Received Wisdom - Donald Trump And The Addling Of The Mediocre Mind

Esta Grand liked to talk about 'modernity' and the downfall of America and launched into a screed about Elon Musk's racism, the seminal, forward-looking nature of transgenderism, the insights and profound principles of Joe Biden, and the horrifying, bullying nature of the high-tech billionaires who were foisting AI on the country to create a rich man's club that far outdistanced the International Jewish Conspiracy for its deceitful, insurrectionist designs. 

Nothing stopped the woman once she got going, a thuddingly boring pedant who couldn't wait to share her obvious truths with the rest of the guests sitting around the dinner table.  A smile here and an 'As Bob rightly said...' nod to dissidence, she was insufferable.  

Hammering on without an original thought in her head, a mighty wind of suppositions and received wisdom, she ruined the foie gras, spoiled the pot-au-feu, and wrecked the creme brulee. 

 

As she warmed up, her asides about Trump's low-brow, smarmy, anti-Americanism became more wrought, febrile, and fantastical.  His wrestling event, the arch, the reflecting pool, the ballroom were all examples of his idiocy and his dangerously seditious mind.  She flailed at his wars.  

He was killing innocent Iranians to enrich his cronies with oil wealth, murdering Palestinian children to support the savage, occupying regime of Israel, ready to bomb Cuba the only country in the hemisphere with generous social services for its people, and deporting millions of needy asylees to return to the gulags they fled. 

Esta paused for a moment to catch her breath.  Her complaisant, nodding, silent husband could only smile at what was a soaring aria, the plaintive but angry convictions of a saintly woman. 

The guests, off their food thanks to her increasingly bellowing accusations, shuffled in their chairs, wondering when the woman would stop; but they had hours to go before she was finished.  There was no end to her fury, he adamantine purpose, and her wild assumptions.  

If the guests had not been so hammered by this fool, they might have seen it as the grand guignol that it was, full of Sturm und Drang.  They might have been impressed by the full tidal bore of her hatred, that rush of venomous bile - the performance was indeed quite something - but they just sat and waited for the fury to end. 

Dinners were usually ordinary, predictable affairs at the Fentons who were gracious, accommodating hosts who set a good table - the foie gras-to-Camembert meals were always appreciated - so the guests were taken aback by the unhinged episode unfolding before them. 

At first they thought that with a few nominal, polite nudges from others, she might turn to other matters; but they couldn't have been more wrong. It was a miserable, frightful evening. 

So, back to 'modernity' which Esta obviously thought was a new idea, a new concept, a catch-all notion that captured the horrendously awry zeitgeist of Trump's America.  She rambled among bits of the Enlightenment, Ancient Greece, the Founding Fathers and the gross insolent ignorance of the American electorate, and made no sense at all.  

Yet, for her the idea not only had traction but salience.  It was the essential go-to idea of all, the one overarching theme that encapsulated the 'boobocracy' of Donald Trump and his sycophantic followers. 

'When will you make an end?'' shouted an exasperated Pope Julius to Michelangelo, high up on a scaffold near the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel putting final touches on God; and the patient, respectful group around the dining room table sympathized.  When would the woman shut up?

It was not meant to be.  Esta was on a roll; but just like a good preacher, skilled in the variations of a good sermon - quietly intimating, imploring, then accusing the congregation with fiery admonitions - Esta adjusted her napkin ring, took a sip of Chardonnay, and smiled. 'It is hope for the future that fills my heart', she said. 'A verdant, peaceful, congenial place of shared values and aspirations without anger or resentment.  If we all just pull together and...'

This was more than Anton Mills could stand.  He had patiently suffered through Esta's harangues, lectures, and flailing summations; but this little homily took the cake. It was the last straw, the hole in the dike, the final calamitous howl of a blowhard. 

 'Excuse me' he said, but there was no holding her back.  She didn't even notice the empty chair and the half-drunk glass of wine that Anton had left.   

Anton stayed in the bathroom more than any healthy person would hoping that by the time he returned to the table, the woman would have finished, but she was still at it, whaling away at Trump, Musk, Bezos, Huang and all the other 'predacious, greedy despots claiming patriotism'. 

It is hard to imagine that this same scene could be playing out in other homes in this leafy upscale neighborhood of Washington, that there could be any one else like Esta Grand, but the neighborhood was in lockstep in their adamant progressivism. To a person they were climate change activists, champions of the black man, promoters of gays and lesbians, advocates for open borders, and for the immediate demission of the demon of 1700.  

One would think that in such a tight, closed band of neighborhood brothers there would be any need to yell and scream about the President; but there it was on Albemarle Street, Davenport Street, and Ellicott Street at that very moment. 

