Demagoguery and The Chum Tank: “That’s Just Trump Being Trump.”

This is my sixth attempt at summarizing the events of January 6th. Too much can be said of the violent and fatal riot of that day, a day that marks one of the lowest points in our nation’s history. It was the breaking point of a collective psychosis that has enveloped this country for 4 years. There are positives to be gleaned from the policies enacted during his time in office but January 6th, 2021 will be the enduring image left by the narcissistic, destructive Donald J. Trump, our 45th POTUS.

Trump has made it crystal clear how much he values money, power and praise. Seriously, he deserves credit for being so consistent about who and what he is. His narcissism knows no bounds and he makes no apologies. No one can deny this. Supporters can point to objective accomplishments during his time in office- tax cuts and SCOTUS nominations to name the most prominent and there have been some unique stances in foreign policy that may have long-lasting, positive effects- but they cannot dispute his nature and maintain any credibility as they do so. The unmistakable reality of Donald Trump has been more widely transmitted than for any other person in human history and nearly all of this has come from his own mouth, unbidden, unaided and unedited.

This essay will make it clear that Trump is his own creation. He prides himself on that fact. Sure there have been important contributors to the cult of personality around Trump, figures like Roger Stone, an odd, cartoonish man to whom no credible leader should ever listen. Building himself into a successful demagogue has been a deliberate process for decades and no one should be surprised about the unhinged actions of those under the thrall of his pied-piper tune. It has all been intentional and the madness won’t end, even with Trump out of office, until we fully recognize the malicious genius pulling the levers.

Trump may not have pulled the trigger but he loaded the gun and turned it over to a bunch of lunatics of his own making without any concern for what would predictably happen. Would he have preferred that they not violently crash the Capitol? Maybe. Did he care that they did, killing several people in the process? Absolutely not.

Despite the clear understanding we should have of Trump at this point, there are those amongst us that still claim that they did not see Trump’s inciting of insurrection coming. Too many have qualified, softened and excused the lies that our recently departed president started spewing well before his time in office and which culminated in the seditious rantings outside our Capitol on January 6th. All of those people were there because of the cult of Trump and because of the specific and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that Trump had been making since the spring of 2020 before voting even began. He made the same claims in 2016 to create plausible deniability for a loss he was expecting.

In his defense this past 4 years, his loyal followers have often trotted out the classic dismissive: “Oh, that’s just Trump being Trump.” You know, as if to say, “Don’t worry sweetheart, it’s all part of the plan…at least he cut our taxes.” 

Well, finally, Trump supporters and I can agree on something. That is Trump being Trump. And he has been that way a long time.

***

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines demagogue as follows: “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.” 

For decades, Donald Trump has crafted a fictional persona to appeal to the mentally-addled types that broke into our Capitol. From his involvement in the Central Park 5 case in 1989 to his appearance on WWE to the interview he gave the penultimate purveyor of “fake news”, Alex Jones, Trump has consistently courted their support.

The “Central Park 5” case centers around the brutal rape of a woman in Central Park back in 1989. (https://time.com/5597843/central-park-five-trump-history/.) Just a week or so after the attack, Trump took out a now infamous full page ad in NYC calling for bringing back the death penalty. He wrote: “I want to hate the muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer…” 

For completeness, I have included the .pdf of his ad ⁽¹⁾. Trump did not specifically name the defendants but New Yorkers knew to whom Trump was referring and the influence he was trying to have on the legal process. To that point, the defense team eventually claimed that Trump’s efforts had exerted a prejudicial impact on court proceedings. The “wink and a nod” dogwhistling is clear: These were young black and Hispanic men after all. They couldn’t have been up to any good. It was an indirect but unmistakable call to convict them in the court of public opinion and execute them. 

After tremendous suffering and years of incarceration, the convictions of the five men were vacated in 2002 when a known serial rapist, Matias Reyes, confessed to having attacked the woman. His DNA was found at the crime scene. Instead of acknowledging the error of the position he took or expressing any remorse that innocent men had lost over a decade of their lives in prison for a crime they did not commit, Trump justifies his actions in 1989 by pointing to criminal activity completely unrelated to the rape case and for which these men were not even charged. When they were exonerated and released, Trump begrudgingly stated that the $40 million restitution paid to these men by NYC, after 13 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, was a “disgrace.” 

Donald Trump is a man willing to condemn men before the facts are in. A man who shows no regret even when proven wrong for having done so. Are these qualities we want in any leader let alone our president? 

How about Trump’s claims that he watched “thousands and thousands of people” in Jersey City, NJ cheer as the World Trade towers collapsed? Complete lie but its intent was to gather support by stoking racial fears. The reality is bad enough- we had just been attacked by Muslim extremists but it is wrong and completely counterproductive to claim there are “thousands” in the New York area celebrating. Innocent Middle-Easterners of all faiths could have died as a result of a backlash triggered by this lie.

