Scandal 8: The Donald
I’ll be honest: I’m intrigued by The Donald. He’s a mythological figure in the American pop-culture landscape. The catchphrase he’s probably best known for, “You’re fired!” has inspired awe, fascination, and of course some animosity. He is a bigger-than-life-arrogant-pompous-bombastic demigod. His persona reminds me of Rudolf Otto’s account that at the heart of the religious experience is the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Yes. The Donald is a fearful and fascinating mystery that paradoxically attracts and repels me.
Trump is a scandal to many. What’s difficult for me to admit is that he is a scandal for me because he is the model of success. During the last 30 years, we’ve learned a few things about Trump: He knows how to play the games of business and popular culture (that is, he knows how to get attention) and he knows how to succeed. We’ll soon see if he knows how to play the game of politics. He’s off to a surprisingly successful start, as the recent Newsweek/Daily Beast poll has him only three points behind President Obama in the 2012 election.
He is a model of success, and part of what makes him so fascinating is that he isn’t afraid to tell us about his success and his superiority. He’s obnoxiously audacious and, thus, he is easy to hate. David Brooks points this out in his article Why Trump Soars. Brooks writes that in every society, there are those who are “so impressed by their achievements, so often reminded of their own obvious rightness, that every stray thought and synaptic ripple comes bursting out of their mouth fortified by impregnable certitude. When they have achieved this status they have entered the realm of Upper Blowhardia.”
But there is a dark side to my hatred of Trump. It’s a self-righteous hatred that breeds resentment. My hatred of him makes me feel good. In fact, it makes me feel superior to him. My friends and I can discuss our shared outrage over his hair and his megalomania. (Can one write an article on The Donald and not reference to his hair?) We can accuse him of being a pompous jerk. We can ask what the hell he’s doing even thinking about running for president.
And we liberals can feel very good about being uniting against Trump.
Which makes him our scapegoat. Unless you are a Saint, there’s a bit of The Donald’s persona in you. I, at least, have a very hard time admitting that I admire his fame and his (over) confidence. That admiration is the flip side of any hatred I feel for him.
So, what’s the way out?
I’d suggest this. Assuming The Donald will run in 2012, we might remind ourselves of this statement in Brooks’s article. Brooks asserts that Trump “emerges from deep currents in our culture, and he is tapping into powerful sections of the national fantasy of life.” Trump is not a self made man. He emerged from our culture. Even more than that, though, we might remind ourselves that we all have something of Trump’s persona in us. What makes him such a scandal is that he has succeeded where we have failed, and that just isn’t fair.