Author Topic: The Trump Virus and Its Symptoms ....By Charles C. W. Cooke  (Read 776 times)

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The Trump Virus and Its Symptoms ....By Charles C. W. Cooke
« on: August 11, 2015, 01:20:03 pm »
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/422347/print

 The Trump Virus and Its Symptoms
By Charles C. W. Cooke — August 10, 2015

A plague is sweeping the land, gathering victims of all shapes and sizes and turning them into fools. Its name — for now — is Trumpism.

The Trump virus’s primary effect is twofold: First, it implants in its hosts the unshakable conviction that one of the most execrable clowns in the history of these United States is a hero who deserves to be elevated to the White House; then, having inculcated the conceit, it removes the faculties that are necessary for its removal. The results are ruinous. As might the partisans of a deliberately unfalsifiable conspiracy theory, those who have been stricken soon come to believe in earnest that there is no such thing as a fair-minded or legitimate criticism of their swashbuckling charge, and that all embarrassments, mistakes, and inadequacies are in fact signs of imminent victory. To converse at length with a committed Trumpite is, in consequence, akin in nature to conversing at length with a moon-landing denier: Every protestation is taken as a clear indication of complicity in the cover-up; distinctions between matters of minor and major import are disintegrated at will; run-of-the-mill inquiries are received as telltale signs of “fear” or of “hatred”; and bluster and the turning of rhetorical tables (“so who do you like: Jeb?”) substitute for patience and for forthrightness. There is a certain irony in this. By their own insistence, Trump’s devotees consider themselves to be the rebels at the gates; by their dull, unreflective, often ovine behavior, they resemble binary and nuancless drones, as might be found in a novel by Aldous Huxley or Yevgeny Zamyatin.

In parallel, the Trump virus yields a second — and equally potent — symptom: It provokes otherwise intelligent people into an ugly form of civil confusion. Because the Trumpite has invariably arrived at his conclusion before he has considered his premises, he is prone to disastrous conflation when pressed to explain himself. Thus does he mistake boorishness and vapidity for courage and the common touch. Thus does he muddle together self-interest and public spiritedness. Thus, ultimately, does he come to believe that fatal weaknesses should be conceived as dazzling strengths. In a sane world it would be abundantly clear to anybody whose research skills extend to the casual use of Wikipedia that Donald Trump not only lacks crucial government experience but that, insofar as he has hitherto connected with that world, his behavior has been appalling. And yet, because Washington is a mess and a plague o’ both your houses! tendency currently obtains, the Trumpite is prone to assert without evidence or reason that these clear deficiencies are in fact a remedy for its ills. In the main, such gymnastics are roundly comical — comparable, perhaps, to a person’s choosing a disabled man to run in a marathon because he is especially bombastic. “But he can’t even walk,” the naysayers might observe. “That’s the point!” would come the inexplicable reply. “He’s not like the others!”

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