What do we know about fans of professional wrestling? Certainly most know that what they are seeing is staged but don’t we also know that some WWE fans think it’s real and might these types be prone to taking Trump literally when he asks them to confront elected officials to overturn election results? Haven’t we seen these idiots break their spine jumping off houses to duplicate what they see in the ring? And even many of those who are in on the secret still chant, yell and clinch their fists as they watch the staged battles. When Trump made an appearance at a WWE event with his friend, Vince McMahon, in 2007, he again wanted to convey the image of a tough guy. A fictional image of someone who beats his enemies by force while the Thunderdome shakes and the red meat flies. 

“Lock her up!” “Build that wall!”

“Chum, chum, chum…”

With The Apprentice, NBC delivered the perfect platform for Trump to thrive in a fictional business setting. With scripted precision devoid of all the realities of the real business world, Trump was allowed to play the role of a tough-minded executive that everyone wants to impress. He is a genius with an unmatched eye for knowing what works. Nevermind the bankruptcies and the fact he is not worth nearly what he claims. 

Of course, most of us knew it was all bullshit but like some of the WWE fans, many in the TV audience were true believers and voted and rioted accordingly. 

If you remain unconvinced that Trump has intentionally courted the befuddled fringe of American voters, consider that he gave an interview to Alex Jones in 2015 to promote his candidacy. If you are not familiar with Jones, he runs a website called InfoWars where he routinely pedals complete insanity. Like the US government being involved in the planning of the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11. Or the classic conspiracy: NASA staged the 1969 moon landing in a film studio.

Like his claim that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting was a hoax; Jones was actually sued by parents of children murdered because of the awful things he said (https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/sandy-hook-families-are-suing-alex-jones-what-he-said-about-shooting.) 

Just like Trump, Alex Jones aims to take advantage of the soft-minded for financial gain. Jones puts the Trump interview along with similar garbage on his site, all the while selling iodine drops on his website that he calls “Survival Shield.” You know to use during the ensuing apocalypse he and other kooks like him have predicted. 

Our 45th POTUS gave this nut job an interview where he heaped praise on Jones for his brave, diligent journalism. 

Anyone tired of hearing: “You can’t make this stuff up?” 

No- you really can’t.

In 2014, Donald Trump effectively launched his bid for the White House as the champion of “birtherism.” Remember the shameful allegation that President Obama was not a legal citizen of our country based on the lie that Obama had been born in Kenya rather than Hawaii? In parallel with the myth of a stolen election, birtherism undermines the legitimacy of the sitting US president at the time, laying the foundation for “a revolution” to “Make America Great Again.” Got to take the country back from those who stole it, from those who don’t belong. 

How did so many miss what this guy was doing? It was in broad daylight, on TV, nearly everyday for 5 years! 

When he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in 2015, Trump called for a wall to shut out the “rapists” spilling across our southern border. He always has to stoke fear to gather support. Later in the campaign, Trump would take another swipe at President Obama, claiming that Putin, the dictator of a criminal oligarchy, is a better leader: “If he (Putin) says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him,” Trump said of the Russian president. “Certainly in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president (Obama) has been.” 

Transactional politics in stark outline. Cue the “that’s Trump being Trump” qualification. Cue all the intellectual knots his enablers have tied themselves in to explain and excuse what he actually means when he speaks. Obviously we are misunderstanding him. Obviously we have been brainwashed by the liberal media. 

Trump praised a ruthless man who cares not one iota for individual rights and freedoms, a man whose core being is antithetical to the foundational principles of the US. A man known to assassinate those who challenge him in the press and who has clearly taken aim at the US as its arch nemesis. Praising Putin while denigrating our sitting POTUS is completely f^&*ing unacceptable. It is the opposite of patriotism. No matter what you think of Obama, only a self-interested demagogue would say such a thing and there is no excuse, then or now, for not understanding what he was doing.

***

I hope I made it clear that there are no accidents here. No excuses. Trump intentionally sought the fervent support from the types of personalities prone to going haywire in the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Everyone needs to own what and who Donald Trump is. He is the textbook definition of a demagogue. He is selfish, greedy and amoral. He and people like him are a danger to the Republic.

And conservatives have legitimate reasons to have supported him. The “better than the alternative” justification for supporting Trump is an idea that I have not been able to refute. Half of the blame for our current predicament lies with the left and the anti-American policies and corrosive ideologies they are now embracing. 

To argue that Donald Trump was necessary for Republican success is one of the biggest rubs for a conservative like me. If a man like Trump is required to implement your agenda, you may need to meditate on your beliefs a little longer, perhaps adjust some attitudes or get into deep prayer. Because he is poison. 

