NB: I wrote this article in August, 2016 (The influence of JG Ballard on my writing was strong at this time, apparently). It was never published. I offer it here for the first time.
The Trump train is on the run and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
One only has to observe footage of his rallies to appreciate the fine art to which he has reduced his political stratagem. It’s a captivating if slightly repetitive formula. His supporting act beckons ‘the next President of the United States’, as the music begins to blare out. It’s an 80s guitar anthem, throwing the already fervent throng into a rave. He struts onto stage, a determined smile belying his listless, almost apprehensive gait on the traverse to the podium, elongated for maximum impact.
He stops at the right hand corner of the stage, waving to the people, winking at the enraptured woman in the third row whose husband wears a Truckers for Trump cap. Both are proud of their son, a marine. He continues walking and waving, occasionally shaking his hands above his head in a sporting gesture, the music still blaring in the background.
The scene is reminiscent of the ring entrances of the early WWE wrestling stars. With his cavalier machismo, Donald Trump channels the spirit of Hulk Hogan riding towards the ring on a Harley Davidson, clutching the handlebars in one hand, an American flag in the other. Despite arriving on his opulent private jet only moments earlier, somehow Trump exudes a Wild West aura, an agent of justice arriving coolly at high noon, ready to fight for what’s right.
The crowd howls with delight as he steps up to the microphone. He begins to speak. He thanks his four letter friend, the newt or the chip or the rudy, great guy. He thanks the veterans and the police officers. He thanks everyone for showing up, ensuring them that we’re losing but we’re going to start winning and winning big league, believe me.
With his buzzwords and hackneyed lines about reducing regulations and government debt, along with his status as a widely recognised celebrity, in many respects he resembles the Ronald Reagan of late 1970s. Both were urbane, A-Type personalities, and both brought a touch of glamour to what has been aptly coined show business for ugly people. But the comparison does not ascend above this superficial level.
For while Reagan was measured, every utterance calculated as though prepared for scenes in a frontier blockbuster, Trump’s style lacks this rehearsed quality. Instead he appeals to broad themes: beating Crooked Hillary and the Washington elites; knocking out ISIS; protecting the Second Amendment, and his off-the-cuff demeanour underwrites the authenticity of the message. For his supporters, Trump represents something new and disruptive.
Indeed, observing him deriding his opponents, one at times suspects Trump is seconds away from blowing apart the façade, revealing a crazed psychopath let loose and given a microphone in some strange, heaving asylum. But he exists at the outer ring of the outrageous, and from this realm is able to exploit the yearnings of a confused and angry population, and rarely strays into the orbit of the anathema to which many are so eager to have him permanently consigned.
Trump is able to capitalise on an unlikely otherness. A privileged, draft-dodging, non religious member of New York high society; a litigious bully boy and beneficiary of the services of the very immigrants he denounces, somehow Trump has become the ostensible messiah of white middle America. What is also striking is that he makes no apologies for or attempts to hide this combination of traits, which if revealed would surely sound the political death knell for any other living politician. Trump is surely the first presidential candidate to brag about his fantastic wealth, and frequently remind crowds that he has relinquished valuable golf time for the thankless task of redressing their long list of grievances.
His antics aside, in policy terms Trump is difficult to place. Epithets such as demagogue and fascist are lazy take-downs, and in any event unrevealing, but less combative coins such as conservative and libertarian also seem to miss the mark. Above all Trump’s policies reflect a curious mix of defensive nationalism. With his rhetoric on guns, armed forces and police, he appeals to the visceral attraction to the strong leader, but on the other hand he displays a fortress mentality verging on the paranoid, as evident in his border control and trade policies. It is difficult to predict how America will look once these policies are implemented – can we search beyond the slogans for clues on how a post-Trump America might look?
Like Islamic Government for Iran or Mein Kampf for Germany, The Art of the Deal is surely the ideological blueprint for the US of the future. But while Khomeini and Hitler railed against perceived impediments to social or religious emancipation, Trump’s belligerence is purely pragmatic and amoral. His venom is reserved for those who encumber private enterprise, who threaten to scupper the coveted deal, an ideal which is far more attractive to Americans than a socialised healthcare or education system.
The American dream is a Florida golf course; a Manhattan penthouse; a Beverly Hills grotto, and Trump more than anyone personifies these tantalising fantasies. However remote and unattainable they may actually be to his many working class supporters is irrelevant: like Henry Miller said of the country itself, the American dream is merely “in the background, a sort of picture post card which you look at in a weak moment.” The idea of realising the American Dream was abandoned decades ago. What is now threatened is the dream itself, and only Trump stands for the possibility of keeping it alive.
What liberal America fails or refuses to accept is that as a beauty pageant grandee and star of a high rating reality TV show, Trump is the quintessential American. He is an initiate of the world of show business, which at the time of writing remains vaguely distinguishable from the world politics. But the people through the democratic process have mandated the erasure of the distinction with ever greater urgency in recent decades, and Trump’s ascendancy to the White House will mark the consummation of this curious procession.
Trump’s tenure will usher in the new epoch of Total Celebrity, and an end to the reign of the more educated and considered, but ultimately less appealing functionaries that currently occupy senior positions in state and federal capitals.
I keenly await Trump’s inauguration, and look forward to the McConaughey, Hilton and Jenner administrations that follow. By then I expect the capital to have relocated to Los Angeles or Miami, a backdrop more befitting of the America of tomorrow.
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