Where People Get Donald Trump, and Contrarians, Wrong

I am not a fan of Donald John Trump. I would never vote for him. The other day, however, I had to question my own prejudices when dealing with the effusive praise for him by a coworker. Why do I feel such a visceral reaction towards him, and other leaders whom I deem antithetical to my own values? I believe, in the case of POTUS, that one should start with recognizing some of what attracts others to him.

• He strives to keep his campaign promises, unlike other presidents.
• He is a consummate master of modern media, understanding implicitly how to deliver his message to the masses, especially in ways that make for good television entertainment.
• He is very good at out-maneuvering his opponents.
• He is probably enjoying his presidency more than his predecessors, since he doesn't feel responsible for how the world works, and doesn't lose sleep over what fires need to be put out.
• He has addressed some legitimate issues, such as ailing infrastructure, trade imbalances, and the high costs of garrisoning the world.
• He is adept at keeping his name in the news every day, and showcasing the defensiveness and passive aggression of his enemies.

To understand the Trump phenomenon more fully, I would remind us that stories are always more entertaining than fact-checking. We don't go to sports events in order to hear from sideline judges, referees and umpires. Jury trials are decided by persuasiveness, not the mere trundling out of evidence and invoking of legal codes. People buy on the basis of passion; their shopping experience is more important than the attributes of the good or service they are purchasing. Logic is brought in to justify decision-making, but is not necessarily the chief catalyst. In the case of Trump supporters, he is the showman who knows how to deliver what they want to hear and see. His detractors, on the other hand, come across as party poopers, as the coolers who show up at casinos when one is on a hot streak. They are the prissy nitpickers, the sore losers, the ones the schoolyard bullies made fools of when it was time for them to counterattack. Unlike disciplinarian teachers and other superiors, they lack the charisma and legitimacy to make much headway against the star of the show. They are like the censors and watchdogs who seem to have little purpose other than to spoil a good evening. They seem outraged less out of moral affront than out of envy, because he commands so much attention, and won't yield the stage. He serves as a convenient foil for others seeking to promote a conservative agenda, who obtain less scrutiny because of his notoriety. It is not just one person leading the charge. Changing who presides will not greatly upset the agenda of a deeply-entrenched establishment. It will not eliminate racial hatred, xenophobia and bigotry in general. No one should be lulled by such a specious argument. The ills of society will never be cured by mere elections.

Trump may remind us of the class clowns we knew growing up. In the Washington Post book Trump Revealed from 2016, some remember him being just that. Some want the teacher to get on with the lesson and put the miscreant in his or her place. Others like the break in the action, or welcome some levity in the midst of a dreary lesson. Others take the side of their peer against the instructor and his or her perceived tyranny. For a conservative icon, Trump (and the media culture of the Right) come across as bad boys and girls willing to prod and pummel the uptight liberal establishment, at risk of official opprobrium. This card has been played for many years, even when conservatives have dominated the Presidency, Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary. It is not a simple matter of hypocrisy or deception. This is the narrative the Right promotes, because victimizers like to see themselves as victims, and the loyal base likes to see themselves as fellow sufferers. Wealthy people and corporations striving to avoid estate taxes are seen as peers of the middle and lower classes, since the less fortunate would be rich, too, if they just tried harder. That they also promote policies damaging to the well-being of the general public (like weakened labor, environmental and safety regulations) seems beside the point. Liberals are the nagging sourpusses, the holdouts that the rest cannot abide, who stand in the way of economic prosperity. The confidence in him is so strong among his supporters, they might greet imminent annihilation with a smile on their faces, since he could provide a deux ex machina at any moment. Cognitive dissonance is that strong. Facts will not win them over. On the other hand, as the recent altercation involving Covington Catholic High School students in Washington, D.C. shows, first impressions are not necessarily definitive.

When speaking with someone whose politics are on the opposite side of the fence, one should keep the following principles in mind:

