"DeSantis has combined relative moderation on social policy..."
Uh...in what sense?
I think "The Trash Factor" is, simply, entertainment. It's an amplification and distortion of Reagan's "Great Communicator" shtick, and it makes sense why Kari Lake - a former TV anchor, an emigre from a form of news that uses entertainment techniques - might make a better heir to Trump than DeSantis. Jamelle Bouie has said a number of times no other Republican will be able to capture Trump's magic because they don't have the TV show factor, but Lake might come closest. (It's also why Tucker's a wild card in all of this.)
I read Jonathan's article and agree with it. You've expanded on it by pointing out the trash factor. This is why the Access Hollywood tape didn't sink him - his followers loved it precisely because it was trashy. Maybe now with very different problems facing Trump, some of his supporters may see that he is a dangerous character. His hard core fans will fall for the witch hunt BS, but just maybe enough of them will realize the gravity of the situation and break with him. Until our elected Republican friends break with him and his lies we will continue to have a problem. McConnell is certainly onto something when he despair over the quality of senate candidates. But until the party rejects the Big Lie, we're still in trouble.
Two points. Twain's the King and the Duke (or Duke and Dauphin) are prefigurations. Until the crowd wishes up, even in Arkansas. And the fastest way to detoxify some portion of the base is a cage match between Trump and DeSantis. Let us pray.
I had a disconcerting conversation over the weekend with a (initially anti-DJT, but now fully MAGA) GOP family member and recently retired middle school civics teacher. We know from past discussions that we disagree on most politics and see the world through very different lenses (theirs overwhelmingly framed by Fox News). In the context of a larger conversation about the current climate of polarization and divisiveness, I specifically asked their opinion as someone who had lived (and was politically aware) during both pre- and post-Citizens United - and they had literally no idea what I was talking about. I explained that CU vs FEC was the SCOTUS decision that essentially opened the floodgates to unlimited money in politics in 2010 - and which I was claiming was a major turning point towards our current political climate. To their credit, they acknowledged that they "didn't know enough about that topic to comment" - which absolutely floored me. How could somebody who was awake (let alone teaching civics!) during that time NOT be aware of such a consequential event?
Then I realized, Fox News doesn't talk about Citizens United (and the left often does) - I should've/could've/would've predicted our difference in understanding through that fact alone. Sorry for not directly addressing your post in this comment - I guess I'm still just kinda processing in public. Thank you for the opportunity to do so in a relatively intelligent and safe environment!
So does Kari Lake “got the same kind of BDE that we want all of our elected leaders to have?” I suspect the reason her staff didn’t want her to say “balls” is that Liz Cheney has more in that department than the entire Republican Party. As for myself, I would prefer politicians demonstrate a combination of brains, heart, and conscience.
Agree 100% on the trash factor. It's no coincidence that WWF CEO Linda McMahon is a huge MAGA supporter and Trump appointee (SBA). From what I understand, the McMahons and the Trumps go way back. I won't call her Trump's friend, because I don't believe that man has any friends.
I'm skeptical that a woman could inspire the kind of fanatical loyalty that Trump inspires--no matter how charismatic, trashy, glamorous, or inspired her maga speeches. People in the audience will not think of her as "strong." They'll notice how she screeches. Wives will resent it if their husbands are too devoted. There will be other threads that break, and a backlash will occur.
The glass ceiling is real, y'all. Women who go "too far" get punished.
So for that reason, maybe we should hope and pray that Kari Lake is Trump's anointed?
In what follows I provide food for thought--not a final answer to our current predicament:
There is another way to account for at least part of the Trumpian populist phenomenon--coming not from political science but from anthropology--particularly the analytical ideas of the late Victor Turner. Turner studied rituals but was interested in their social function in particular. He divided the ritual process into three parts--especially for those which celebrated a change of status for one or some of the participants (such as in a birth or wedding)--during which the people involved (1)- leave their old status, (2)-enter a "liminal" stage when they are "betwixt and between" the old status and the new--and then (3)-initially return to society in the new status. The rest of society, partaking of this ritual, experience a feeling of "communitas", especially during the liminal phase of the ritual. This is a feeling of deep solidarity among all participants and also a phase in which people can engage in "symbolic reversals" of what is usually accepted in society (such as go wild, make noise, etc). When all return to everyday life after the ritual process, here is the function of the whole thing according to Turner: they have reinforced their sense of community, (even though the special bond of ritual communitas may not be as strong in everyday life) and reinforced what things mean for the society traditionally--a kind of continuous learning.
