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Friday
So Donald Trump, now that he’s been convicted of bank fraud, has decided to play the role of rogue. There’s an American tradition of the glamorous outlaw, and while these outlaws are not generally overweight, 78-years-old, and suffering from incontinence, nevertheless Trump is attempting to convince young Black men that he is like them. Now that he has his own mug shot, surely these thugs from hellhole cities (as he sees them) will vote for him.
In the past I’ve compared him with the highwayman Mac the Knife in John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera because of his ability to slip accountability time and again. I think we get further insight into his popularity with his followers if we compare him to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil’s updated version of Mackie in Three Penny Opera.
While Brecht, one of the 20th century’s greatest playwrights, was famous for exposing the corruption and hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, sometimes his plays had unintended consequences. What if, rather than turning away in horror from slasher Mackie, audiences experienced a thrill from his criminality. That’s what happened when Frank Sinatra sang Mackie’s signature song and what, I think, Trump cultists experience at his rallies. They come to see which liberals he will slice up:
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows ’em, pearly white
Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear
And he keeps it, keeps it way out of sightWhen that shark bites with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows, they begin to spread
Fancy white gloves though has Macheath, dear
So there’s rarely, never one trace of redOn the sidewalk, one Sunday mornin’
Lies a body oozin’ life
Someone’s sneakin’ ’round the corner
Could that someone, perhaps, perchance, be Mack the Knife?
[Added note: I just realized, given Trump’s terror of sharks, the irony of comparing Trump to one.]
I remember feeling a sadistic thrill when I first heard Mackie and Brown’s song about army comradery. Brecht and Weil undercut the ideal of the noble and patriotic soldier by reporting on the sordid reality, and the way they puncture the platitudes felt momentarily refreshing:
Johnny joined up and Jimmy was there
And George got a sergeant’s rating
Don’t give your right name, the army don’t care
And the life is so fascinating
Let’s all go barmy, live off the army
See the world we never saw
If we get feeling down
We wander into town
And if the population
Should greet us with indignation
We chop ’em to bits because we like our hamburgers raw!
I think of how Trump lionized, and pardoned, war criminal Eddie Gallagher, whom comrades reported as “okay to shoot anything that moved”—including a schoolgirl and an old man—and was accused of stabbing a boy to death for no reason, after which he posed with the body. While fellow soldiers described him as “freaking evil,” Trump saw him as a hero. It’s why he also admires Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
This frank avowal of human bestiality leads Trump’s followers to see him as a truth-teller and also appeals to their bloodlust. In “What Keeps Mankind Alive,” Brecht and Weil too show how humans can be bestial, but their hope is that we will work to clean up our act, not applaud:
What keeps mankind alive?
The fact that millions are daily tortured
Stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
In keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shrink the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts
Richard Slotkin, in Gunfighter Nation, describes America’s long history of “regeneration through violence.” The myth that won the west, he writes, is that people had to descend into savagery in order to establish civilization. Many of Trump’s followers see him in this light, with liberals standing in for the savages. Bestial acts are called for given the battle that must be waged.
Or at least imagining bestial acts. Trump is reality television, something you can enjoy without actually getting hurt. Unfortunately, dismantling the guardrails of democracy and weaponizing the justice department will lead to actual violence.
Further instance of Trumpian rhetoric: Trump advisor, radio personality, performance artist, and general grifter Steve Bannon—who thanks to a Trump pardon is not in jail for embezzling funds meant to build a border wall–keeps upping the rhetoric. A fiery speech he delivered in Detroit last Saturday included the following threats if Trump is reelected:
We’re coming after Lisa Monaco, Merrick Garland, the senior members of DOJ that are prosecuting President Trump. Jack Smith. And this is not about vengeance. This is not about revenge. This is not about retribution. This is about saving this republic! We’re gonna use the Constitution and the rule of law to go after you and hold you accountable.
And:
We’re going to take apart the FBI. The FBI, the American Gestapo…There’s not going to be any FBI.
And in conclusion, as reported by Newsweek:
Ending his speech, Bannon issued a rally call, asking the audience, “Are you prepared to fight? Are you prepared to give it all? Are you prepared to leave it all on the battlefield? I can’t hear you and they can’t hear you!” People cheered, clapped, and shouted in support before beginning a “USA USA USA” chant.
Bannon concluded his speech and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s very simple: Victory or Death!”
