In the election of new President of the United States of America Donald Trump, we have the first ever American instance of an elect not having any political experience whatsoever. The only even remote comparable would probably be Ronald Reagan, who, although enjoying a measurable career as a Hollywood actor, did at least serve as governor of California. Wikipedia also outlines a sort of vague “political history” tied to Reagan part of which mentions an appearance on stage with Truman, during that presidential candidate’s campaign. He also served in the military.
Indeed, the election of Donald Trump eliminates what would seem to be an unwieldy slew of precedents in the department of values and ideals for politicians, and one would certainly be military experience, or at least acknowledgement of the military. I say that those in power should at least VALUE the military — Trump has gone on the record as comparing his schooling to being in combat, and is also, according to numerous prominently arranged websites, a documented draft dodger. Typically, in recent history, the issue has at least been leveled as a way of judging politicians’ credentials; with Trump, I have not heard it come up at all.
It seems to me, with the almost non-existent ability of people to hold Trump to any moral or professional standard, and the unexplainable support of such a disrespectful person who would refuse to talk to Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, and visibly make fun of a handicapped journalist, that there must still be some all-encompassing strain of perfection people see in this guy. Indeed, he is an American success story. [1] He owns a bunch of stuff, including casinos — the stuff he owns tags with it elements of fun, carelessness and wildness, exactly what everybody wants to do when they get off of a long day at work (along with the whole winning money on doing nothing thing).
So Trump has a lot of money. For this reason, since he didn’t really have to borrow in order to run a campaign, you could in a way make the case that he is less affected by Wall Street than his opponent was, Hillary Clinton, and I guess that is the case to an extent. This is a point one Trump-supporting acquaintance made to me in a discussion: Trump’s plan to penalize outsourcing. Also, to an extent, capitalism still runs our country. Even as I read my favorite article, the New Yorker one about Atlantic City, I’m bombarded with an audible pitch for a car, something that obviously does not have thematically to do with the article’s subject material. Maybe the election of Trump is just a political denouement of an already functioning rule in America: ownership of money is the foundational way to convey messages, and to assume power. Advertisements dominate our consciousness, whether we’re on the subway, watching TV, or reading online, and they have the sole objective of fetching funds.
Troublingly, another theory on why the public has so faithfully befriended Trump has to do in a way with racism, and in a way with just traditionalism — the idea of restoring American power to male whites, as a demographic. So Trump happens to be the TYPICAL, ARCHETYPAL male white, having other people do the dirty work for him, treating others demeaningly and reaping benefits and spotlight? All the better. Maybe we’ll make up for it next election — find an Australian redhead woman with Down’s Syndrome and elect her.
Trump’s continued habit of actually embodying a comedic persona, making unscrupulous comments and lacking defense for his delinquent commentary, should illustrate more than adequately that politics, today, doubles as entertainment. Dating back now for some time, it seems, every candidate we’ve prized has had some STORYLINE behind him, whether it be first-black-president, Texas ranger, pot-smoking sax player, or Hollywood actor. It seems we’re at the point where so furiously do we want to avoid being “boring” as Americans, so deep is the obligation to constantly entertain and assure people that they will not be judged on merits of their intelligence, that now we’ve come to expect the same thing from our president — his attributes are judged as if he were a sit-com character, or a movie star. If he lacks experience on the job, if he acts like a jerk pretty much all the time and respects basically nobody, it’s all overlooked provided that he does so with a sort of bad-boy, charismatic smoothness, and that he’s a success story at large in his own life.
So we hired Salma Hayek as a brain surgeon. We’ll see how this bed feels four years down the road, I guess. We’ve gone from RELIANCE on Wall Street, to all-out COMPETITION with Wall Street — so to the extent that profitable companies embody a praxis anatomy of America’s true identity, we are in a sense now fighting against ourselves. It’s as if one cancer cell has grown prominent and engaged in battle against its peers, with the help of a whole lot of chemical input — voters.
Getting back to these voters, I’d originally intended on depicting them as basically afraid of losing military power (Clinton ran on a platform of diplomatic placidity, and we see where that got her), or just generally afraid of losing a holistic sort of power (many voters likely white males in extolment of the American white male quintessential)… if a country does as its president does, then voters from sea to shining sea are certainly not ready to loosen their vice grip on what they have, and let in some global capital rearrangement. In fact, along with wanting to build the wall, Trump’s tariffs will discourage importing. Remember, one cancer cell is eating its peers.
Ultimately, any discussion like this gets into what’s good, and what’s bad — what’s commendable behavior, and what’s negative, or sultry behavior. Or maybe everything is OUTCOMES based — what are our goals, what do we want to avoid. I personally would have liked to avoid seeing Samuel L. Jackson, once featured in a minor little film called Pulp Fiction as having a “Bad Motherfu**er” wallet, asking us “What’s in your wallet?” for a Cap. One commercial.
What do the election results tell us about the voting public? My home state of Indiana is going to take a hit for this one big time, but surprisingly, so are Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, typical endorsers of the blue collar working man, and social programs to help him. Such a nod in favor of gratuitous wealth, then? This just shows that somehow Trump was able to capture the spirit of the blue collar, maybe a certain antipathetic disposition to the government as we know it, and some purported miserliness on its part.
Or, maybe they’re just a bunch of sexists. I remember reading a recent case about an instance of a policewoman shooting a black person after an altercation, and immediately getting charged, whereas the guys who were in on the killing of Alton Sterling had their episode just “investigated” by the district attorney or whatever. This is despite there actually being video footage of them using excessive force on him, from what I remember. Either way, all signs point to the next four years in America (fingers crossed hoping it will stop at that, maybe we’ll get Chuck Liddell running or something) seeming longer than they are, and I am fostering a severe concern that we will only drift farther from diplomacy, and from harmony with the rest of the world, at this time. Perhaps this entire notion will have to be rediscovered in due time, lest it be extinct entirely.
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[1] Although as anyone reading The New Yorker will know, even this is now debatable: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/07/the-death-and-life-of-atlantic-city