1. No one's perception is perfect, and sufficient, in and of itself.
2. If one values friendship with another, one shouldn't insist upon being right, or evangelizing another.
3. The other person has unique gifts, which should be validated and shared, for that person's own well-being and for one's own. Political or other differences are too slight to merit the exclusion of another's other qualities.
4. The degree to which the super rich, and corporations, control our society and buy our political representatives, is a concern for all of us, conservative and liberal. Societal divisions blunt united efforts to address the disparities among us, and the dwindling of governmental services. If we want better schools, roads, public safety, and access to medical care, we need a united voice.
5. What is truth, and reality, as some say, is simply an illusion most of us agree upon.
6. To change society, one has to work with political rivals, since there are not enough progressives out there to sway the public. One needs votes of all sorts of people to get anything done.
7. Many people profit from sowing dissension. Anger stoking is big business these days, as Charles Duhigg pointed out in a recent Atlantic article. We shouldn't let ourselves get played. A good friend, or family member, is too precious to lose over a paltry political, or ideological, argument. People are entitled to their opinions. The key is to not be baited, or be so ironclad about one's Weltanschauung, that one cannot learn from another. Last year, comedienne Sarah Silverman didn't let herself get unhinged over a rude tweet from a troll. Instead, she got to know him better and was actually able to get him some help. Village Square, a national non-profit, is promoting a return to civil discourse and civic engagement.
8. No political party, no leader, is immune to abusing power if there is nothing to check their authority and influence. Compromise is crucial to governance. Human polity is simply too imperfect in its implementation to function correctly without it. Tyranny results without restraints.

It takes a lot of practice to de-escalate. It is not easy to reach out to someone with whom one doesn't normally associate. However, as living, breathing members of communities, we are all in this together. We can't afford to let demagogues of any ilk push our buttons and profit from our disunity. Do not presume you, or I, or anyone else has all the answers. Do assume that you, or I, or someone else, can always learn from another. That includes non-citizens, the elderly, and little children. We can learn a lot from the non-human creatures who share our habitat, too. There is only one planet found to be a suitable home for us, notwithstanding centuries of speculative fiction to the contrary. Let's not destroy ourselves over differences of opinion. Our fate depends upon it.

Political Ideology and Fundamentalism

While reading E. J. Dionne Jr.'s Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond (2016), I realized something crucial to our public discussion of holding onto the cherished values of the past amid the onslaught of modernity. Some years ago, I had read Mark Sedgwick's Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (2009), which chronicled the careers of people like Julius Evola, Frithjof Schuon and René Guénon, who blended Sufism, Hinduism and other eastern beliefs with their own take on the perennial philosophy, a syncretistic concept dating back to Neoplatism, that all religions are essentially one. Sedgwick maintains a blog on this topic. The Perennial Philosophy is also associated with all sorts of New Age views of faith, which glosses over rather ruthlessly the inherent differences, as Stephen Prothero has pointed out in God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter (2010). People don't like to be lumped together, and don't like outsiders misrepresenting their beliefs to others. I got a taste of this when a former Kuwaiti room mate told me he saw no difference between Judaism and Mormonism. I told him that Jews might have something to say about that, let alone Latter-Day Saints.

We still read Evola, Guénon, Schuon and other traditionalists because of their elaborate synthesis of mystical ideas and critique of Western industrial society. We still read philosophers who  like Martin Heidegger and Oswald Spengler for their similar analysis of why modern man is in an existential crisis and his civilization is in decline. Whether it be spiritual or natural alienation, the true or higher self is endangered. What these authors also had in common, however, was their sympathy with Fascism. was really an attempt to fuse politics with mysticism, to wed the technology of the modern world with the efforts to revive a lost imperial state. Modern force of arms would be needed to achieve the conversion of a decadent world back to some more bucolic state.

The same Kuwaiti roommate shared his avowed sympathy for the Islamic State radicals, before their more egregious atrocities came to light. At the time, I saw this as a visceral reaction to the despotism and corruption associated with many Near Eastern governments, towards which the Arab Spring was a reaction. Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia had their revolts, and Turkey had a close brush with a coup. His sentiments were echoed in Morgan Spurlock's prescient documentary Where In the World is Osama Bin Laden from 2008, where widespread dissatisfaction was detected among the young people he was allowed to interview (under restrictive circumstances). I don't believe my roommate was necessarily condoning IS's tactics. I believe he was so sick of political repression and inertia in his own country he was willing to tie his fortune to a lesser-known entity which, at least, is achieving results.

A similar dissatisfaction, I believe, is at the heart of the Donald Trump phenomenon. Many Americans are so fed up with the political establishment, who seems to systematically ignore them, that they are willing to support an avowed "doer", no matter how catastrophic his pledges may seem. They want to shake things up, like my Kuwaiti roommate, and the devil take the consequences. They see him as anti-establishment, since the Republican Party and mainstream press have been his loudest critics, up until he secured his nomination. Even Fox News seemed to oppose his campaign until recently. Why middle class voters feel kinship with a brash billionaire comes down to the accepted notion that only a billionaire has the means to stand apart from special interests, as was the case with Ross Perot. The Bernie Sanders phenomenon, which drew upon wider populist support than Trump, demonstrates some of the same dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton, whom many perceive as just another establishment politician. In spite of Trump's gaffes, the Democratic party cannot see this election as a sure thing. Fear of Trump may not translate into votes for Clinton, especially if voters decide to vote for someone else, or just stay home out of disillusionment.

