I have my qualms with Dave Chappelle, but he described the appeal of Donald Trump as being “an honest liar.” The idea being that most politicians, but especially Democrats, say “Don’t look in this door. There’s nothing in there. Definitely not a party we’re invited to that you aren’t invited to.”
Whereas Trump says “Oh that door? Yeah, that’s the door to the powerful people party. You don’t get to go in, because you’re losers. But I do.” And I think that’s pretty spot on. It’s why so many people are ok with the whole “Trump is all talk, he doesn’t mean the crazy stuff” idea. They know he’s…
…full of shit about most things, but they are certain that he’s correct about the class and power imbalance in this country, because he is right about that. Since other politicians use sleight of hand to pretend like they aren’t part of that imbalance, they can see that he’s at least making one…
…correct assertion. And when the world has you in a vice to the point that you can’t spend all day studiously combing through data to see that he’s wrong about WHY and HOW, you still see other politicians pretending like they don’t participate in, or at least allow, trenchant class warfare.
That’s especially true when the message of America is “get ahead by all means necessary, so you can be the one doing the screwing.” Here’s a guy who says “You’re getting screwed, and I worked the system so I could be the one doing the screwing.” People see the Herzogian ecstatic truth amid the lies.
It’s emblematic of what happened during the Obama and Biden administrations, when so many metrics were used by Dems to prove that the country was doing well…meanwhile working class people were feeling the squeeze more and more, saying “Wait, they’re telling me it’s good, but it doesn’t feel good.”
Then they see a guy saying “You’re getting screwed by powerful people!” They know it’s true. They feel it in their bones. There are people out there who voted for Trump because the cruelty is the point. But there are also people who only had time to hear THE ONE THING he was right about. But not…
…enough time or wherewithal to figure out that he was wrong about why that’s the case and wrong about how to fix it. Or maybe they know he’s the only honest liar and other politicians are dishonest about being liars. Hate to say it, but this is why there were so many Bernie-Trump crossover folks.
(None of this negates the fact that misogyny has played a very real role in Trump’s victories. But saying that’s the only reason why he won is reductive and harmful to understanding why many people were able to be swayed.)
Neat.
This bit is a rip off of George Carlin's way funnier bit about Bill Clinton: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xAn...
