“…Anyone
paying cursory attention to the conservative political scene since the great
Tea Party uprising of 2010 understands all too well that anti-politics, far
from being a Zika-style virus smuggled into the vulnerable GOP host organism by
a single ‘outsider’ populist presidential hopeful sporting a Chia Pet
pompadour, has been the very lifeblood of the Republican political class since
the dawn of the Obama era. And the recent political past has been studded with
object lessons in what happens when you feed a major party’s movement base on
unhinged fantasies of governance as identitarian rebellion by other means.
“There
was the stunning primary defeat of Majority Whip Eric Cantor—himself a scheming
courtier of would-be Tea Party anti-government insurgency—by holier-than-thou
Christian libertarian economics professor David Brat. There was the
numbingly pointless litany of 60-plus
bills repealing Obamacare—all dutifully endorsed amid great ideological
sound and fury and even greater wastage of Congress’s already scant legislative
calendar—which served no other purpose than to allow Tea Party incumbents to
create the illusion that they were actually doing something (anything) in
Congress to advance the agendas they ran on. (Or, you know, anything
in Congress at all.)
“There
was the GOP’s ritual sacrifice of John Boehner’s speakership on the altar of
still more ideological purity, when he demurred
on a proposed government shutdown over bogus allegations that Planned
Parenthood was an open-air bazaar for fetal body parts. There was Ted Cruz’s equally empty—though
immensely mediagenic—filibuster designed to provoke a (yes, again)
government shutdown bid over (yes, again) Obamacare funding. There was,
for no explicable reason on Earth, the continued public relevance of Sarah
Palin.
“Looking
back at this parade of confrontational nothingness, it’s hard to fathom why the
Trumpist movement, or something like it, hasn’t happened sooner. In essence,
the backlash-gone-wild, that is the Tea Party phase of the GOP, has detonated
the cynical social contract struck at the outset of the Reagan revolution. Back
then, you’ll recall, the business wing of the Right found symbolic common cause
with an evangelical grassroots insurgency—and once in power, GOP apparatchiks
would duly ignore the culture-war wish lists of religious conservatives.
(For the simple reason that actual progress toward implementing their
Christian-nation reveries would make them that much harder to mobilize in full
gospel fury for each new election cycle)…
“[A]s
we all know too well by now, the Trump brand of class politics is also a racist
politics. Rather than encouraging marginalized, white-middle Americans to dress
up as colonial patriots, Trump encourages them to attack nonwhite protestors,
unleash displays
of religious bigotry, and otherwise rudely defy the behavioral canons of ‘political
correctness.’
“Just
as important, he does all this while affecting a genial showman’s mien, which
permits him to opportunistically back off from the political fallout he
courts—and ensuring all the while that his theater-in-the-round production of ‘Falling
Down’ gets maximal press
coverage. No traditional GOP candidate could have managed, as Trump..., to play dumb before the cameras as he was repeatedly
pressed to disavow his endorsement by former Klan wizard David Duke, without
setting his own campaign on fire. And no other candidate could have a white
supremacist kingpin making get-out-the-vote
robo-calls on his behalf, or have a group of peaceful black students forced
out of a campaign rally.
“Trump’s
deft culture-war shtick also permits Trump to short-circuit expectations of
simple ideological consistency, let alone purity. He’s successfully peddled the
image of himself as a great man to the Republican primary electorate—and his
supporters readily accept the notion that a great man contains multitudes.
“Trump
is anything but an avatar of conservative righteousness. He’s been a
pro-choice, big-government liberal, and seems unto this day a more consistent
supporter of single-payer universal health care than Hillary Clinton is. (He’s
also twice
divorced, something that hasn’t gone down well with the GOP’s self-styled ‘values
voters,’ since Reagan’s heyday.)
“How
the Trump insurgency plays out within the now-deranged coordinates of
Republican electioneering and governance is anyone’s guess. But Americans of a
left persuasion shouldn’t be too quick to gloat over the great Republican
crack-up of 2016… Donald Trump is everyone’s problem now” (After decades of bigotry and anti-politics, the GOP got what it deserves in Donald Trump by Chris Lehmann).
trump·er·y (trŭm′pə-rē)
ReplyDeleten. pl. trump·er·ies
1. Showy but worthless finery; bric-a-brac.
2. Nonsense; rubbish.
3. Deception; tricke
ry; fraud.
[Middle English trompery, deceit, from Old French tromperie, from tromper, to deceive.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
trumpery (ˈtrʌmpərɪ)
n, pl -eries
1. foolish talk or actions
2. a useless or worthless article; trinket
adj
3. useless or worthless
[C15: from Old French tromperie deceit, from tromper to cheat]
trump•er•y (ˈtrʌm pə ri)
n., pl. -ries,
adj. n.
1. something without use or value.
2. nonsense; twaddle.
3. Archaic. worthless finery.
adj.
4. of little or no value; worthless; rubbishy.
[1425–75; late Middle English trompery deceit < Middle French tromperie=tromp(er) to deceive (Middle French: to trifle, play with, orig., to play the trumpet; see trump2) + -erie -ery]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.