Could lightning strike twice.?
If she loses, it won’t be to Bernie Sanders.
Pretty much everybody who would consider voting for Sanders is showing up for those rallies.
The press is covering him, but they know that while he can play well within limits on the hustings, he’s not a guy who can get things done in Washington, which is what the election is about…
I dunno, Brad. When I voted for Obama (both times), I wasn’t entirely voting on the basis that he “could get things done in Washington” (though, of course, I hoped he could). There was certainly an element of the new ideas and vision he espoused which affected my decision. Sanders certainly comes with more baggage than Obama appeared to have, but Ms. Clinton isn’t without a great deal of her own.
But if the litmus test comes down solely to someone “who gets things done in Washington,” then the entire presidential field, Democrat and Republican, may be for naught in my book.
Well, that is the workplace for the particular job these folks are seeking…
But you’re right in that Washington is particularly resistant to letting anyone get anything done.
My wife and I saw “Selma” recently on DVD, which I found disappointing. I just don’t think it did justice to events, the people or the issues. And, of course, I was disturbed by the distortion of LBJ’s role.
We got to talking about the impatience that some of the movement people demonstrated in the film about waiting for LBJ to produce the Voting Rights Act. Which was ridiculous, because what he was doing was unprecedented, and has not seen its equal since. What miracles he brought about — and look at the political cost, even in those far more dynamic times. LBJ KNEW he was giving up the South for his party, for generations if not forever. But he did it anyway, and no one we’ve seen since could have gotten it done.
When is the last time anything like the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act or Medicare came into being? Yeah, there’s Obamacare, but that’s a big, complicated, bureaucratic mishmash that no one can express the effect of in simple terms. Well, I guess you can: Some people, but by no means everyone, have found it easier to get health insurance. That’s tepid stuff compared to the fact of EVERYONE over 65 having their health care covered, or EVERYONE’s right to vote being protected after a century of discrimination.
Who thinks anything like those things could be produced by the political branches in Washington today?
If she does lose, it will be because of her own actions – I think that is what you meant maybe?
For the latest instance, Hillary’s “tuition plan” sure sounded like a lunker yesterday. I thought I was revisiting her 1990’s Health Care Task Force. The whole feel of the thing was just like that, and so completely command economied and out of tune with reality – political as well as real world.
The election is about more of the same.There are no choices.
Do like Sanders,but the two(one)-party system is what it is.
The greatest mad man ever-Corky Corcoran , and/as realized by a woman
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/he-could-not-tell-a-lie.html
Bernie Sanders is nowhere near as bad as Donald Trump, but what they both do is express the positions of the more extreme participants of each party. For the record, I’ll take Mr. Sanders in a heartbeat over Trump, but the fact remains that their appeal to the far wings of their parties is the reason for their popularity.
If I were forced to choose between Sanders and Trump (which, thank God, will never happen), it might be my first time not voting…
Brad, I can certainly relate. For me I don’t think I could vote in an election with Trump and Graham as the choices. I’d probably vote third party or just sit it out. Fortunately Graham, Perry, Pataki, Chaffee, Santorum, Gilmore and whoever is bumped by Fiorina (Christie or Kasich) are likely to drop out by the next debate or soon after.
You have to admit Bernie Sanders is running a classy campaign. Today while Jeb Bush was going on and on about Hillary’s file server, a story on par with deflategate, Sanders stated once again that his focus is on the issues, not personal attacks. Bernie Sanders is the exact opposite of Donald Trump and that’s something that helps him draw big crowds and enough votes to make it interesting.
“Today while Jeb Bush was going on and on about Hillary’s file server, a story on par with deflategate…”
Yeah, having TOP SECRET//SI information on an unclassified system in your private home network is no big deal. Maybe we could just let the Russians and the Chinese rummage through the CIA while we’re at it. It’s all no big deal.
My new favorite is Hillary saying that she didn’t knowingly send secured emails from her server. That’s just like her husband saying “I did not have sex with that girl”. Really.
She was Secretary of State; what she wrote and sent could only be classified after the fact. I mean she was the flipping Secretary of State! She routinely originated stuff that would, she should have been certain, become classified as soon as she hit send.
