By Dennis Matanda
When one is about to provide a solid rationale for the phenomenon – no, enigma – that is, Donald J. Trump, the object and subject of our endeavor throws another wrench into the works. With recent comments attacking mostly black athletes, the American president succeeds at setting up another clash between the races. So, as is wont to happen with Trump, we are ephemerally distracted from the fundamental task of illustrating that there’s concrete logic to electing Barack Obama and then seeming to turn around to elect his polar opposite.
That Trump is as obstreperous as an attention-seeking teenage boy is not in doubt. The lowest moment of his eventually successful campaign had him on display as a genital-grabbing pervert. He preyed on the apparent weaknesses of his opponents and refused to release his taxes. He did uncountable and ostensibly unconscionable things that would have disqualified a less-determined candidate. And yet, on November 8, 2016, America saw it fit to elect Trump as their 45th president.
Surely, Americans are not stupid, are they? Did they not see Trump as impulsive, a dilettante in juxtaposition to former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
Failure
Well, given that a great many people still support Trump almost a year into his scandal-plagued presidency, it appears that Americans care less about how one governs, and more about how the governor makes them feel. While most official and unofficial polls show that most people disapprove of how the president governs, the polls could be wrong, once again, because Trump is still a rock star at his rallies. His respective crowds engorge themselves out of his hands; he is only too happy to feed them the proverbial red meat. In this case, although Part I suggested that Trump may be deemed a failure in Neustadtian terms, the hold he has on his people – his power to persuade in the face of white-hot opposition – translates into being wildly successful as an American president.
But how delicious is this red meat that more than 62 million Americans (those that voted for him) are so specifically hungry for? And while we are on the subject, what was it about Hillary Clinton that made people look away from Trump? While Part I suggested that Trump was president because he was as wily as Odin, the wagons of Part II are hitched to Robert Michels’ thesis on leadership.
In his groundbreaking ‘Political Parties’ – written as World War One raged on – Michels explains why enough people were, supposedly, drawn to Trump over Clinton. Michels suggests that just as they pulled the lever for a black Barack Obama over a war hero like John McCain in 2008 and also over picture-perfect Mitt Romney in 2012, it is impossible for the masses to escape the aesthetic and emotional influence of words. The fineness of the oratory exercises a suggestive influence whereby the crowd is completely subordinated to the will of the orator (Michels, 1915).
Red Meat
While some may argue that Trump’s speeches are neither eloquent nor uplifting, the essence of ‘red meat’ is that it is all about touching raw emotions. A Mexican rapist is a clear and present danger to an Arizona farmer who is afraid that hordes of uneducated illegal immigrants will attack and ravage his teenage daughter. If you do not have a job, it is not your fault but the fault of people like Obama, Hillary Clinton, and her husband who shipped your job to Mexicans, Canadians, and Chinese. The need to repeal and replace Obamacare is premised on the ‘fact’ that your health insurance is more expensive because blacks and other minorities are taking the benefits due to you as a hardworking (white) American.
And for the record, because a black man could not become president unless affirmative action were applied, we really ought to remove all these crutches since a “real man” is a self-made one, someone who pulls themselves up and attains the American dream on their own. And someone as nonchalant about American lives in Benghazi as Hillary Clinton is cagey and careless with her emails should never be allowed anywhere near the People’s House!
And just like that, we are back to this most recent scandal. In attacking athletes who do not stand for the national anthem, Trump was, perhaps, feeding his followers red meat.
In inference, the typical American football fan is a middle-class white person. The guttural cheers for their mostly-black players are, perhaps, less about the man behind the helmet and more about the jersey that man wears. Those numbers, colors, emblems, mascots, and sports memorabilia could have a firm foundation in their emotional appeal.
So, perhaps, when The Man with the Microphone ineloquently or otherwise points out that THAT black person paid millions to entertain you on Sunday is being disrespectful to the flag — the same flag that draped the coffin your neighbor’s son was returned in after being killed by uncivilized marauding hordes — damn that nigger to hell!
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