I am not suggesting from all this that the Tea Party and IS are the same, or that they are part of a Neo-Fascist movement. What they, and the Traditionalists, and religious fundamentalists have in common is a desire to recreate an idyllic past which never existed in the first place. It traces its origins among young academics who never lived in such a society. The Muslim Brotherhood, highly influential upon modern Islamic fundamentalism, traces its roots to Sayyid Qutb, who was appalled by the free-wheeling ways of American college students when he visited there 1948-1950, when he was in his early 40s. Younger, educated people have been at the forefront of other fundamentalist movements in Judaism and Christianity. Fundamentalism and traditionalism, in effect, are actually post-modern movements, and are not the continuation of unbroken traditions. While they attract many who are poor and less-educated, their instigators were part of the elite of society.

Historians have pointed out that many allegedly ancient practices are of more modern invention. Wicca and Freemasonry, while claiming ancient roots, are twentieth-century and eighteenth century creations, respectively. We like to appeal to tradition for our beliefs, but our traditions are not always that old. In some respects, we aren't much different from others who dress up in costumes and try to re-enact famous battles or who want to evoke lost customs and ages, such as the Society for Creative Anachronism. Or, we reimagine the past, as those who embrace the Steampunk lifestyle. A. J. Jacobs has pointed out in his The Year of Living Biblically (2008) the difficulties of turning back the clock and embracing obscurely described customs which aren't fully understood by seasoned scholars, let alone devotees. Would we really want to go back to nature, as portrayed in so many reality shows, without modern conveniences, or medical care, or electricity, or plumbing? For most, the answer is a resounding "No". If anything, rigorous fundamentalism entails a more burdensome lifestyle and more complication than living in the world today.

So, will the Tea Party movement really steer us back to the 1950s? Or the old pre-taxation days of America? Do we want a return to Jim Crow, to closeted homosexuality, back alley abortions, to the Cold War paranoia, and the exclusion of certain ethnic groups from the naturalization process? Will we see a return of high-paying, unskilled industrial jobs? Will our educational infrastructural deficiencies be surmounted by school uniforms and prayer? Will we have more state mental hospitals? Will we see a return to large-scale highway and dam construction, as implemented during the Eisenhower Administration? Will we see less divorce and more traditional marriage? Will people forswear narcotics in favor of alcohol, tobacco, and sedatives? Will we see a revival of fraternal associations? If we imposed an Eisenhower-era taxation system, upper income people would be paying a much larger share than they do today. If people didn't live so long, perhaps the social safety net system would work again. Then we would have to sanction assisted suicide. Will we see a higher birth rate? Not if medical costs continue to spiral for obstetrical care.

I am not suggesting that life is so great today, with fragmenting households and social circles. Life also wasn't that great in the past, either, without the advances in public health and information sources we have today. Neighborhoods, homes weren't necessarily safe back then, either. There was "juvenile delinquency" then, as opposed to "gangs" today. There were slums then, as there are slums, now. Emerging nations, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, have seen tremendous advances in quality of life and industrial capacity in the last 60 years. American cities have greater ethnic diversity today, though foreign-born citizens were a higher percentage of the population 150 years ago. There are neglected or forgotten customs, crafts, and practices worthy of revival and rediscovery. Our political upheaval today, so reminiscent of the left-oriented unrest of the sixties, with rudeness on the other end of the spectrum, can be seen as healthy if it helps to at least "shake things up". I am not in favor of complacency, of the gap between rich and poor continuing to widen, of an ever-burgeoning prison population and an aging, sickening population which society can't afford to accommodate, or of a young population which we have forgotten how to educate at reasonable cost.

So, there is much to be angry about. I think people need to talk about what can be done to improve society, rather than retreat to their own focus groups and tribes of faith, their gated communities and modern iron curtains of blissful ignorance. We will never be able to fortify ourselves enough in a world where too much is easily known, as quickly as thought, by the global community, for good and ill. Sure, let us preserve dignity, honor, loyalty to shared ideals. But let us not embrace revolution, and hatred, and persecution, just for the hell of it.