But Hillary knows that. And I think she knows this is no longer a game. It was an epic failure in decision-making; now it looks to be headed toward (likely?) criminal prosecution. Bud, it is a big deal. A really big deal.
Maybe we’ll see Joe Biden jumping in soon. Which I would really, really enjoy. He’s chock full o’ Joe-ness.
Man, I could totally vote for Bernie Sanders, of course, and Trump, while a buffoon and a bully, and and and, is actually fairly centrist in his politics, as far as we can tell.
Now see, there’s the flaw in assessing people on the basis of where they are on this issue or that one.
Someone might agree with me on most issues (which would be rare indeed), but if he is a buffoon and a bully and and and, forget about it.
The older I get and the more I observe politics, the more I am persuaded that character and ability are paramount.
I hear someone like Hillary Clinton — for whom I have a lot of respect — talking about making college affordable, and I think, “That’s not what I need to hear.” Regardless of whether it’s a good idea or not, I’m not looking for specific proposals, whether it’s that or Trump’s wall between us and Mexico.
I just want someone of good character who has the chops to do the job. Somebody who can be trusted to do a good job dealing with whatever issues come up while he or she is in office. Someone who won’t screw up any more than absolutely necessary, given that everyone is fallible.
That may sound like a low bar — someone who just won’t screw up — but it’s actually a pretty demanding standard. Not many can meet it…
Should we call that the Lt. Dan Doctrine?
I suppose. I don’t want it confused with the Obama administration’s “Don’t do stupid s__t” approach to foreign policy. Which would be a fine policy, up to a point, if they’d stick to it.
One of the things in Hillary’s favor is that I think she would be less likely to do some of the “stupid s__t” committed by the incumbent — such as drawing a “red line” in Syria and doing nothing when Sadat crossed it….
Well, yes, for someone like you who does not have to concern himself with affordable access to birth control or day care or college or….
There you go again, stereotyping me — as well as doing me the huge dishonor of assuming that I would vote according to MY selfish interests, which to me is about the worst thing you can say about a voter.
I have never, EVER thought in those terms. And no one should. You will see me occasionally use myself as an example of something I want to illustrate — but only because I know my own situation better than others’, and only when I truly think my experience can be applied generally. For instance, I’ve used myself to illustrate healthcare problems, for the simple fact that most people are kind of private about that stuff.
I was truly scandalized when I realized, at a shockingly advanced age (I was a very idealistic young man, and supposed others were the same), that other people voted their self-interest. I learned this in a conversation with a fellow journalist, which made it all the more painful, because if you’re the self-interest sort, I thought you’d be more likely to go into business than journalism.
It was the 1976 election. I LOVED Jimmy Carter, but when I was told by my colleague that she planned to vote for Ford, I wasn’t upset. I thought Ford was a fine fellow, too.
No, what shocked and appalled me was her REASON. She said she and her husband had sat down and analyzed the candidates’ respective proposals, and they decided that if Carter were elected, their taxes would by $1,000 a year higher. Really.
Set aside the absurd precision of that calculation. I was horrified that she would vote on the basis of such a thing, and WASN’T EVEN EMBARRASSED TO ADMIT IT! To me, the right to vote was a sacred trust, and it would be defiled by any hint of self-interest.
My mind was thoroughly boggled. As I said, I was idealistic, and kind of naive. I didn’t know there were such people…
Oh, and I won’t go into the extensive college debt held by members of my family, because it’s really nobody’s business.
I mention it only to illustrate why I consider such assertions deeply insulting.
I truly, truly do NOT want a candidate to tell me what he or she is going to do for ME, or, in that super-annoying phrase, “people like me.” The more candidates talk about it, the less I will like them.
I do not like to be condescended to.
Tell me what you want to do for the country. Better yet, skip the promises and just convince me you’re up to the job…
That’s a pet peeve I have with Democrats. As for Republicans, you don’t even want to get me started on Reagan’s supremely obnoxious “Are you better off than you were four years ago?“…
There’s nothing ‘extreme’ about Sanders or Trump.They’re continuing a long tradition of useless ‘politics’.
One that will have me never voting,again.
