I told myself that I wouldn’t be dragged into Donald Trump’s “birther” cesspool, yet here I am.
It became too much to ignore when he climbed to the top of the Republicans’ admittedly weak field of presidential contenders and serious minds began to suggest that there was some virtue in his opportunistic vicissitudes about the president and his policy.
Let me be clear: Trump’s little game doesn’t reflect American ideology as much as it exposes the flaws within it.
It further exacerbates a corrosive culture on the right that now celebrates the Cult of Idiocy — from Glenn Beck to Michele Bachmann — where riling liberals is more valuable than reason and logic, and where intellectualism and even basic learnedness are viewed with suspicion and contempt.
It further advances the campaign of the rich and powerful in America to exploit the fears of those who feel most fragile in an effort to increase or insulate their fortunes.
It further enshrines the destructive pop culture dogma that fame and fortune grant moral wiggle room to flout the rules and obscure the truth.
And, yes, it further plays to the heavy racial undertones that have marked this presidency. (This was underscored in the ugliest of ways last week when Marilyn Davenport, a Tea Party activist, sent an e-mail containing an Obama “family portrait,” portraying them as apes under the phrase, “Now you know why no birth certificate.”)
I first met Donald Trump a couple of months ago at a cocktail party. Someone introduced us, and he immediately started in on a speech about how beloved he was among blacks. He said that everywhere he went, blacks were telling him to run for president and that some hip-hop stars had told him that he was the most popular white man among black people. (He reiterated this point last week, which was published in amNew York, claiming, “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”)
I was stunned — a smirk frozen on my face. Why this speech? Why me?
He had made a quick racial calculation and gone for it. And, in some ways, he was right.
Yes, I am obviously black. Yes, I follow politics. And, yes, I am a fan of hip-hop — so much so that a line from Lauryn Hill’s seminal 1998 work sprang to mind: “Men who lack conscience will even lie to themselves.” But the egalitarian intellectual in me chafed. These were exactly the kind of racial assumptions and panderings that I despise.
Trump has made the same racial calculation about the right, and he’s again going for it. Only there aren’t enough of them chafing, and too many are cheering. It fits with and affirms their desire to delegitimize this president by any means necessary.
In a way, Trump is simply doing what Trump does: recognizing a branding opportunity and playing the part to seize it while simultaneously basking in the glow of his own narcissistic neurosis.
As the character Jack Driscoll says in the 2005 remake of “King Kong”: “Actors! They travel the world, all they ever see is a mirror.” Trump is worse still — a combination of the self-absorbed actor and the B-movie creature that some in the audience root for but most revile — a kind of King Combover.
He’s a little man with little to lose. But the right is making itself smaller by applauding him, and, in so doing, forfeiting what little moral and intellectual standing that they have left.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Monday, April 25th 2011 at 10:46PM
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