{"id":1363,"date":"2015-09-10T11:27:41","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T16:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2015-09-30T16:35:56","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T21:35:56","slug":"explaining-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1363","title":{"rendered":"Explaining Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Donald<\/a>\n

I\u2019ve tried hard not to write this.\u00a0The one thing this world may need least, is yet another article on Donald J. Trump.\u00a0I go to work and there’s Trump. \u00a0I drive home and I listen to the radio and it is all about Trump. I go home and turn on TV and there\u2019s Trump. I go on vacation to the places FAR away from Washington DC and there he is – TRUMP!\u00a0 I confess to Trump exhaustion. He follows me everywhere. My wife and I can\u2019t even talk about it.<\/p>\n

So consider this a catharsis. A Trump exorcism. A purge. You may not agree with anything that follows. And if you don\u2019t please don\u2019t be angry with me. Know that I\u2019m just trying to explain the unexplainable and somehow understand the unfathomable. No, I\u2019m not talking about the origins of creation and the existence of God. I\u2019m talking about the small, remote and horrifying chance of Donald J. Trump becoming president of the United States.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s get started. How do we explain what is happening to us?<\/p>\n

I would suggest starting with one of the best articles I\u2019ve read to date on this phenomenon<\/a> – a piece by David Gergen. It is about narcissism and leadership. It is very well written and well researched. I think starting with narcissism is a good and appropriate place when trying to understand and explain the Trump phenomenon. I would only add that while there\u2019s a historical nexus between narcissism and leadership, there\u2019s a human nexus as well. We all have our inner Trump. We all have our \u201cHey, look at me!\u201d \u201cHey, ain\u2019t I great!\u201d \u201cHey, if you gave me that problem I\u2019d fix it so fast it would make your head spin!\u201d<\/p>\n

So with our own “inner Trump” in mind, lesson one (and perhaps the most controversial). \u00a0Personableness can get you far.<\/p>\n

I understand if you might take issue with the premise that Donald Trump is \u201cpersonable.\u201d How can you label as \u201cpersonable\u201d someone who calls immigrants \u201crapists\u201d and liberal women that he doesn\u2019t like \u201cfat\u201d \u201cugly\u201d and \u201cstupid\u201d? And then there’s Megyn Kelly.<\/p>\n

But notice how Trump will, in the same breath, match every critique with a back slap.<\/p>\n

Jeb Bush is \u201cweak\u201d, \u201clow energy\u201d, and \u201ca puppet\u201d. Bush is also a \u201cgood guy\u201d, \u201cwonderful man\u201d, \u201cI like him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Illegal aliens are \u201crapists\u201d, \u201cthugs\u201d and \u201cthieves\u201d. Oh, but \u201cI love Mexicans and the Mexican people.\u201d<\/p>\n

China is \u201csucking us dry\u201d and at the same time \u201cI love them too \u2026 they stay in my hotels!\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the only thing that both friends and enemies agree on about Trump is that when you are dealing with him individually he is a very \u201cgenial\u201d guy. At a personal level, \u201cthe Donald\u201d is engaging, witty, and yes, even generous. Beneath his braggadocio is a certain folksy personableness.<\/p>\n

This trait can get you far. And it isn\u2019t new.<\/p>\n

A lot of people loved the folksy, genial, Ronald Reagan even as he was vilifying impoverished mothers as \u201cwelfare queens\u201d and ripping solar panels off the roof of the White House. Reagan was about the most anti-union president we\u2019d had, yet he won the labor vote. \u00a0Why? Perhaps one reason is that he seemed so personable.<\/p>\n

Second, Trump underscores the societal focus on the inflated self.\u00a0 He is a logical outworking of our diminished appreciation of moderation, modesty and humility.\u00a0 All three qualities were once considered attributes of character and virtue. \u00a0They were things we exalted. The strong, silent, self-effacing hero. Those days seem far away.\u00a0 We have traded our John Waynes and Clint Eastwoods for the fast-talking, wise-cracking, over-the-top and modestly vulgar.<\/p>\n

To be sure we have always had gadflies and the delightful fringe. We’ve seen value in the quirky and those on the outside who dared speak “truth to power.”<\/p>\n

But we have eviscerated the moderate middle. In politics, we voted out moderates like Dick Lugar and Mary Landrieu. The moderate elected officials who had been successful \u2013 folks like Evan Bayh and Mitch Daniels \u2013 have simply walked away rightly figuring there are better things to do with their time than try and fiddle with the mess that is the American polity.<\/p>\n

We have penalized the thoughtful and heaped praise on the cock-sure. When we vilify compromise, make all politics personal, and chase away the majority of people who have a real spirit of public service, what we get is Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n

Finally, Trump shows us the sad dysfunction of news media.<\/p>\n

I have friends both inside and outside of the news media and if you get them alone for a moment, most agree. The news media is dying.\u00a0 Or if not dying it is morphing into something unrecognizable. It is adrift, either caught up in its own pursuit of a political agenda (Fox vs. MSNBC), chasing the latest tweet, or simply devoid of a filter of decency and decorum.<\/p>\n

It is good that years ago they built something called a Newseum<\/a>. At least you can still find good journalism somewhere.\u00a0 Trump is an avatar to the news media\u2019s desperation for a story. He is a testament to its waning capability to challenge the inaccurate or absurd. What we see today is much worse than the yellow journalism of Hearst or the liberal bias of Cronkite and his cronies. It goes beyond the traditional “if it bleeds it leads” problem.\u00a0It is a news media that is rubber necking in unimaginable proportions. And we are forced to watch.<\/p>\n

According to legend, Joseph de Maistre once coined the phrase \u201cEvery nation has the government it deserves.\u201d Perhaps. And perhaps that is the frightening reality that we have to face when we try to explain the current popularity of Trump.<\/p>\n

A small footnote. De Maistre was no fan of democracy. He worked for Russian Czar Alexandar I. He believed hereditary monarchies were divinely sanctioned. He viewed constitutional government as beyond the capabilities of the average Russian.<\/p>\n

If alive today, he\u2019d probably be voting for Trump.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

image of Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore<\/a> via Creative Commons<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve tried hard not to write this.\u00a0The one thing this world may need least, is yet another article on Donald J. Trump.\u00a0I go to work and there’s Trump. \u00a0I drive home and I listen to the radio and it is all about Trump. I go home and turn on TV and there\u2019s Trump. I go…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[145],"tags":[165,150,4,154],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}