Turner also identified a form of communitas that lasted longer than a typical ritual--principally in pilgrimages which were made in the medieval era. These took a long time to complete so it was necessary for the pilgrims to engage in everyday activities during the trip to the site of their pilgrimage, while at the same time they were still in a state of ritual. Turner called this situation "normative communitas".
Turner went on to identify more modern forms of ritual-like activities which he called "limnoid". These are activities in which people experience a communitas-like solidarity for the duration of the activity (a sports event, watching a play) but then return to society as it always is, without such heavy solidarity. But there are also subversive forms of the limnoid. These can be found in participation in the reading of pamphlets that were distributed in early modern Europe--or more recently, in demonstrations and riots. The aim of these forms of the limnoid is to change society, not reinforce its former traditional meanings. And of course, the participants in these forms of the liminoid experience a sense of communitas among themselves as they battle a political foe--a particularly heightened sense of "beleaguered solidarity"--which is a very heady feel-good sort of thing that gives meaning to the lives of all these participants who might otherwise not have much meaning in their lives.
We saw this sort of thing among Leftists during the student uproars of the sixties--and during the more recent George Floyd demonstrations--although these differ from the uproars or rallies of Trump's followers in that they have not lost sight of reality. But now, with Trumpists and the eclipse of reality itself, the beleaguered solidarity has become the end in itself. Communitas is no longer for reinforcing participation in tradition or even of subverting certain practices to make what the participants of demonstrations in the past would consider a more "just world". There is no real just world for Trumpists. There is no end game for Trumpists--because the game itself is the only reality and the only thing to give them meaning. They need a continuous game. The game cannot stop. If any redress to their grievances does occur, they immediately have to find a new grievance. The whole thing has become "enduring communitas" or "pathological communitas"--and of course, is aided greatly by the enabling aspects of the internet and social media to stir up what might otherwise be disparate people with a vague sense of discomfort.
Without reference to the anthropological lingo--writer and analyst Tom Nichols has said pretty much the same thing (you can google him or look for him on Youtube). And without reference to anthropological lingo, a political analyst (Michael Ure) has said the same thing in his analysis of the differences between resentment and "ressentiment" in this article:
According to Ure, resentment (which can always happen in social relations) can potentially be assuaged--but not ressentiment which is a sense of permanent jealousy and grievance of an opponent--which can only be satisfied (if at all) with the destruction and humiliation of the opponent.
So--whether one appeals to anthropology or to the political philosophical "ressentiment" idea--we see that their are people who cannot let go of grievance and desperately need it--and that with contemporary means of communication, they have found one another and built up their sense of grievance and need of grievance, into a movement that, in many ways, is unprecedented for all that it bears some similarity with sentiments that existed usually among the disgruntled and misfits in the past. Even if we set out to give these people redress--that will not resolve anything--and the challenge is how to go beyond or around people immersed in "pathological communitas:
Come right out and say it: Politics for the White Trash/Trailer Trash among us and within our own American souls.
The surprise is that they took so long to find political leadership voices and that such a voice first came out of NYC's upper east side/Queens, and not from a southern preacher holding snakes.
But, Kari Lake is not exactly the same type of beast. She's smoother, more polished (years as a tv reporter) and hence, much more dangerous. A "snake in grass" who, with her super-smooth FM voice, can deliver the trashiness and the combativeness and does not leave you feeling dirty, like Boebert, Taylor Greene, or even Trump. She will lull millions -- heck, she may be President Lake one day -- that's how freaking dangerous she is (I look forward to reading in-depth assessments of Kari).
As for the "policy factor", well it's the policies that may benefit the lower socio-economic classes -- those who did not (obviously) benefit from "free trade", and rightly resent those who did by "taking our factories to China". They do not benefit from immigration, either, mainly because they often compete for the same housing and jobs, and suffer from crime and crowding (in schools, hospitals e.r. & housing) that comes with immigrants moving in to their town (same reasons these politicians are now attracting legal Latinos who vote).
As for DeSantis & the rest of those Ivy-leagued boys -- Well, that Ivy rubbed the trashiness right out of them, because even if they used to be somewhat poor (DeSantis) they will always be thinking that their classmates and their old professors are watching -- Nah -- No Ivy-league person will ever be able to do real Trash.
