The inevitable Donald Trump column
Over the past two months, Beirut has slowly been inundated with garbage. Thanks to an impenetrable combination of corruption, political posturing, technocratic hang-ups and Lord knows what else, garbage pickup has been entirely halted for more than two months.
What seems to be a genuine populist movement has sprung up to protest the rodent-attracting filth. Every weekend, protesters have taken over the center of town and marched, listened to speeches, chanted chants and carried signs. The police, attracted by the growing numbers, have fought back with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. The name of the group is You Stink. Hezbollah, the Iran-backed political and social powerhouse, has taken advantage of the crisis to promote its viewpoints and its leaders. Its major Sunni rival, the Future Movement, has also used the crisis to trumpet its own leaders and programs.
Many of the demonstrators interviewed by the New York Times seemed unimpressed with both claims, as well as with government attempts to solve the problem by firing various bureaucrats. They’re not interested in spin or speeches. They want the garbage picked up.
Said one demonstrator about the various politicians: “They’re trying to play the usual game. What they don’t understand is that we are against all of them.”
Which brings us to the candidacy of Donald Trump.
One of the things I’ve liked about Trump is the confusion that he’s sown in the ranks of my enemies. Jeb Bush, who traded on being George Bush’s smarter brother for just ever so long, seemed to shrink in comparison with Trump, and Scott Walker (a moist, glittery ball of ambition) has turned pygmy size, muttering absurdities while avoiding anything more controversial than the blood of Jesus, in which he was bathed.
Ted Cruz has at least realized he was beaten, and now seems to be campaigning to be Trump’s vice president.
But none of them can match Trump, because at some level they all really, really need to be elected. They’re junkies for power, even the imaginary power enjoyed by politicians in this corporate state. And so they will try to do or say anything that will get them nominated. It’s way beyond cynical.
Trump does not seem to care about getting elected. That’s why he’s confusing. You can’t attack him on the issues, because he never talks about issues. He’ll talk in slogans and bombast, not issues. Besides, issues are such a 19th century way of evaluating candidates.
He says any damn thing he feels like saying. Who could not help being refreshed by that?
Pre-Trump politics were characterized by naked pandering to rich people. Candidates would suck up money, then go say what they were supposed to say. Hooray, Israel and guns; boo, Planned Parenthood and financial reforms. Everything was calibrated. Bush sniffed the bigoted air and decided to move 1.5 inches to the right by uttering the phrase “anchor baby.” Trump prefers the term “rapist.” And let us not think that Democratic politicians are immune from this sort of nonsense. They pander too, although they’re pandering to us, so we don’t notice it so much. Hillary Clinton is just great on the issues, really, really smart, but her handlers are so deathly afraid of everything that they never did figure out how to deal with the e-mail thing.
Besides, most Americans don’t care about the e-mail thing. They think, “She’s rich enough to have her own e-mail server.” It’s the hubris of it that gets on everyone’s nerves. Trump is so hubristic that he’s gone straight over the edge. He’s the greatest at everything; just ask him. He can handle any foreign person because he’s a real American. He’s heedless. Who cares if he’s godless, or a covert Planned Parenthood supporter, or a known donor to Democratic candidates? Let’s see how many noses he can tweak. Because, candidly, we hate all their noses.
As the guy in Beirut said: “They’re trying to play the usual game. What they don’t understand is that we are against all of them.”
That’s the movement that’s sweeping the globe: a profound fatigue with all political leaders. We see the world as it is, and we know who got us here, and we know it wasn’t us. So if I wake up with poison gas in my lungs, it doesn’t matter whether the gas came from enemy action or environmental inaction.
I have no thoughts about the future of the Trump campaign. He could quit tomorrow and reveal an affair with Miss Universe 2011, or he could start wearing paper hats and tossing $1,000 chips into the audience. But I do know he’s tapped into something that politicians don’t want to believe: They’re the problem. Not the current government or the current opposition: them. Run against that.
There’s even a Trump for the fact-based community: Bernie Sanders. If only he were better at bombast.