I keep reading here, as if it’s just taken for granted, that Bernie Sanders is some kind of “extremist.” Seems to me his positions are not substantially different from what was pretty garden-variety liberalism/progressivism not so long ago. And as has been discussed elsewhere, many of his ideas on taxation simply advocate a return to the rates that existed in the 50s and 60s, a time when the growth of the middle class was at its strongest. OK maybe 90% marginal tax rate on the wealthiest is a bit extreme, but it’s not unprecedented. And it would never happen anyway, even if he were elected president.
But I find this automatic acceptance of calling him “extreme” in his general views a puzzling sort of groupthink, fed I suppose by media coverage and repetition of that meme.
The truth is he is not much more liberal than Hillary is at heart.
Well, Phillip, to folks down here, looking out from deep right field, home plate looks awfully leftist….
Kathryn, a guy who accepts the label “socialist” isn’t standing on home plate in any ballpark in this country.
Socialism is not a foreign concept in a country that has lots of government control over such things as a retirement fund, education—-other communitarian aspects, few though they may be. Just because a term was co-opted by totalitarian regimes does not strip it of its original sense.
Yeah, Bernie’s a pretty regular socialist, except he doesn’t believe in international socialism. For instance, he’s against open borders because even though that would help poorer Mexicans, that would dissolve the idea of the nation-state, what with having no border and all. His socialism is therefore not of the international variety.
I guess you could say he’s more of a national-socialist. 🙂
It’s a branding problem, Phillip. If you allow the term “socialist” to be applied to you, if you don’t resist it with all your might, you’ll have a problem.
As you may recall, the Soviets also called themselves socialists…
It’s a term that doesn’t carry nearly the baggage of “nazi” or “fascist” or for that matter “communist.” But in a general election in the United States, it’s not helpful. Most Democrats run from it. They are wise to do so…
I say that just to explain why MOST people accept the “Bernie is an extremist” meme.
Me, I don’t care what he calls himself. He could be a fascist anarchist, and it still wouldn’t change the fact that Ferris Bueller doesn’t have a car. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie offered him one.
As I said above, I’m more interested in whether someone has the character and competence to be POTUS. And while I’ll keep observing him to see if I’m wrong, I haven’t seen that yet with Sanders.
In fact, in this piece about how his old fellow travelers see him as a cop-out for running for the Democratic nomination (you know, because Democrats are so right-wing and all), he comes across as, more than anything else, kind of a flake. Sample: “Sanders got his start on Vermont’s left fringe. In multiple third-party runs for office, he learned the craft of politics, which has been the only steady work he has ever had.”
Oh, and don’t miss what the WashPost calls “an especially strange piece about dark sexual fantasies” that he wrote back in ’72 for a counterculture newspaper. I read it. It was odd, like a lot of stuff I read in those days. Worse, it was not well-written.
But perhaps that wasn’t the fairest lens to view him through…
Funny, the word “republic” is also in the title of the USSR and the PRC, but we don’t perceive a carry-over of negativity about that word or its adjectival version for one of our major parties. Heck, North Korea covers both bases: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Sanders is socialist just as many major political parties worldwide are: social-democratic. Many of these parties have held elective office for various lengths of time at both national and regional levels: Australian Labor Party, the Socialist party in France (including its current President), the Social Democrats in Germany, Labor Party in Israel, the New Democratic Party in Canada.
The term “socialist” applies to many political parties that for so many liberal democracies around the world, are regular and major participants in the back-and-forth tug of war of the electoral/political process. In these countries, the term is no big deal. Some of these parties have the word in their title, others call themselves “Labor” or something else.
What Sanders is doing by proudly sticking to his socialist guns (pun intended, Bernie being the 2nd Amendment supporter that he is) , provided he can get more coverage about his actual views on issues and less about his “flakiness” or “gruffness,” is to wake people up to the fact that polls show there is major support nationally for positions similar to his. In other words, polls show that on a variety of issues, from the economy to foreign policy to the environment, a majority of Americans are substantially in agreement with—horrors—a socialist!
Perhaps it’s time to grow up, join our friends in liberal democracies around the world and demystify that word once and for all, whether you support its general principle or vehemently oppose them. Sanders is not going to win the nomination, but in the course of his campaign, he may do a lot to change people’s understanding of what democratic socialism really means.
well, I for one am glad that it wasn’t the Union of Soviet Liberal Democracies….