Lovely chap. Always so polite, always courteous, loves having the neighbours round, always willing to lend a hand. A true gent, honest to a fault, progressive, and with such a talent for diplomacy.
I’d like to say we all know the depths of this individual and assume everyone else sees through the madness, but then, not only did he bungle his way through elite corporate realms with teflon skin, turn himself into a beloved network TV Nero-hero figure, and despite openly advocating prejudice, mocking disabilities, boasting about habitual sexual assault and general predatory behaviour, he became POTUS.
There are explanations for this – namely, and perhaps obviously, a lot of folk harbour shared enthusiasm for his brand of greed, narcissism and throwback-barbarism – but I share an idea relating to what Keller Easterling so eloquently talks about in her Superbug theory. In discussing political activism as a part of the wider theory, there is a general context from which we can view the Donald as just a particularly grotesque, pusy symptom of the globalised patterns of social, structural, technological and economic development we dutifully subscribe to; the legally-protected corporate geopolitical manipulation and unchecked power structures that are so difficult to challenge. Putting to one side how the fella manages the myth of being a captain of industry while skating on taxes because his business endeavours apparently run at a loss – if not into the ground were it not for his reliance on much smarter, more competent (system-gaming) people on the payroll, or indeed the inherited wealth to prop him up – he has managed to play that cleverist of tricks, amplifying and solidifying his rabble-rousing agenda by baiting those of an opposite ideological stance into validating and reinforcing his position through their outrage.
Reducing choices to black or white binary positions allows people who may not consciously identify as a racist, xenophobe, sexist, bigot, etc., but are economically disadvantaged and are, if even to a mild extent, uneasy about certain liberal cultural or ideological sympathies held by those opposed to him, it is enough to throw in with the guy despite his unsavoury overarching agenda. ‘College don’t make you smarter than me’, ‘I hate tofu’, ‘drinking booze from jam jars, f*$kin’ hipsters’, ‘what do I care about the rest of the world, I got everything I need right here’, ‘#2nd amendment 4life‘, or any number of more and less trivial conservative prejudices individuals might hold can push them to pick a side and deepen the lines between.
People want change, always. The Donald positioned himself as a disrupter to the politics as usual, and on a platform of apportioning blame for economic hardship. The same logic and demagoguery allowed the UK to be sufficiently divided and clumsily back out of the EU – the pain and reality of that only just starting to reveal itself. Individuals, if their personal struggles are sufficient, will be more than willing (or ripe for manipulation) to compromise their morals in the interest of self-preservation. Divide and conquer.
Snarky editorial doodles wont change anyone’s mind maybe, but it makes me feel a tiny bit better so will be adding to these.
*Clarification on use of the word ‘pusy’. “Pus is an exudate, typically white-yellow, yellow, or yellow-brown, formed at the site of inflammation during a bacterial or fungal infection.” …. not a double-entendre.