http://link.nationalreview.com/view/54ecd6443b35d0b02a8ba7263nmk2.62zh/92a75bf9Prepare for the Trumpian TornadoJonah Goldberg
February 19, 2016
Tornadoes were long measured on the Fujita scale. An F1 tornado was the weakest and an F5 the strongest, which some call “the Finger of God.” Tetsuya Fujita allowed for an even stronger tornado, an F6, which would have “inconceivable” winds.
Yesterday, watching the coverage of Donald Trump’s spat with the pope (by Crom, I just wrote those words), I had the sickening feeling that we are in the early stages of the political equivalent of an F6,
the Middle Finger of God.Now, to be fair about all this, I think this whole thing was overblown. Much of the controversy is attributable to a lot of things being lost in translation and partial information being conveyed in a loaded question. I will even add that, to the extent there’s a clear argument about public policy here, Trump has the better of it.
But, as the pope might say, you reap what you sow. An increasingly irrational cadre of supporters have defended Donald Trump’s “middle-finger politics” as if the man is a disciplined, serious-minded politician who is brilliantly exposing the failures and hypocrisies of the American political system. I simply don’t buy it. A politician who had no idea what a “ground game” was until days before the Iowa caucuses and who has no idea why campaigns do their own polling is not a brilliant political craftsman. His failed flirtation with the Reform party was not a key part of his long game.
You can make the case that he’s a kind of natural, another political Will Hunting, who has “tapped into something,” and I’ll concede there’s evidence on your side. But the notion that there’s some rigorous method to the seeming madness strikes me as nothing more than magical thinking. Even to find coherence in his statements and consistency in his positions is an act of faith.
The fact that the ranks of Trumpian faithful are swelling is not evidence I am wrong. It is simply proof that political math really isn’t math at all. As I put it ten years ago, when Donald Trump was still a Democrat:
Politics has a math of its own. Whereas a scientifically minded person might see things this way: One person who says 2+2=5 is an idiot; two people who think 2+2=5 are two idiots; and a million people who think 2+2=5 are a whole lot of idiots -- political math works differently. Let’s work backwards: if a million people think 2+2=5, then they are not a million idiots, but a “constituency.” If they are growing in number, they are also a “movement.” And, if you were not only the first person to proclaim 2+2=5, but you were the first to persuade others, then you, my friend, are not an idiot, but a visionary.
Of course, idiocy and its distribution in the population isn’t the point. You can build a movement out of true observations -- i.e., 2+2=4 -- as well. The point is that political power flows from numbers and, more importantly, that such power becomes self-justifying for those who enjoy its effects. Passion becomes more “legitimate” as more people share it, no matter what the content or object of that passion is. Any unified field theory of politics would have to include this basic law of the political universe. It is true in democracies and dictatorships alike. Like the laws of gravity or thermodynamics, it can be exploited or minimized. But it cannot be repealed. It is a constant of the human condition.
Arguing with some ardent Trump supporters (I’ve argued with some perfectly rational ones, I should note) can be exhausting simply because they don’t really care about the things we normally care about when measuring a politician’s merits. Consistency is no concern. Temperament is for lesser mortals. Good character is for chumps. Intellectual rigor -- or even coherence -- is the fixation of “the smart set” that allegedly got us into this mess. Trump is a blind, crazed, bull in a China shop smashing and stomping everything to bits, and his fans stand on the side and salute his genius and care.
Disruptor Shmisruptor
The smart -- or at least smart-sounding -- argument for Trump is that he’s a “disrupter,” breaking up the calcified and sclerotic political establishment, yada yada. Left out of these rationalizations is the fact that “disrupter” is a morally and intellectually neutral concept. A chimpanzee running around a hospital ward with a hand grenade is a disrupter.
It’s like the fetishization of the word “contrarian.” “Ooo he’s a contrarian, he doesn’t bow to the conventional wisdom!” is a sentence you can use for Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, and Gandhi. But it’s also a sentence you can apply with equal accuracy to Charles Manson, Lenin, and some guy taking a dump on the counter at McDonald’s.
If you run into a room spinning around like a helicopter of fists, you very well may punch some noses that deserve to be punched, but you will also hit some that don’t. The dismaying thing about so many Trump supporters is the way they get the moral cause and effect backwards. The proof that someone deserved to be punched in the nose is the fact that Trump punched them.
This rush to insist that Trump can do wrong is not merely intellectually incoherent and morally indefensible, it is poisonous. Imagine if, in 2008, Barack Obama had ridiculed John McCain for being captured and tortured. Every single member of Trump’s amen chorus would have denounced the comments unequivocally. But when Trump does it, the response is to marvel at how he survived the statement. That’s not moral or intellectual seriousness, it’s blatant power worship. And it is disgusting.
Speaking of disgusting, here is Ann Coulter defending her American Bismarck in classically Bismarckian terms, insisting that Marco Rubio is a pawn of his master in Rome. This nativist garbage pales in comparison to the racist and anti-Semitic bile that washes up in my inbox and Twitter feed every day, all in the name of defending Trump. And, no, I am not saying that all or even most Trump supporters subscribe to this garbage. I am saying that when you celebrate bomb throwing, you shouldn’t be surprised by what gets dislodged by the explosions.
Let us stipulate that we have been and are in dire need of some disruption. Can we also stipulate that some of the pieties and hypocrisies in American politics are a function of necessity, not corruption?
I’ve talked enough about the virtue of politeness and persuasion in politics. But how about a little disdain for unrestrained political carelessness? Trump’s total lack of ideological or intellectual rigor and consistency is making fools of people who once claimed they cared about such things.
Trump’s schtick as a sprinkler system of insults is getting everyone dirty. He throws mud on anything and anyone in his way. But that muck washes off quite easily. What stains down to the soul is the eagerness to apologize for, or even celebrate, the filth.
In his professional life, Trump has left a trail of wreckage. His own James McDougals are strewn about like victims after a tornado. And his defenders celebrate this as proof he’s a great businessman. Now the F6 is heading for Washington. His fans remind me of the naïve fools in Independence Day who welcome the aliens with cheers and handmade signs on rooftops, incapable of fathoming that they will be greeted with a death ray.
The analogy breaks down because the dupes on the roof didn’t pave the way for the invaders. Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters have been crucial in bringing the Middle Finger of God to our doorsteps.
