September 14th, 2015
Yet more from Galley Friend X:
And that shows why he does what he does vis-a-vis his opponents–and why it works. He’s a real man and they’re sissies and he lets them know it.I increasingly think the Trump phenomenon is best explained by Tom Wolfe’s book A Man in Full. There are obvious similarities between Trump and Croker: both real estate developers, both on the wrong side of lenders, both arrogant, both adopt a trade-in policy for wives. It’s about an insecure narcissist’s relationship with masculinity, which is basically Trump.
“Carson? Guys like me hire doctors–and good ones. Fiorina? I hire Stanford poindexters to run my companies. But she did a bad job. To be honest I would have fired her if she did that bad a job in one of my companies. Romney? I take his money; guys like Romney don’t build anything, they just shuffle paper. Fuck them. Jeb? He has built nothing with his inheritance. He married a Mexican and went into politics because he knew from the start he wouldn’t cut it in the real world. I bet he’ll become a college professor after this. Walker? He shops at Kohl’s! I golf with Kohlses. Cruz? He could argue my bankruptcy case–on appeal; nerds like him are not very good before juries. They’re not. Kasich? I’ll give him a no-show job between his government gigs. It’ll get me some permits in Ohio. Assuming I want to build anything in Ohio, which I don’t. Christie? Fat; should run for President of Krispy Kreme. Jindal? Nerd. Probably didn’t even get into med-school. Graham? Please. Santorum? What’s he trying to prove with all those kids? He lost to a dead guy. Perry? Idiot; “uhhh … umm … uhhh.” Rand? Probably a shitty doctor and can’t afford a decent haircut.”
The only “non-loser” in the field seems to be Rubio. He’s a professional politician (not a professional in politics) which means he wins to eat. He also married a Dolphin’s cheerleader back when he was still poor. That has to steam the Donald.
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I love it… Every pundit and his mother has a novel armchair-psychiatrist explanation, well versed in current stereotypes and creative-class journalese, for why the guy in front got there; Kim Strassel says it’s because the voters are all immature “whatever” revanchists; George Will has his weekly aneurysm over the proles’ gauche declasse beer-drinking rock-music-listening vulgarity. Hot takes and peevish theories of style points and flyover crassness are necessary, you see, there’s a booming market for them — because the polls couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with Trump’s anti-amnesty anti-arbitrage pro-citizenship tack on immigration policy, oh no! That’s just kiddie table talk! Let’s hear instead about the secret mind control waves… Tell me anything, ANYTHING but the obvious, dear sirs
BTW, as regards border liquidation, Rubio’s Wolfeian jock/stud quotient is presently cooler than a jailyard punk’s new batch of pruno fermented at Mister Schumer’s request.
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[…] for six years while backing Kaus-ian anti-amnesty center-leftist Donald Trump now? Some of it, as Jonathan Last suggests, is simply Trump’s alpha-male appeal. A party whose base is blue-collar and rural […]
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Nitpick: It was John Ashcroft who lost to a dead guy.
JAT September 14, 2015 at 4:46 pm
I buy that Trump is an insecure narcissist, but I’m not sold on the Croker analogy. Been a long time since I read the book, but wasn’t Croker, “the last of the 60 minute men”, an authentic football hero (and an authentic SOUTHERN football hero at that). And wasn’t he also legitimately talented at other manly endeavors like wing shooting (if I recall the opening scene correctly). And he was completely self-made, no? The point is that Croker was legitimately Alpha, while Trump, the entitled heir, born on third base, well-known golf cheater, well, he just plays an Alpha on TV.
My two cents.