Princeton Sociologist Harper Braun noted:

This phenomenon, a neo-Orwellian groupthink, has a far more insidious character, for it comes from within.  There is no Big Brother enforcing political uniformity.  As a class, the residents of communities like University Park, have created this internal rage themselves. Feeding off each other, they become progressively insular, angry, and implacable in their beliefs.  Reason, moderation, sense and sensibility out the window. 

 

Anton Mills thanked God that she had finally stopped talking and he could say his adieus and make his way home; but it would take more than a good night's sleep to rid him of the aftereffects of the evening's bludgeoning. 

 He had kept his own counsel and said nothing in response to Esta Grand's increasingly outrageous claims - he had promised his wife to keep the peace - but perhaps a good drubbing was exactly what the woman needed.  

Coming from University Park and so immured in a rabid progressivism, she had never met anyone who disagreed with her, let alone a political conservative, and God forbid anyone who gave the current President any respect. So a good whopping might do the trick - shut up this abominable bore and liberate dinner parties from her scourge. 

But he pulled up, drank more of the Chardonnay that he should have, imagined busty Annabelle from Accounting, and dreamt of swimming in the Caribbean; but such was the awful battering he was taking, that even those pleasant thoughts had no effect. 

It has a name - Trump Derangement Syndrome or TDS - but that did no justice to the particular frenzy of Esta Grand who was a bolus of unhinged, insufferable hatred.  It defined her, it characterized her, it was her indelible meme.  It was terrible. 

It is hard to imagine such unmoored, wild animus for the Republican President Eisenhower or even the quietly patrician and patriotic George H.W. Bush, and observers have looked for answers but come up with none. 

Was it culture? A bourgeois, lowbrow, thug? Was it one-of-a-kind, never seen before circus clown, not 'acting presidential'? Or was it simply that he finally and once and for all called out the faux idealism, self-assuredness, and bombastic righteousness of the Left? 

All of the above, most likely, but the event at the Fenton household was indeed something to see, hopefully never to be repeated, but sadly not so. 

Idealism - The Faint, Bleeding Heart Of American Liberalism

American liberals are quick to say that the country is in deep trouble - not that it is beset by racial division, inner city dysfunctionality, and a feral, punishingly partisan, venal, and obstructionist Congress but because its ideals have been doubted, its march to a more verdant, compassionate, peaceful, and harmonious world blunted, and its hopes for Utopia stymied. 

Most of the rest of the world is far less sanguine about its chances.  Europe has been through two recent devastating world wars, and throughout its history countries, clans, and regions have been almost perennially in battle.  The Mongol onslaught, The Hundred Years War, the War of the Roses, the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian Wars are only some of the conflicts seen on the continent.  The French and Russian revolutions, the monumental upsetting of civil order by the Soviet Union, and the constant struggles for national sovereignty and expansionist hegemony have been common. 

China throughout its dynastic history has been a country at war - savage, brutal conflicts to decide rule, territorial control, and ethnic dominance. Successive Japanese shogunates have battled for imperial power for over a thousand years.  Africa after independence has become an unrulable, uncivil place with civil war, harsh, interminable dictatorships, and savage tribalism. 

It is not surprising that Europeans, Asians, and Africans are bemused by the optimism and idealism of America.  They know the lessons of history - history repeats itself over and over again and humankind is acquisitive, territorial, and violent. 

The Shakespearean critic Jan Kott wrote that if the Bard's Histories were laid down in chronological order, they would be chronicles of the same, predictable, repetitive events - palace plots, murders, and coups; wars, civil conflicts, brutal leadership, and perennial conflict.  Only the actors change, and they in their marvelous diversity, are at the center of his plays.  Richard III, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus and their women have all been of the same ilk but fascinatingly different.  Goneril, Regan, Tamora, Dionyza, and Volumnia are all have the same indomitable will and hunger for power. 

Europeans are waking up to a radical remake of their societies and culture as millions of Muslims have been let in under permissive immigration policies and are now insular, restive, hostile, and radical.  Yet no European can say that any Utopian dream has been shattered, or that progress towards a more equitable, generous world has been blunted.  This is the way European history has always been - one group always wanting what another has and is willing to fight for their share. 

There is no political group more blind to and dismissive of history than the American Left.  Progressivism by its very name suggests progress, the inevitable path to a better world.  Yet nowhere in history has any country, regime, or empire ever come close to creating such an idealistic place.  The closest mankind came was Pax Romana, a long period of Roman control of the vast territories of its empire. Such complete, authoritarian, and autocratic rule kept the peace - no breaches of Roman hegemony were allowed. 

Yet this was not the Utopia that American progressives look to for inspiration, for it was colonialism writ large.  Rome was an occupying force which maintained power through might, intimidation and collusion. 

