I am going to try hard, and do my
very best not to be abusive as I write about Trump.
I let that sentence stand as a
paragraph to remind myself of my starting point as I continue to type! But, truly Trump has exceeded the normal
bounds of political discourse and has put in place something new and, I am
going to say, ‘exhilarating’.
On the positive side, Trump has
shown that you need have no experience in politics or local, city, state or
national governance to become Head of State.
He has shown, truly, that everyone has a chance. For someone as seemingly unprepared and
unqualified (no, I did use the word “seemingly” so I am still being sort-of polite)
he illustrates graphically that the top job is not the reserve of those who
have worked a lifetime to get there.
People must look at Trump and say, “There, but for the fact that he got
there before me, goes I!”
Was it not Napoleon who said, “Every
French soldier carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack”? The clear implication being that everyone, no
matter how ‘low’ had the potential to become great. And those words were said by an Emperor - the
Little Corsican, risen to greatness!
Trump’s speeches may be, let’s be
generous, “free-wheeling”, but he constantly hits the spot with his base and,
although he has very low approval ratings generally, he is still riding high
with the people who originally voted for him.
He knows (even he knows) that
he did not get a majority of the votes cast in his election, not by millions,
but he is now the President and not Clinton.
The Electoral College may be an anachronistic absurdity, but that is the
system and that system got him elected.
We have the same sort of result in some elections in Britain where the
party of government did not win the popular vote, but they did get the greatest
number of members of parliament – and that is the system with which we have to
work.
So Trump knows that “The Liberal
Establishment” (whatever that might be) can say and do what it likes because he
knows that it will have little effect on the forces that elected him. Rather like the Daily Mail for me: it may be
the most read newspaper in the country and have a mythical reach in
articulating the voice of the disturbed right, but it might as well not exist
for me because I NEVER read it. Even
when it is given away free at airports I shun its rancid pages. So, for me, the Daily Mail can say what it
likes, it doesn’t actually touch me.
Yes, I know that the pernicious
influence of the rag constantly corrupts our political discourse, but I, a confirmed
Guardian reader disdainfully ignore it.
And that is part of the reason that Brexit happened. As I continue to live my arts-heavy, opera
going, European life style I have failed to notice or to take proper account of
those who do not have, and may never have or want, the luxury of sitting in a
stalls seat in the latest performance in the Liceu in Barcelona These are the
people who may never have, to get slightly more real than opera seats, the
right to a decent pension, or education or health service.
If you see a bleak future in
which you are probably going to be worse off than your home owning parents then
you look around for someone or something to blame. And history teaches that, in the short term,
the obvious victims are The Others.
Those people who are different: skin colour; religion; sexuality;
politics; language; nationality – anything that can be shown to be a threat.
In this respect Trump is an idiot
savant – and I don’t think that is a real insult, even if it does have the word
‘idiot’ in it. After all, I am well
educated, articulate, reasonably intelligent and sociable, but the highest ‘0ffice’
that I ever had was the largely ceremonial post of President of the Cardiff branch
of The National Union of Teachers – where the real work was done by the
Secretary and the Treasurer. I chaired
meetings and had headed notepaper! And
Trump is President of the United States of America after inheriting vast sums
of money and becoming a reality show front.
Whatever else he doesn’t know, he certainly does know what buttons to
press.
A key exponent of button pressing
was Enoch Powell, most particularly in his ‘Rivers of blood’ speech. Yes, I have read the whole speech and, yes I
know that the key phrase did not actually occur in the actual talk he
gave. The whole episode is extremely
distasteful, though, taken as a whole the speech is more reasonable than the fabricated
extract by which it is known. But Powell
was no idiot, even in those far off days he knew a thing or two about ‘soundbites’
and he knew which parts would be taken up by the press and he knew the
consequences. Or at least he thought he
did. He could defend himself from
accusations of outright racism by reference to the speech as a whole, but he
could not defend himself from the political consequences of such a speech, that
such inflammatory comments for general consumption would be.
For me Powell will, for ever, be
associated in my memory with a particularly incisive caricature by Ralph
Steadman in Private Eye, which, if anything flatters the man!
It is said that every politician’s
career ends in failure and perhaps that is true of Powell. After his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, although
he was a national figure and idolised by certain sections of the population he
was not in government in the cabinet ever again. Although listened to and respected and
reviled he did not have his hands on the levers of power. He paid the price for his calculated speech.
Trump has said many things that,
in their way, are just as astonishing and outrageous as Powell. He still has his hands on the levers of
power. He has survived and indeed
thriven and his standing in the Republican Party is even more secure. To a large extent the Republican Party IS
Trump. This is an amazing achievement
for a person whose statements have been so divisive – and there is the
clue. Division is his stock in
trade. He is not, and does not pretend
to be a President of the whole of America.
He plays to his base, and that base is astonishingly accommodating. He knows that his grasp on power is dependent
on that base staying loyal and voting and they have to be fed the right sort of
sound bites on a daily basis.
The latest gift to his base is a
masterwork. Today Trump has said that he
is minded to end the practise of allowing anybody born in the USA to claim
citizenship. Trump has framed his
possible executive order as being one opposed to illegal immigrants who give
birth and then their children become citizens.
There have been howls of outrage and assertions that such an executive
order would be unconstitutional. That
may or may not be true but it is irrelevant because Trump’s base will have
heard yet another strong statement from their champion showing that their views
are being held at the highest level in government. Whether this order actually ever appears is
not the important element here, what is important is the timing, so close to
the crucial mid-term elections.
This purported action, together
with the ‘army’ sent to stop the caravan of potential immigrants making their
slow way to the Mexican border and the possibility of a presidential speech on
immigration a few days before the elections themselves are all elements in a
masterful display of ‘strength’ to energize the base.
If this strategy is the sole idea
of Trump then it is a remarkable achievement in inventive marketing. Ethically dubious certainly, but politically
astute. The fact that it is
transparently opportunistic is not important because intention is more real
than actuality. Trump speaks his own
reality and if you have bought into his pronouncements then The Word is all you
need to know that your concerns are being met.
I have absolutely no faith that
the people of America will produce the Blue Wave that is being hoped for. None.
Trump has not fabricated the zeitgeist though policy or ideas – he is
not creative enough for that, he embodies the zeitgeist, he is the zeitgeist, and if that is true
what he does is, and is enough.
God help us all!
