It’s Trump’s world, we’re just living in it

He’s only been president for two weeks now, and already multiple people have said to me, “It’s already so terrible. How are we gonna get through this?”

Which is fitting, since I’ve been asking myself the exact same thing…

Donald Trump’s ongoing, wholesale attack on the press doesn’t just consist of his penchant for lying; he likes to inundate and saturate. He likes to seize the news cycle, over and over again, by saying the most outrageous, hateful, narcissistic, and shocking things imaginable. He knows it’ll be reported on; why wouldn’t it be? And then he just goes and manages to outdo himself. So the lies are just one slice of the pie chart. The other slices are varied forms of sensationalism. He knows that so long as we’re talking about him, be it negatively or positively, he is running the entire board. In this way, he games the press, the same way he’s gamed the government, the economy, and the legal system. 

It is hard to react, given the deluge of madness. On the one hand, you want to catalog everything, the better to preserve this frantic, unprecedented Moment of Trump (going on a decade now) in American history. On the other hand, you want to tune it out, ignoring him and his grim, dangerous antics, but you know if you do that, you’re not only neglecting your duties as a citizen, but you’re also ignoring a calamity that could someday greet you on your doorstep. You are thus stuck, traumatized. Be it inwardly or outwardly, you have to react. That is Trump’s sick power. He is the American Strongman. This is mass-scale bullying the likes of which our country’s never experienced firsthand. 

And here’s the worst part: if you’re left of center, or a leftist, or a classical liberal, and you call out Trump’s autocratic behavior, you embody a sanctimony that he uses against us in the course of maintaining his power. In other words, the compassion of the left, the sensitivity of the left, the search for equality among the left – all of these have become severe political liabilities. We are bedwetters. We are crybabies. We lack rugged individualism. We’re the death of the party. We are #MeToo. We are cancel culture. Therefore, anything we touch, anything we claim as important, can be readily dismissed by the proud new majority. Care about the environment? Whatever, tree-hugger. Care about trans rights? Whatever, haven’t you read the executive order? Trans people don’t even warrant their own category. 

Comedians now thrive on the right. Culture in general has drifted rightward. On the left are the puritans, the virtue-signalers, the dysregulated over-reactors, the micromanagers, the self-serious, panic-stricken useful idiots, many of whom can’t even see the rightward drift they’re provoking, so consumed are they by their leftwing friends, relatives, and media. For me to even write this column, and complain about Trump, is to instantly earn all of the above negative descriptions about those on the left, and for me to even list said descriptions about the left is to instantly earn (or re-earn) the suspicion of those on the left who have no idea what I’m talking about. But here we are and away I go…

I’ll cite three recent (meaning from in the last two weeks!) examples of egregious behavior on the part of Donald Trump, then share my own reaction and the right’s reaction, capped off by a reminder of why my own reaction doesn’t matter…

Trump pardoned 1,500 January 6 rioters. These were 1,500 criminal defendants, a number of whom were charged with violent crimes. For those with short memories (apparently a common problem, since the nation re-elected Donald Trump to the presidency last November), on January 6, 2021, in protest of what they incorrectly deemed a stolen presidential election, these 1,500 Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, wreaking havoc, resulting in 5 deaths (1 of a police officer), many injuries (174 of police officers), and later 4 police officer suicides. I cite the police officers not just because they were human beings trying to defend a historic government landmark, but because Trump has long touted himself as an upholder of law and order. But now, with the big man back in power, the law doesn’t matter if you are on his side. 

This was, in my opinion, the most nakedly authoritarian thing the bastard has ever done. He explicitly said, without even taking a side-door entranceway, that if you stand with him, then you can destroy property and kill and hurt people and get away with it without any consequences. Across the right, some cheered the pardons as upholding the brave actions of impassioned patriots, some expressed muted reservations and notes of disapproval, and many said nothing, privately maintaining that this move, however extreme, was a price worth paying for how much Trump stands to offer all of us economically (cheaper eggs) and culturally (traumatized TikTok leftists). The left, myself included, went into wide-eyed flip-out mode, thus reinforcing our reputation as a bunch of wet blankets who just can’t hang. (Hang with authoritarianism, but never mind.)

Trump revoked the security details of several members of the last two presidential administrations (his own included). Dr. Anthony Fauci, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook had all had government-provided security teams appointed to them due to threats issued from the public. But all men had also been critical of and/or had falling outs with Trump, so once he regained his seat behind the Oval Office desk, he unceremoniously stripped them of their protection, essentially feeding them to the wolves – or at the very least signaling to their accosters that they will now be easier to access. This was bald revenge, absent a shred of ambiguity, for the men’s disloyalty, as well as a stern warning to anyone else who’s even thinking about being disloyal to the president. Questioned about the move, the sociopath-in-chief said, “They all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security.” And that right there is Bullying 101: the reference to the men’s finances is so bald, so personal, such a none-of-his-fucking-business piece of terrain that Trump is so proud to trespass onto, and it’s classic bullying because like all bullies, Trump imposes a certain intimacy upon his victims, in this case not only leaving them vulnerable to murderers, but cynically commenting on their bank accounts as he does so. Forgive my brief lapse of linguistic resourcefulness, but what an asshole. 

