I am preoccupied with Trump, and what he means for our nation. He is single-handedly destroying the Republican Party. We haven’t seen a political party collapse in this country in well over a century. It’s happening now. Institutions that are strong don’t collapse overnight. I don’t know that even Trump saw the rot in the GOP. But it was rotten, and that’s why it’s collapsing.
Consider: the last two men standing in the GOP primaries are the two candidates most hated by the Republican establishment: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
.. I think back to watching his Mobile rally — August 21, 2015 — on TV, the first time I had seen an entire Trump campaign speech. Thirty thousand people came out to hear him. And the speech was ridiculous — a rambling mess. I snorted that anybody would be taken in by this nonsense.
.. As someone who was told, by the respectable heads of a deeply respectable institution, that I am not a respectable person and have no place in respectable society (and I have heard some version of this my entire life), to see Donald Trump succeed is … well, gratifying. There is nothing respectable about the man. His tawdry, messy life is an open book, his mouth something of a festering, running sore. He’s not much of a thinker. His use of the law to advance his fortune is rather shameless. But honestly, I wish I could live that shamelessly, with that kind of courage, and that kind of persistence, and not have my life and my words constantly held against me. Or not care, because the judgements of gate-keepers don’t matter. Trump is poking all of the right people in the eyes for all the right reasons. I don’t so much care that he wins, but I am enjoying the spectacle of watching someone live so openly and so honestly. He’s coarse and crude, but he appears to make no pretenses. He offends all the right people. He seems to be honest about who he is. That’s not the same as speaking the truth — Trump speaks very little of that. But as someone who has lived in a world that has held the fact that I am Charles Featherstone against me, I am in awe.
.. I wish I could do that. I wish I could get away with it. And succeed as spectacularly as Trump is.
Past that, though, what he actually says resonates with me. Some. Mostly his anger, the anger he channels of people who do not matter, and who know they do not matter, who know the world is increasingly rigged against them.
.. Trump channels something — the rage and desperation of a people who know they don’t matter anymore.
.. Yes, they have may been a privileged people once, knowing the order of the world arising from the great struggles of the first half of the 20th century was arranged for them, and may be struggling for privilege again, but they also know politics has told them — economically and socially — “lie down and die.” That they are white, and crude, and prone to brutality and violence, frequently not very compassionate or empathetic, all-too-often confused by the world, and that their religion is simplistic and mostly idolatrous, all that makes it hard to sympathize with them. (I find it hard.) But you leave people behind at your peril. You can tell them to “lie down and die,” and some will. But many won’t.
.. His supporters realize he’s a joke. They do not care. They know he’s authoritarian, nationalist, almost un-American, and they love him anyway, because he disrupts a broken political process and beats establishment candidates who’ve long ignored their interests.
When you’re earning $32,000 a year and haven’t had a decent vacation in over a decade, it doesn’t matter who Trump appoints to the U.N., or if he poisons America’s standing in the world, you just want to win again, whoever the victim, whatever the price.
As productivity climbed, working-class Americans wanted their wages to rise also. Instead, Republicans gave them tax cuts for the rich while liberal Democrats called them racists and bigots.
.. I think Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a demagogue who would be a terrible president, possibly even a tyrant. But I get why people less secure economically than I am don’t care, and are for him anyway
How to Cool Down Trump
Hell,” said Alabama’s Democratic governor George Wallace before roiling the 1968 presidential race, “we got too much dignity in government now, what we need is some meanness.” Twelve elections later, Wallace’s wish is approaching fulfillment as Republicans contemplate nominating someone who would run to Hillary Clinton’s left.
.. His supporters like him, not what pass for his “ideas,” so the way to stop him is to show him to be unlikable.
Behind China’s woes, myth of competent autocrats
Government service in an autocracy often carries high moral costs for talented individuals: It leads to the loss of personal dignity in a political hierarchy where the only thing that matters is the status of an official (that is why Chinese officials have business cards with minute details of their official ranks and status that Western businessmen would find totally incomprehensible). Junior or subordinate officials in this system are routinely humiliated and mistreated by their superiors. With the private sector offering better opportunities and psychological well-being, most talented individuals would prefer to seek their fortune outside the government.
Consequently, government service tends to attract not only less talented but also more opportunistic individuals who otherwise cannot compete in the marketplace.
ISIS Displaying a Deft Command of Varied Media
“In people’s minds, the caliphate is about victory and dignity of Muslims. A caliph is a defender of Muslims against the enemies from within and without.”
.. Many of the region’s Sunnis have deep sympathy for any force that can challenge the Iraqi or Syrian governments, which they feel have oppressed Sunnis.