Strap in your seatbelts, a generation of mini-Trumps are coming out of their trailers to get their American Dream of power & voice....finally....like African-Americans since they got Obama, White Trailer Trash folks have found their voice.
I've argued from the moment Trump rode that golden elevator to the lobby of Trump tower to announce his candidacy that he was the id of the GOP set loose. Plenty of other Republican candidates before Trump had thrown out red meat to the base on issues such as immigration, judges, and abortion. But their heart wasn't in it. Trump's was. His trashiness was definitely part of the equation, but so to was his ability to identify with his audience. His grievances were their grievances, his hatreds were theirs as well. He resented the same set of elites they did, elites who may have let him into their circles but never accepted him. Elites for whom he was no more than gauche, garish clown with lots of money but zero class. Trump was the base's revenge on those who thought themselves better. His was (and is) the politics of resentment writ large, and everytime he owned a Lib, they cheered.
He won the nomination after the first Republican debate, presenting as high energy and focused while the rest of the pack plodded along, unsure how to deal with the phenomenon that was and still is Trump. The truth is that it's no more possible to deal with a narcissist in any conventional manner than it is to nail jello to the wall. They are shape shifters extraordinaire.
Trump seized a particular political moment and brought most of his party along with him. I watched my elderly parents, particularly my late mother who'd been a moderate Republican for most of her life, go from seeing him as a joke to embracing him once he became the nominee, oblivious to the obvious con. Ditto for many of the "I know he's an arsehole but" suburban Republicans among my friends and coworkers. I doubt Trump has a successor who can command that kind of devotion, much like the Democrats have been unable to find anyone to succeed Obama. And remember, Obama won his first election by a huge margin, an achievement that eluded Trump, who eked out a narrow electoral college victory the first go round.
I suppose unpredictability lends hope when you see the system as fundamentally rigged against you. (And Trump represents both success and iconoclasm, a rare combination. Both ingredients are necessary for Trump to stand for a “way out” when the deck seems stacked against you.)
"DeSantis has combined relative moderation on social policy..."
Uh...in what sense?
I think "The Trash Factor" is, simply, entertainment. It's an amplification and distortion of Reagan's "Great Communicator" shtick, and it makes sense why Kari Lake - a former TV anchor, an emigre from a form of news that uses entertainment techniques - might make a better heir to Trump than DeSantis. Jamelle Bouie has said a number of times no other Republican will be able to capture Trump's magic because they don't have the TV show factor, but Lake might come closest. (It's also why Tucker's a wild card in all of this.)
I read Jonathan's article and agree with it. You've expanded on it by pointing out the trash factor. This is why the Access Hollywood tape didn't sink him - his followers loved it precisely because it was trashy. Maybe now with very different problems facing Trump, some of his supporters may see that he is a dangerous character. His hard core fans will fall for the witch hunt BS, but just maybe enough of them will realize the gravity of the situation and break with him. Until our elected Republican friends break with him and his lies we will continue to have a problem. McConnell is certainly onto something when he despair over the quality of senate candidates. But until the party rejects the Big Lie, we're still in trouble.
Two points. Twain's the King and the Duke (or Duke and Dauphin) are prefigurations. Until the crowd wishes up, even in Arkansas. And the fastest way to detoxify some portion of the base is a cage match between Trump and DeSantis. Let us pray.
I had a disconcerting conversation over the weekend with a (initially anti-DJT, but now fully MAGA) GOP family member and recently retired middle school civics teacher. We know from past discussions that we disagree on most politics and see the world through very different lenses (theirs overwhelmingly framed by Fox News). In the context of a larger conversation about the current climate of polarization and divisiveness, I specifically asked their opinion as someone who had lived (and was politically aware) during both pre- and post-Citizens United - and they had literally no idea what I was talking about. I explained that CU vs FEC was the SCOTUS decision that essentially opened the floodgates to unlimited money in politics in 2010 - and which I was claiming was a major turning point towards our current political climate. To their credit, they acknowledged that they "didn't know enough about that topic to comment" - which absolutely floored me. How could somebody who was awake (let alone teaching civics!) during that time NOT be aware of such a consequential event?