But many on the right, having a particular fixation with Fauci (holding him responsible for the COVID mask mandates and lockdowns), hang strong with Trump’s spirit of comeuppance, never mind the fact that it was Trump’s rhetoric that led to Fauci being threatened in the first place. On the other hand, if I allow my head to explode over this, let alone in public, then for certain I’m just another left-wing trainwreck, handily reinforcing our nation’s dire need for decisive tough guys.

Trump blamed the recent plane crash in Washington, D.C., on DEI hiring practices. Last Wednesday night, an American Airlines passenger plane carrying 60 passengers and 4 crew members crashed into an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying 3 soldiers. The crafts went down in the Potomac River. Everybody aboard them died, including top figure skaters from the U.S. and Russia. The president of the United States then wasted no time whatsoever in attributing the disaster to DEI hiring practices. 

For the uninitiated, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Over the past decade, companies and universities across America have fervently embraced DEI practices so as to ensure that minorities are welcome and well-represented among them. A debate about DEI has been raging in the U.S. for a while now, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and Jews were not granted the same widespread sympathy as other minorities might have received, stemming from a perception of Jews as privileged (i.e., oppressors). 

DEI in its finest implementations sheds light on oppression and works to dismantle and heal systemic injustice. DEI in its weaker incarnations can create an atmosphere of tribalism by amplifying divisions based on identity. (The sentiment in the last sentence is the sum total of Donald Trump’s appeal to American voters, minorities who dislike DEI among them.) To be sure, there is a debate to be had. As a Jew, I know that I’m (A) a member of a loathed minority but (B) not a meaningful part of the DEI agenda. The GOP courted the Jewish vote last year from this vantage point, playing up the notion that the Democrats had betrayed us, but some 80% of Jews, myself included, didn’t pick up what they were putting down when we got to the ballot box. DEI, whatever its limitations or blind spots, is a project worth undertaking. It is also an endeavor well worth scrutinizing. What it’s not, however, is RESPONSIBLE FOR A GODDAMN PLANE CRASH.

Again, I beg your forgiveness for my bluntness, but what a racist thing to say. What a needless, thoughtless, anti-productive, and intellectually barren statement on the part of Donald Trump. And in true Trump fashion, he had no facts to back it up. Then in true Trumper fashion, his supporters tied themselves in knots highlighting DEI’s role in recent FAA hiring trends (disconnected from the tragic accident, but never mind). Then, in true left-wing hysteria fashion, half my friends started emotionally declaring that DEI is perfect and should never be questioned.

To quote Jerry Maguire (may as well, since nothing else makes sense anyway): “Jump in my nightmare, the water’s warm.” 

**

Donald Trump got re-elected as an alternative to wokeism. He is a “free” man, you see (only not from his narcissism): says what he wants, does what he wants, takes great big gambles, lets the chips fall where they may. Not for him are the bloodless constrictions of the left, where speech is tightly controlled and where we walk on eggshells while trying to navigate the simplest conversations. The appeal of a ruggedly individualistic right is tangible, but it’s also hinged on an illusion: for Trump created the “woke” left. By trolling us, by bullying us, by shocking us, by abusing us, he spurred us a million-billion times into a hypersensitive reaction and then pointed at us and said to those who might choose to vote for him, “Do you see the way they are? How can you stand being around these losers?”

Trump is not, in other words, part of the solution.

He is, however (and he may be nothing more), an undisputed master of marketing. Before he won in November, I saw his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. My awe was twofold: (1) Trump was acting normal, regulated, docile, intuitive, and down-to-Earth and (2) I knew that his appearance on the show, despite the fact that it was being watched and listened to by tens of millions of people, was happening well within the left’s blind spot. To those who watch “The View” every day, Joe Rogan is on a level just about equal to cable access television. The scale of his popularity, let alone the root of it, are in no way worthy of the left’s examination. (Hilariously, though, in the wake of our crushing loss, the left would soon start saying, “We need our own Joe Rogan,” an ironic wish considering that Rogan ascended as a result of having rejected left-wing groupthink.)

In 1960, near the dawn of television, John F. Kennedy took hold. He was young and handsome. The cameras loved him. With this brave new medium on the scene, you had to look good or you were out. So it is with Donald J. Trump, only in his case the medium is social media. And Trump is at one with today’s new medium: overwrought, overbearing, unending, addictive, unpredictable, insane. More, he is a particular form of social media character: Donald Trump is a troll. And he’s the single greatest troll in human history. For he is a troll who can’t be blocked or ignored; to do so would be irresponsible. So we have to watch him. We have to stay glued to him. He is a wailing alarm with an inexhaustible power source. He is a mass, rancid outbreak of OCD. He is, despite the visceral disgust he causes me, undeniably one of the most talented disruptors I have ever seen. 

Pre-Internet, our culture had so much shared media. We all watched the same movies, enjoyed the same TV shows. Nowadays, everybody consumes their own customized content. We’re all sealed in our bubbles, diced up into a billion-trillion little audiences. Amid all this noise, all this nonstop, 24/7 media saturation, we hold only one thing in common, no matter who we are or where we stand; the same way at one time we had Marilyn Monroe, or at another time we had “Cheers.” Only this time, what we share doesn’t unite us; it keeps us divided and depleted, reactive and on guard.

Till the day of the next disruption, we have him.