The Cold War was another period of peace, for it was an example of the only other modality to geopolitical reserve.  The Soviet Union and the United States had thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at each other, and fear of nuclear holocaust kept them in their silos. 

American liberals refuse to look at history's principal lesson - wars, military might, and the permanent desire for control are common to all eras and generations.  Wars only stop when one side wins, there is a standoff, or one side has managed complete dominance.  There is no such thing as human peace, only settlement. 

The American Left has made the now-discredited climate change the centerpiece of their political philosophy. Any and all means to slow or stop global warming must be used so that the world can achieve its potential as a heavenly place - acres of forests, glades, wetlands, and woodlands.  Other countries, particular America's adversaries, Russia and China think differently.  

China absolutely, unequivocally must acquire the natural resources for the production of energy - key to continuing economic growth and geopolitical dominance. It is not the fate of the Earth which concerns them, but the fate of China. 

These same countries looked at the social agenda of the Biden Administration with glee.  Its policy of diversity, equity, inclusivity, and identity politics drove the nation apart rather than brought it together around a central, universal ethos.  There was no Confucianism at the heart of the American Republic, no guiding moral philosophy; nor was there any hearkening to an imperial past, the history of civilizing empire.  There is nothing concentric about America, just individual groups divided by race, gender, and ethnicity fighting for recognition and their share of the pie. 

Such fanciful, anti-historical myopia bled over into Republican administrations.  The neo-cons of the Bush administration believed in American exceptionalism and that just wars to promote democracy and capitalism are worthy enterprises.  No Machiavelli or Kissinger realpolitik for them.  Good was at stake, idealism once more to the fore. 

Modern Russia and China are on the contrary committed Machiavellian nations. Wars are fought only when a clear self interest is at stake - territory, resources, populations - not some idealistic notion of goodness. 

Donald Trump has joined the group and has dismissed exceptionalism in favor of self-interest; and that amoral stance, that conviction that wars are inevitable and must always be fought places America in the best geopolitical position possible. 

American liberals today have gone beyond simple historical ignorance.  Their idealism has led them into untenability.  They have ignored history, culture, and society and claimed that the black man, sentient superior being of the African forest, attuned to nature and the environment and endowed with a special, intuitive greatness is the model for modern society and must be helped to rise to the pinnacle of world culture.  This despite the tribal primitivism of Africa, the dysfunctionality of the inner city and the bottom-dwelling socio-economic indicators of the African diaspora on any scale. 

These same liberals have insisted that heterosexuality is merely a cultural choice, and that there exists a gender spectrum on which are found hundreds of distinct sexualities.  Reproduction is fungible, mothers and fathers have been replaced by 'gestational influencers' - completely insane attempt to reconfigure biological reality. 

They cling to socialism as the modality of progress when it has failed miserably everywhere.  Redistribution of wealth has always led to a decline in productivity and assured more poverty not less.  Yet because socialism hinges on a strong central government - the kindly caretaker of the people -liberals have embraced it. 

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Perhaps Americans cannot rid themselves of such fairytale idealism; perhaps it is in their history of Manifest Destiny, Westward Expansion, the expeditious settlement of lands from coast to coast, and heroic victory in WWII.  Or in Calvinism, Puritanism, and Protestant fundamentalism. 

In any case the Trump revolution will do much to send such fantastical, idealistic liberalism to the political margins, but history has shown it will not go away. It has become endemic, part of the national character, deeply embedded and permanent. 

Adultery, The Sport Of Kings

Rafferty Adams had grown up in a modest, middle class home - Main Street pharmacist father, second grade teacher mother, catechism, mass on Sunday, Fourth of July parade, and Cub Scouts; but none of it took  There was something always scratchy and irritating about his family, their friends, and their horrible parties.  

 

'Raffy, darling, please help Mommy set the table' was his hated Saturday bugle call.   There had to be a purpose to it all, some definable end other than the mink stoles of Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Taylor, and the hideous Mrs. Proctor. 

Harry the optometrist took his wife's wrap and hung it in the hall closet next to Bill's wife's ermine, and Sendak's wife's cloth coat.  Rafferty was in charge of taking umbrellas if rain or galoshes if snow, and wiping up the drippings. 

 

Then came Mrs. Lind's Swedish canapes, hot delicacies wrapped in light, nearly transparent phyllo, Arctic char, and truffles-and-egg; and then the refills, the spilled drinks, the cinder burns on the rug, and the farewells. 

There are many ways a young boy can leave home - hopping a freight to St. Louis in the 40s, joining the Arch Street crowd dating across the tracks in the 50s - but Rafferty held his own, biding his time, sussing things out, vetting, deliberating, and waiting. 