Then I realized, Fox News doesn't talk about Citizens United (and the left often does) - I should've/could've/would've predicted our difference in understanding through that fact alone. Sorry for not directly addressing your post in this comment - I guess I'm still just kinda processing in public. Thank you for the opportunity to do so in a relatively intelligent and safe environment!
So does Kari Lake “got the same kind of BDE that we want all of our elected leaders to have?” I suspect the reason her staff didn’t want her to say “balls” is that Liz Cheney has more in that department than the entire Republican Party. As for myself, I would prefer politicians demonstrate a combination of brains, heart, and conscience.
Agree 100% on the trash factor. It's no coincidence that WWF CEO Linda McMahon is a huge MAGA supporter and Trump appointee (SBA). From what I understand, the McMahons and the Trumps go way back. I won't call her Trump's friend, because I don't believe that man has any friends.
I'm skeptical that a woman could inspire the kind of fanatical loyalty that Trump inspires--no matter how charismatic, trashy, glamorous, or inspired her maga speeches. People in the audience will not think of her as "strong." They'll notice how she screeches. Wives will resent it if their husbands are too devoted. There will be other threads that break, and a backlash will occur.
The glass ceiling is real, y'all. Women who go "too far" get punished.
So for that reason, maybe we should hope and pray that Kari Lake is Trump's anointed?
In what follows I provide food for thought--not a final answer to our current predicament:
There is another way to account for at least part of the Trumpian populist phenomenon--coming not from political science but from anthropology--particularly the analytical ideas of the late Victor Turner. Turner studied rituals but was interested in their social function in particular. He divided the ritual process into three parts--especially for those which celebrated a change of status for one or some of the participants (such as in a birth or wedding)--during which the people involved (1)- leave their old status, (2)-enter a "liminal" stage when they are "betwixt and between" the old status and the new--and then (3)-initially return to society in the new status. The rest of society, partaking of this ritual, experience a feeling of "communitas", especially during the liminal phase of the ritual. This is a feeling of deep solidarity among all participants and also a phase in which people can engage in "symbolic reversals" of what is usually accepted in society (such as go wild, make noise, etc). When all return to everyday life after the ritual process, here is the function of the whole thing according to Turner: they have reinforced their sense of community, (even though the special bond of ritual communitas may not be as strong in everyday life) and reinforced what things mean for the society traditionally--a kind of continuous learning.
Turner also identified a form of communitas that lasted longer than a typical ritual--principally in pilgrimages which were made in the medieval era. These took a long time to complete so it was necessary for the pilgrims to engage in everyday activities during the trip to the site of their pilgrimage, while at the same time they were still in a state of ritual. Turner called this situation "normative communitas".
Turner went on to identify more modern forms of ritual-like activities which he called "limnoid". These are activities in which people experience a communitas-like solidarity for the duration of the activity (a sports event, watching a play) but then return to society as it always is, without such heavy solidarity. But there are also subversive forms of the limnoid. These can be found in participation in the reading of pamphlets that were distributed in early modern Europe--or more recently, in demonstrations and riots. The aim of these forms of the limnoid is to change society, not reinforce its former traditional meanings. And of course, the participants in these forms of the liminoid experience a sense of communitas among themselves as they battle a political foe--a particularly heightened sense of "beleaguered solidarity"--which is a very heady feel-good sort of thing that gives meaning to the lives of all these participants who might otherwise not have much meaning in their lives.
We saw this sort of thing among Leftists during the student uproars of the sixties--and during the more recent George Floyd demonstrations--although these differ from the uproars or rallies of Trump's followers in that they have not lost sight of reality. But now, with Trumpists and the eclipse of reality itself, the beleaguered solidarity has become the end in itself. Communitas is no longer for reinforcing participation in tradition or even of subverting certain practices to make what the participants of demonstrations in the past would consider a more "just world". There is no real just world for Trumpists. There is no end game for Trumpists--because the game itself is the only reality and the only thing to give them meaning. They need a continuous game. The game cannot stop. If any redress to their grievances does occur, they immediately have to find a new grievance. The whole thing has become "enduring communitas" or "pathological communitas"--and of course, is aided greatly by the enabling aspects of the internet and social media to stir up what might otherwise be disparate people with a vague sense of discomfort.
