jfish26 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2020 3:26 pm
DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:53 pm
jfish26 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2020 1:35 pm
I think we're saying the same thing, different ways. His administration has gotten some things done. He doesn't personally give a flying fuck about anything but himself, so what matters more to him is the adulation of his donor class.
I think you're missing the point on Trump. You're not alone, of course, which explains why so few people in politics seem equipped to address him as a phenomenon, even NOW.
"Donor class" is irrelevant. Indeed, the traditional donor class serves as his personal foil. That which he does consciously is done specifically with the intention of jabbing his thumb in the eye of the "donor class."
That doesn't mean that he doesn't have donors or that he doesn't do things to accommodate them. He does. But his motivations are different from those of a traditional politician -- for better AND worse.
You're doing that thing where you seize on something that's only ancillary to the point.
You're right - I should not have said "adulation of his donor class." That was an inelegant way to say what I meant, which is "ongoing favorability with people who do or can do things of direct monetary and/or reputational value to Donald J. Trump."
You're doing that thing where you seize on something that's only ancillary to the point.
No, I'm actually not. I'm saying that I think you misjudge what he is after. And you do so at your own peril (metaphorically speaking, natch).
"ongoing favorability with people who do or can do things of direct monetary and/or reputational value to Donald J. Trump."
This is closer, but still not quite it. Obviously, I'm not going to chide you for being cynical about him. Cynicism is the only reasonable reaction to him. Nevertheless, I think the ego-stroking he's after is both more closely related to that of traditional politicians than you appear to believe and, at the same time, less concerned with standard ruling-class expectations.
In many ways, I think there is a Peronista quality to him and his politics. Unlike, say, Barack Obama, he doesn't want to be seen as a "great statesman" or a "great policy advocate." He wants to thought of as a "great man." And that carries with it a certain intentional, cultivated, BUT genuine populist appeal. I think it's too easy to get carried away in the cynicism about him and to presume the worst possible motivation for all his actions. That's not only unthinking and intellectually lazy, it also makes understanding and responding to him effectively much more difficult.
If you start with the assumption that everything, in the end, is intended to burnish his image and is therefore, by definition, purely self-interested, then you can maintain normative distance and perspective, even as you try to see how the things he does can be of benefit to others or at least perceived as such. To dismiss everything he does as self-interested in the specific sense (even as it undoubtedly is in the general sense) is to miss and misunderstand his appeal.
