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Nathan J. Robinson Anatomy of a Monstrosity

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Nathan J. Robinson Anatomy of a Monstrosity “[Robinson] perfectly predicted what would happen in a Clinton-Trump race... He was one of the few pundits who did.” — FORTUNE TRUMP ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY NATHAN J. ROBINSON ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY TRUMP ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY By NATHAN J. ROBINSON Published by: Current Affairs Press P.O. Box 441394 W. Somerville, MA 02144 currentafairs.org Copyright © 2017 by Nathan J. Robinson All Rights Reserved First U.S. Edition Distributed on the West Coast by Waters & Smith, Ltd Monster City, CA ISBN 978-0997844771 No portion of this text may be reprinted without the express permission of Current Afairs, LLC. Cover photo copyright © Getty Images, reprinted with permission. Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication Data Robinson, Nathan J. Trump: Anatomy of a Monstrosity / Nathan J. Robinson p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-0997844771 1. Trump, Donald J. 2. Political science 3. Elections 4. Social Philosophy 1. Title To all those who have had the misfortune of sharing a planet with Donald J. Trump, and to those who shall someday get rid of him and everything for which he stands. “We are here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.” —Kurt Vonnegut “What kind of son have I created?” —Mary Trump, mother of Donald Trump1 CONTENTS Preface 13 Introduction: Trump U 19 I. Who He Is Te Life of Trump 37 Trump & Women 54 What Trump Stands For 69 Who Made Trump 97 II. How It Happened Trump the Candidate 111 Clinton v. Trump 127 What Caused It To Happen? 141 III. What It Means Despair Lingers 177 Orthodox Liberalism Has Been Repudiated 183 Te Press is Discredited Forever 199 Calamity Looms, or Possibly Doesn’t 211 Why Trump Must Be Defeated 217 IV. What To Do About It Bad Ways To Criticize Trump 229 A New Approach 243 Developing Efective Politics 255 Conclusion: Don’t Mourn, Organize 273 Appendix 283 Sources 317 TRUMP ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY How This Happened What It Means, and What To Do About It By NATHAN J. ROBINSON CURRENT AFFAIRS currentaffairs.org PREFACE his is not really a book about Donald Trump as a human Tbeing. It is about Donald Trump as a phenomenon. It is not cen- trally concerned with his family history, real estate deals, or marital fol- lies (although these receive a mention or two). Instead, it is about how Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. I am not especially interested to fgure out “who Donald Trump really is,” since nobody really knows. Instead, I am interested in how Donald Trump happened. While the frst section of the book covers Trump’s backstory, much of the text is concerned with analyzing the two years during which Trump navigated himself successfully to the White House, with special emphasis on how Democrats failed to stop him. I will mostly be interested in understanding how Trump managed to do what he did, and (even more importantly) fguring out what comes next. Essays and articles about Donald Trump can be deeply tiresome and repetitive. It is frequently unclear what purpose writing about Trump actually serves. After all, political journalists and jabberers have emit- ted millions upon millions of words about Trump in the last two years. Tey have said everything that could conceivably be said, about six times over. Trump has been the subject of at least eight full-length biographies,2 and there is an entire class of pundits who make pros- perous livings issuing daily denunciations of Trump. It would seem unnecessary to add further material to the pile. What, after all, can be said about this man that isn’t said constantly, and to little efect? Actually, I don’t think there is very much of worth left to write about Trump himself. Most of what I might seek to prove about Trump is already self-evident in this book’s cover photograph: he is a raving, blustering, showboating fim-fam artist, who makes persistent loud 14 ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY noises and sports a risible hairdo. Tese facts can be proven readily, and do not require several hundred pages of meticulously-footnoted argumentation. Trump is Trump, and little more need be said. Tere’s a bit of a paradox here, though. Trump is simultaneously extremely easy to understand and rather difcult. Because Trump is a bullshit artist of the highest order, it is almost impossible to access his “true” intentions or real feelings. Any attempt to understand Trump will inevitably sufer from the problem that much about Trump is simply unknowable. We do not know how much he means the things he says. We do not know what he intends to do, or how he