Without reference to the anthropological lingo--writer and analyst Tom Nichols has said pretty much the same thing (you can google him or look for him on Youtube). And without reference to anthropological lingo, a political analyst (Michael Ure) has said the same thing in his analysis of the differences between resentment and "ressentiment" in this article:
"Resentment/Ressentiment" by Michael Ure in Constellations (An international journal of critical and democratic theory), Volume22, Issue 4, December 2015, Pages 599-613 (Abstract here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8675.12098 )
According to Ure, resentment (which can always happen in social relations) can potentially be assuaged--but not ressentiment which is a sense of permanent jealousy and grievance of an opponent--which can only be satisfied (if at all) with the destruction and humiliation of the opponent.
So--whether one appeals to anthropology or to the political philosophical "ressentiment" idea--we see that their are people who cannot let go of grievance and desperately need it--and that with contemporary means of communication, they have found one another and built up their sense of grievance and need of grievance, into a movement that, in many ways, is unprecedented for all that it bears some similarity with sentiments that existed usually among the disgruntled and misfits in the past. Even if we set out to give these people redress--that will not resolve anything--and the challenge is how to go beyond or around people immersed in "pathological communitas:
Food for thought (sorry for the long post).
Come right out and say it: Politics for the White Trash/Trailer Trash among us and within our own American souls.
The surprise is that they took so long to find political leadership voices and that such a voice first came out of NYC's upper east side/Queens, and not from a southern preacher holding snakes.
But, Kari Lake is not exactly the same type of beast. She's smoother, more polished (years as a tv reporter) and hence, much more dangerous. A "snake in grass" who, with her super-smooth FM voice, can deliver the trashiness and the combativeness and does not leave you feeling dirty, like Boebert, Taylor Greene, or even Trump. She will lull millions -- heck, she may be President Lake one day -- that's how freaking dangerous she is (I look forward to reading in-depth assessments of Kari).
As for the "policy factor", well it's the policies that may benefit the lower socio-economic classes -- those who did not (obviously) benefit from "free trade", and rightly resent those who did by "taking our factories to China". They do not benefit from immigration, either, mainly because they often compete for the same housing and jobs, and suffer from crime and crowding (in schools, hospitals e.r. & housing) that comes with immigrants moving in to their town (same reasons these politicians are now attracting legal Latinos who vote).
As for DeSantis & the rest of those Ivy-leagued boys -- Well, that Ivy rubbed the trashiness right out of them, because even if they used to be somewhat poor (DeSantis) they will always be thinking that their classmates and their old professors are watching -- Nah -- No Ivy-league person will ever be able to do real Trash.
Strap in your seatbelts, a generation of mini-Trumps are coming out of their trailers to get their American Dream of power & voice....finally....like African-Americans since they got Obama, White Trailer Trash folks have found their voice.
I've argued from the moment Trump rode that golden elevator to the lobby of Trump tower to announce his candidacy that he was the id of the GOP set loose. Plenty of other Republican candidates before Trump had thrown out red meat to the base on issues such as immigration, judges, and abortion. But their heart wasn't in it. Trump's was. His trashiness was definitely part of the equation, but so to was his ability to identify with his audience. His grievances were their grievances, his hatreds were theirs as well. He resented the same set of elites they did, elites who may have let him into their circles but never accepted him. Elites for whom he was no more than gauche, garish clown with lots of money but zero class. Trump was the base's revenge on those who thought themselves better. His was (and is) the politics of resentment writ large, and everytime he owned a Lib, they cheered.
He won the nomination after the first Republican debate, presenting as high energy and focused while the rest of the pack plodded along, unsure how to deal with the phenomenon that was and still is Trump. The truth is that it's no more possible to deal with a narcissist in any conventional manner than it is to nail jello to the wall. They are shape shifters extraordinaire.
Trump seized a particular political moment and brought most of his party along with him. I watched my elderly parents, particularly my late mother who'd been a moderate Republican for most of her life, go from seeing him as a joke to embracing him once he became the nominee, oblivious to the obvious con. Ditto for many of the "I know he's an arsehole but" suburban Republicans among my friends and coworkers. I doubt Trump has a successor who can command that kind of devotion, much like the Democrats have been unable to find anyone to succeed Obama. And remember, Obama won his first election by a huge margin, an achievement that eluded Trump, who eked out a narrow electoral college victory the first go round.
I suppose unpredictability lends hope when you see the system as fundamentally rigged against you. (And Trump represents both success and iconoclasm, a rare combination. Both ingredients are necessary for Trump to stand for a “way out” when the deck seems stacked against you.)