Musings on Message
For the first time in my life I’ve been watching at least the evening broadcasts of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago. For any of you who might be interested, the Convention is available to stream via the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS): click here and scroll down. This channel has the considerable advantage of NOT intruding with talking heads offering distracting “analysis.”
After trying to listen to Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (I confess that I only make it through an hour of his ninety-some minute, lie-filled ramble) I find the speeches at the DNC humane and upbeat with emphasis on the Christian message of acceptance, community, and American ideals of freedom with which I grew up.
A couple of days ago I was offered a free article from Medium entitled “The Real Secret to Donald Trump’s Success.” Written by “T. J. Brearton” and published almost a year ago. Its final paragraphs shine some light on the contrast between the tenor of the two conventions.
Brearton develops the idea that Trump is doing the easy sell of justifying the unleashing of the basest aspects of human nature.
Trump message to his followers is:
America is your birthright. Do whatever you want; fulfill yourself. You, especially if you’re white, male, straight, and Republican, are the beating heart of the world. Get that extra large truck, take that extra-long vacation, make all the money you can, and gobble up everything in your path.
Forget the rest.
Trump sells you permission to indulge your vices, your baser instincts.
He sells you the right to be selfish, to lack any real moral fiber or scruples. He sells you the idea that intellectualism [as represented by the “elites”, the college professors, the “deep state”] is bad, institutions are untrustworthy, everything and everyone is corrupt and you can put your faith in only him, your martyr, who’s currently under major federal and state indictments for you.
He pays lips service to nationalism: let’s stay out of war, like the one in Ukraine, while praising the autocrat who started it. He bemoans the grift of D.C. while fleecing his constituency for millions.
Shameless, he’s never in danger of being a hypocrite because he can declare “So what?” To every charge. Either it’s persecution, it’s overreaction, or it’s simply fake.
Wouldn’t we all love this in our own lives? I’m rubber and you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.
Imagine if this attitude got us everything we ever wanted.
This is the easiest thing, in the history of things, to sell to people. F__k everyone else, it’s you, baby. F__k the gays and the blacks and the trans and the immigrants. F__k those people from shithole countries. Women should know their place, the government should let you do whatever you want, and you shouldn’t have to lift a finger to help anyone else. Ever. Just as America shouldn’t be helping anyone else, not unless we get something for it. It’s all a zero-sum game. Winners and losers.
I’m selling you a win.
Trump takes cultural issues, domestic and foreign policy issues, and economic issues, and gives you the easiest answer. Don’t like climate change? Don’t think about it, don’t worry about it; f__k the Paris Accord. Don’t like change in general? Let’s get back to the way things were. Don’t like the economy? Don’t like subprime mortgage fraud? Don’t like inflation or stagflation? Just get rich. Or blame D.C. for keeping you down. It’s the government and taxes, it’s not you.
Easy, easy, easy.
Don’t like something? Get rid of it. Don’t understand something? Blow it up, and sweep away the pieces. It’s never your fault, there’s nothing for you to do except hate the people doing this to you. The libtards and the immigrants and wokeism and other countries — it’s China. It’s always China’s fault; it’s got nothing to do with our rapacious consumer appetites. We’d build everything in America if we could!
Yeah, right.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Democrats or any other party are doing the work of the hard sell — you don’t get elected telling people to shut up and endure hard times. It’s always “have cake and eat too” — just different versions. The last moment we ever had that even came close to preaching selflessness was probably JFK saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you.” And look what happened to him.
But Trump has taken modern hedonism to a whole new level. This kind of thing, this easy sell — it’s timeless. We tell stories about it; probably the biggest and most well-known story of all is in the Bible. The tempting Devil. While I don’t believe those stories are literally true, Trumpism rivals these Biblical tales for its sheer scope and scale.
What Trump does is the easiest thing in the world; he’s not selling anything hard at all. He’s not asking anyone to try to be a better person, to consider their neighbor, to consider the future.
He’s selling you the right to be a complete a__hole, just like he is.
The speeches that I find inspiring at the Democratic National Convention offer hope of coming together, of tackling the big long-term problems, of having a future, rather than descending into a hell of hate and repression.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry