Come on baby, let’s do the transgressive jerk
Asley Parker at the Post points out that Trump is becoming a pariah. (Not thoroughly enough or fast enough, is my first thought.)
Less than two years into his first term, Trump has often come to occupy the role of pariah — both unwelcome and unwilling to perform the basic rituals and ceremonies of the presidency, from public displays of mourning to cultural ceremonies.
In addition to being pointedly not invited to McCain’s funeral and memorial service later this week — while former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will both eulogize the Arizona Republican — Trump was quietly asked to stay away from former first lady Barbara Bush’s funeral earlier this year. He also opted to skip the annual Kennedy Center Honors last year amid a political backlash from some of the honorees and has faced repeated public rebuffs from athletes invited to the White House after winning championships.
The surprise though isn’t that some people say no but that any say yes. It’s not as if Trump is subtle. It’s not as if his awfulness is at all hidden or veiled or moderated. It’s all right out there. He’s a monstrous human being by every criterion; the surprise is that he’s not universally shunned and abominated.
Trump has also found himself excluded from — or opting out of — other, more routine parts of the presidency. During a trip to the United Kingdom in June, his visit with Queen Elizabeth II was undermined by reports in the British press that she was the only member of the royal family willing to meet with him. And two months earlier, the president notably did not receive an invitation to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, though the duo — who are reportedly no fans of Trump — eschewed nearly all political guests.
…
“We’ve kind of elected this apex predator, and you don’t sit T. rex down at the dinner table,” said Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant and strategist. “I think civilized society doesn’t want him behaving crudely at the dinner table, and he has no interest in their pretensions.”
You also don’t elect T. rex president. An apex predator is not the best person for the job.
At his recent rallies, Trump has taken to expounding on his lack of acceptance by the “elites,” proclaiming it a badge of pride. And his disdain for what he terms political correctness is similarly applauded by many of his supporters.
“The thing to realize is that Donald Trump’s base revels in him playing the transgressive jerk,” said Rick Wilson, author of “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and a veteran of Republican campaigns.
Yes we know – he’s that guy at the bar, he’s the Twitter troll, he’s 4chan, he’s an insult comic, he’s the racist uncle everyone leaves town to avoid. We know. Let’s not ever do this again.
And that is the secret to why he is not universally shunned. He is speaking to a body of people who also pride themselves on not being the “elite” – having totally changed the definition of what “elite” means to mean anyone who reads, who understands words of three or more syllables, or has an education. Or anyone that disagrees with the so-called family values brigade. Or anyone who doesn’t like Trump.
Elite should mean the hereditary rich, like it once did. When I was in school, the elite were the rich kids, not the smart kids. They were the ones whose daddy was a politician or a doctor or an oil man. They were the ones who thought people who raised pigs and sheep were filth, but people who raised horses and dogs were superior human beings. The smart kids? They were often the despised, yes, but not because they were elite. They were despised by the elite.
We still have that sort of elite – the rich, the snobbish – but somehow or other, they have convinced a lot of people that they are not elite, they are the authentic, the real, the down home people. They give themselves freedom to hate people based on arbitrary characteristics, unlike the “politically correct elite”. They have educations, but use simple words and phrases (often self-consciously, I suspect) unlike the “educated elite”. They have money, but somehow convince people without money that they are one of them, and the “educated, politically correct elite” are people who don’t care a flying fig about working people – thus turning the equation around completely. And it has been a winning strategy for them.
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