would react in particular situations. All of this will be uncovered only through our experience of his presidency. It is tempting, then, to psychoanalyze Trump. Did his run for the presidency stem, as some have speculated,3 from a deep desire for revenge after his humiliation by Barack Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner? Is his ruthlessness and ambition the product of his unrequited adoration of his father,4 who was never impressed by even Donald’s loftiest business accomplishments? But psychoanalysis is necessarily speculative and inconclusive. Who knows what goes on within the Trump-brain? Tus instead of trying to penetrate the inner core of Trump’s being, one’s time is probably better spent fguring out the causes of his extraordinary rise to power. “What” and “how” questions are more fruitful than “why” questions, since “why” questions are without answer in an absurd and meaning- less universe. Why must there be a Donald Trump? God only knows. But how can we rid the world of its Trumps? Tat is a line of inquiry that may actually be useful to pursue. In this book, I want to answer three fundamental questions: How did it happen? What does it mean? And What do we do now? Te election of Trump as President left media commentators shell-shocked. Very few of them had truly appreciated that such a thing could actually happen. Many had seen 2016 as the year in which Hillary Clinton would stroll PREFACE 15 casually and confdently into the White House. When she did not, many comfortable certitudes evaporated, and American political life was thrown into utter disarray. While spending more of one’s breath criticizing Trump may be senseless, there is still much more work left to do in trying to fgure out what is going on. Some may object to, or be disappointed by, the amount of time I spend in this book discussing the Democratic Party. But I do not feel as if it is possible to answer the question of why Donald Trump won without discussing the question of why Hillary Clinton lost. I am concerned to understand a particular political moment in addition to understanding a single man, and that moment was shaped just as much by the collapse of Democratic political fortunes as the ascent of Republican ones. I don’t think an analysis of Trump can be useful or accurate without addressing what he is responding to and why it has worked for him. Tis is not, I stress, a biography of Donald Trump, but a guide to understanding the causes and meaning of his election as President of the United States. u u u u In conducting this inquiry, I will attempt to balance my own set of moral and political convictions with the dispassion necessary for useful and fair-minded analysis. I will confess up front that my studies of Trump have left me with a distinctive, and unfavorable, impression, one which I can’t hope to conceal. From my own perspective, Trump displays nearly all of the most odious tendencies in the human char- acter. Making him the most powerful individual in the world seems, to understate things somewhat, a decision of dubious advisability. I cannot think it will go well. I suspect a lot of people will be hurt by his presidency, and I do not like that it is happening.5 Yet even though I feel this way, I am nevertheless capable of examining Trump ana- lytically, and understanding his appeal. Explanation is not justifca- 16 ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY tion, nor does maintaining a critical perspective necessarily make one biased and unreliable. In fact, I think I take Trump far more seriously than many of his most partisan critics. I emphasize, despite the opinions I have formed on him, the importance not to fall into the fatal trap of writing of Trump as merely stupid and laughable. Trump is a serious political fgure and examinations of him should be careful. Sloppy Trump crit- icism only helps Trump, a point I shall return to later on.6 One thing it is important for Trump’s detractors to realize is just how powerful Trump’s personal attraction can be. He is, in some ways, mesmerizing. He is simultaneously deeply grotesque and oddly charming. He is singular and compelling even as he is being cruel and scary. If there is such a thing as “charisma,” Trump assuredly possesses it. It is worth understanding these traits, and how Trump has managed to be one of the few American businesspeople to successfully convert spectacular wealth into spectacular celebrity and political power. But let me emphasize also that while I do think some analysis of Trump can be helpful, I believe that time is better apportioned build- ing one’s own set of principles, and developing a compelling political alternative to Trump. Whatever we may not know about Trump, one of the things we do know is that negative attention is insufcient to undermine his political power.
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