He was a star at Yale - dean's list, first team football, Fence Club - but in all this he still felt tethered to his unsavory past.  Yes, he had done well for himself, but along greased rails.  There was still time and opportunity to diverge from this prescribed path, and to be...well, at this point he was unsure what that 'to be' was, but it would come. 

Graduation, business school, Wall Street, and then it all became clear.  Not only was money to be made through innovative, creative instruments, but women were to be had by the same means.  They were as easy to seduce as the credulous investors who believed that their ships were in harbor ready to come in and only in need of a river pilot like Raffy. 

There is a time for everything, and after years of delightful seductions and millions of dollars in the bank, Rafferty thought it time to settle down, marry, have children, and leave a legacy; but given his current trajectory, far from the New Brighton rectitude from which he had escaped, settling down meant only a social pied a terre from which he could continue his unassuming but wholly satisfied life. 

He married Elizabeth Cabot Harrington, heiress to the Cabot and Harrington fortunes, debutante who won everyone over from Beacon Hill to Palm Beach, a lovely, educated suitable prize.  She was taken with Rafferty's charm, absolute confidence, and his unmistakable love of women. They were married that summer at the Gardiner Estate at Rolling Rock overlooking Long Island Sound. 

'I love you', Rafferty said as he looked over the lawn to water's edge and watched the last turns of the Barcroft regatta.  The Cabot estate where they were married had been passed down from generation to generation - a family legacy that the last living patriarch, Lodge Harrington Cabot, left to his great granddaughter to keep in trust. 

He loved Elizbeth more for the way she loved him than for anything unique or special about her; and so retained his aloofness and emotional distance, and went on enjoying women just as he had before marriage. 

Why couldn't a man have both?  His harem of women had not been disassembled when he married; those who had shared bed before were just as happy to share it now and his wife, loving him without question never interfered.  

Of course there were wardens - his wife's maiden aunts who, straight out of an Edwardian set piece were the duennas tapped to assure fidelity - but Rafferty was fully aware that his sexual adventures would only add to his allure for both his wife and his paramours.  As many lovers as he had, all were seduced by his infidelity.  Each lover tried even harder to make themselves more appealing, to his blue ribbon prize. 

Rafferty never set out to become a libertine lover.  It came naturally and he thought no less of women for their complaisance, their credulousness, and their breathless fall for his attention. That was women's nature, and he was quite Lawrentian in his pursuit of sexual compatibility and equilibrium. 

Many men of his generation had fallen under the sway of feminism; and believed that women had never been taken seriously; that they were only sexual objects and looked at only for mating and reproductive potential. Women's inner worth had been overlooked by men in their single-minded pursuit of sexual satisfaction; and feminists were determined to return that notion to the Stone Age where it belonged. 

Rafferty had never paid attention to this canon.  No matter how well crafted the feminist argument might be, the truth of the matter was that women had never changed.  Yes of course they had shown their ability to lead and had broken through the glass ceiling but when they punched the clock and returned home, they returned to the tried and true.  Perhaps not slippers and martinis by the fire but some semblance of feminine submission.

Simply out of pique and challenge, Rafferty wooed Eliza Wood, chairwoman of the Washington chapter of The Feminist Alliance.  A woman of determination and principle, Eliza had championed the MeToo movement designed to teach men a look-but-don't-touch lesson in sexual propriety.  Sexual intercourse was entirely a woman's domain, hands off until otherwise instructed. 

Their affair was brief but passionate; and more importantly his domain.  She was the one who rolled over when instructed, who obeyed his rules of pleasure, and climaxed at his command.  She left the hotel room as satisfied as she had ever been.  He had never once asked permission for anything, just took what he wanted and she gave willingly. 

He came home at night to keep order and civility in his marriage. Prostitutes are paid not just for sex, but to leave; and for male lovers the rule was no different.  Spending the night other than at home added something unintended to the relationship, something unwanted and unnecessary. 

His wife knew very well about his liaisons and said nothing.  She knew that his appeal was the same for all women, and that without it he would be a dull boy; and that she did not want.  As long as he came home at night, all was forgiven. 

Many men who have fallen into the trap of fidelity cannot imagine anyone like Rafferty, a man without moral conviction, a strayer, a man without an ethical core.  He, they said, despite his avowed love of women was actually the worst kind of misogynist, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, respectful of women on the surface but deeply mistrustful of them at heart.

Not at all. Rafferty took women as they were, was as honest as the day is long, and still successfully invited legions to share his bed. They loved him for his no-frills romance, his unalloyed, unmitigated, irremediable desire for them. 

A cad? A misogynistic predator, a testosterone-fueled Paleolithic throwback?  Hardly.  Rafferty was old school and new school, old guard and new guard - but only the trappings were different.  Beneath the wrapping was the same unchanged, native, natural, and uncontrite male.