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Trump: Three Unsayable Things

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A few words about Donald Trump. Yes, I despise him, and I think his advance toward the nomination has been a thoroughly depressing spectacle. But that's not what I'm going to say today.

Instead, it is this: Trump has spoken thoughts that have long been unspeakable in Republican circles. For example, he has offered some kind words for the work of Planned Parenthood. How shocking! He very heavily qualifies those words as soon as they come out of his mouth, but he says them. 

Also, Trump has said that we as a nation were bamboozled into a war with Iraq by lies (or falsehoods when he's being polite) about weapons of mass destruction. Nobody else is saying that, in either party really. Yes, Sanders criticizes Mrs Clinton's hawkish votes as Senator, but he has left the WMD thing in the memory hole. I'm glad somebody has pulled it out of there. 

One more: Trump suggests that the US can and should play a mediator's/deal-makers role in the Israel/Palestinian conflict. The fact that everyone else on the stage with him tends to react with horror when he says this demonstrates the urgency thereof. The US played such a role in the distant era of the Camp David Accords, and it isn't inconceivable it could happen again. It certainly seems a healthier sort of public discussion than one focused on how hawkish we can be on Israel's behalf.

Since there's no longer a Bush in the race, Trump hasn't lately felt the need to say the second of those unsayable things. Yet the first and third still arise. 

So perhaps (assuming he doesn't become President! still a horrible thought!) the Trump campaign will be seen as a hygienic thing, the way certain long unacceptable ideas become sayable.   

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  1. HenryMarch 17, 2016 at 7:15 AM

    A law professor discusses the psychological reason that this "hygienic thing" makes Trump popular:

    A lot of what I am seeing in the public's response to Trump -- in addition to the counterpoint between White Supremacy and economic populism -- is a response to a smart, highly charismatic sociopath. People resonate to Trump's outrageous behavior not primarily because they have a deep commitment to the misogyny or the racism that he exhibits (though that may well be true in many cases), but because they see him acting in a completely unrestrained fashion and getting away with it -- indeed, having people give him huge affirmation for doing so -- and seeing that spectacle touches on some of their deepest and most unacknowledged fantasies. People who resonate with Trump have daydreamed about being able to be as unrestrained and uninhibited as they see Trump being, but they never thought it was possible to do that and also be a successful adult. In Trump, they see that fantasy realized, and they want to make themselves a part of it.

    For some of them, the misogyny and the racism is just a secondary detail, perhaps even one that they find distasteful but that they are willing to accept as part of the deal in order to satisfy the long-held desire to feel unrestrained by adult limitations. For others, the misogyny and racism are mutually reinforcing, because they have also wanted to indulge those particular ideas but have felt unable to do so openly because of social disapprobation. In both cases, they want to feel the way that they imagine that Trump feels when he behaves this way -- like grown-up infants who can give full expression to the impulses of their minds and their bodies while also enjoying the trappings of a successful adult life.

    [The above is an excerpt from http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-guest-post-by-my-son.html]

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