Trumpism is too unstable. It is too personality-driven. It places too high a premium on revenge and spite and it is predicated on too many lies. Values are only a marketing item used in pep-rallies to motivate base passions. 

Trumpism is about Trump, nothing else.

Those of us right of center who reject the man and methods still need to be open minded to successes in trade policy and the new awareness we have of China as our biggest geopolitical opponent. The Middle-East policies of Trump may provide long-term stability. Trump deserves credit on these issues. Otherwise, he simply repackaged tax cuts, border security and SCOTUS nominations. These are his biggest successes and ones that every 2016 GOP candidate would have enacted without the heavy price paid for supporting such a nasty person. There is no justification for giving Trump messianic status. He did not invent conservatism. For fucks sake he’s not even a conservative. He is a populist demagogue, amoral to the core. Trump has grifter’s instinct for whatever works and he saw an opportunity in the Republican Party. Trump is a transactional figure who understands the inherently hierarchical nature of conservatives, correctly wagering that the reasonable-right (perhaps no longer a coherent description) would bow to the new alpha in exchange for making their policy priorities a reality. 

Yet, at what cost? Trump has made our country into a chum-tank, a feeding frenzy of polarization and discord and of beliefs and actions predicated on garbage information. He has made the job of legitimate conservatism far more difficult than it was 4 years ago. He stained all of his successes. We can only hope that the reasonable portion of his supporters can see through the gore well enough at this point to understand what he has done to the conservative brand and to this country in general. That new insight is required to reshape the GOP. 

We don’t have to link ourselves to a bad man to accomplish good things. There is a better way.

A new fiscally-conservative, Libertarian-minded third party with a much more streamlined Federal agenda would be ideal. The American electorate has bought into an overwrought vision of the Federal government. We are a Republic. Californians should not be dictating to Mississippians who in turn should not determine the conduct of Virginians in their day-to-day lives. A smaller, more efficient list of priorities would facilitate consensus, strengthen the core fulcrum of the nation and bring stability. Ideally, this party should reject the culture wars, leaving beliefs, grievances and identity politics to the media-types that manipulate passions to sell advertising. 

Naïve but hopeful. It’s better than cynical acceptance of a dangerous and subversive figure like Trump. 

***

The following is a list of podcasts posted in recent weeks that to varying degrees relate to the essay above. The antidote to the current chaos is better information and this largely comes as long-form, commercial free podcasts by intellectuals and leaders who put ideas and values before party allegiance.

This is the intended format for future postings. A topic will be reviewed with an effort to list some relevant podcasts from the list of thinkers that I believe productively shape our conversations. More of these types and less Twitter, less Fox and CNN, is needed but is time consuming.

• Ben Shapiro: The Ben Shapiro Show
  • Episode January 7th, 2021: The Worst Day in Modern Amrican Political History
    • Shapiro’s work is not commercial free and is more partisan than the criteria listed above but he has the capacity to call balls and strikes regardless of his strongly held beliefs. I believe he makes it clear how unacceptable the riots of 1/6/21 were to his worldview and he called out (but still strongly supported) Trump for all of his bluster and nonsense throughout the last 4 years.
    • Beware- Voice is a bit shrill, Shapiro can be pretty snarky and he speaks faster than any human on the planet.
• Sam Harris: Making Sense
  • Episode #231: Crossing the Abyss
    • This is an amazing interview with retired General Stanley McChrystal and former Navy Seal Chris Fussell where they discuss the analogies between the Trump mob and Iraqi insurgents. Amazing and terrifying.
• Dan Crenshaw: Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
  • Episode January 8th, 2021: The Truth About January 6th…
    • Dan Crenshaw is a GOP Rep. from Texas who has the capacity to be honest about his party’s failings and the role Trump played on 1/6/21. This episode has interviews with several Republicans reviewing the events of that day and Crenshaw makes it abundantly clear what he thinks of those who fomented violence and sedition.
• Bret Weinstein: The DarkHorse Podcast
  • Episode #62: Podcast with Jeremy Lee Quinn and Bret Weinstein: The Capitol Insurrection, A View from the Inside
    • Fascinating and horrifying, Quinn’s perspective, moderated by the most even-keeled, fair-minded voice I know of on political issues (Weinstein), is very informative. Listen to individuals whose sensibilities are naturally on the left discuss the motivations of the right in good faith. We need more of this type of open-mindness and fairness
  • Episode #63: Beg Your Pardon

This is the typical format of DarkHorse where biologist husband and wife, Weinstein and Heather Heying, give a fair and very detailed breakdown of the lunacy occurring on both sides of the political divide.

References:

⁽¹⁾ Source: PBS Frontline