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Tuesday
It’s been several years since political scientist John Stoehr (of the blog Editorial Board) applied the descriptor of “sadist” to Donald Trump, thereby explaining both the man and why he is popular with a certain sector of the American public. More than anything else, Stoehr says, Trump supporters crave this sadism (it’s why no other GOP candidate had a chance against him). In his article, the Editorial Board editor quotes Humam Abd al-Salam on what right-wingers mean when they complain about people being “so easily offended these days.” What they’re really saying, Abd al-Salam says, is “Why can’t I bully everyone like I used to?”
Stoehr is worried that Trump’s sadism has become so normalized that the press corps no longer even sees it as worth mentioning. Perhaps a literary comparison would help us recognize, once again, the ugliness. I’m thinking of Trump as Curley in Of Mice and Men.
Before turning to Steinbeck, let’s look at a recent instance of Trump sadism. In his Saturday Georgia rally, Trump mocked Joe Biden for his stutter, saying, “I’m gonna bring the country tuh-tuh-tuh together.” Apparently the audience “roared with laughter,” prompting fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat to observe, “He does it to evoke the laughter that makes the crowd complicit and reinforces the culture of cruelty he requires to realize his dreams of mass repression.”
We saw an instance of him doing something similar in the 2016 campaign when he ridiculed reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital joint condition that limits movement in his arms. Trump impersonated the man by contorting his own limbs.
By normalizing or overlooking Trump’s sadism, the media makes it acceptable. Meanwhile, it underreports Biden’s kindness. Following Trump’s mockery, Stoehr notes that a 2020 video resurfaced of Biden encouraging a boy with a stutter. “I’ll tell you what,” Biden told him. “Don’t let it define you. You are smart as hell, now you really are. You can do this.”
Biden continued, “You know when I say I know about bullies. You know about bullies, the kids who make fun. It’s going to change, honey. I promise you.” Stoehr notes that Biden has been interacting with people like this for his entire political life.
There’s a similar dynamic going on in Steinbeck’s novella. Boss’s son Curley, who like Trump reeks of entitlement, “doesn’t give a damn” about others. As protagonist George says after hearing about him, “I hate that kinda bastard. I seen plenty of ’em. Like the old guy says, Curley don’t take no chances. He always wins.”
Curley thinks he’s not taking a chance when he goes after Lennie, the mentally challenged giant who dreams of raising cute little rabbits with George on a farm of their own. Curley is feeling cocky because he has married a beautiful woman—think of Trump’s trophy wives—but he’s also worried that he won’t be able to hold on to her. When both she and two of the farm hands start mocking him, he attempts to regain his manhood by going after Lennie.
And at first he gets free shots because George has instructed Lennie not to fight back. In fact, George has predicted this would happen, telling his friend, “He figures he’s got you scared and he’s gonna take a sock at you the first chance he gets.”
At first Curley encounters no resistance. Thinking that Lennie is laughing at him (he’s not), he yells,
“Come on, ya big bastard. Get up on your feet. No big son-of-a-bitch is gonna laugh at me. I’ll show ya who’s yella.” Lennie looked helplessly at George, and then he got up and tried to retreat. Curley was balanced and poised. He slashed at Lennie with his left, and then smashed down his nose with a right. Lennie gave a cry of terror. Blood welled from his nose. “George,” he cried. “Make ‘um let me alone, George.” He backed until he was against the wall, and Curley followed, slugging him in the face. Lennie’s hands remained at his sides; he was too frightened to defend himself.
Unable to bear what he’s seeing, George finally instructs Lennie to fight back, which he does. Continuing my political parallel, he’s like Biden using his State of Union address to fight back against the GOP after months of being caricatured as a senile and doddering old fool:
Lennie took his hands away from his face and looked about for George, and Curley slashed at his eyes. The big face was covered with blood. George yelled again, “I said get him.” Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie’s big hand. George ran down the room. “Leggo of him, Lennie. Let go.”
But Lennie watched in terror the flopping little man whom he held. Blood ran down Lennie’s face; one of his eyes was cut and closed. George slapped him in the face again and again, and still Lennie held on to the closed fist. Curley was white and shrunken; by now, and his struggling had become weak. He stood crying, his fist lost in Lennie’s paw.
A number of pundits have noted that Biden’s secret power is that his opponents underestimate him. They have been doing so his entire career, thinking him weak because he reaches across the aisle and prefers quiet negotiation to grandstanding. This is one reason why Republicans were so caught off guard, and why Democrats were so energized, by Biden’s combative State of the Union speech.
Trump mocking him for his stutter after the SOTU would be like Curley mocking Lennie when Lennie is no longer around. But since such a scene doesn’t occur in the book, I need to look elsewhere—to Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones—to find an example that fits the occasion. Late in the novel, Squire Western has had his ears boxed by a man whose friend he has insulted—but he doesn’t give full vent to his wrath until the man is safely out of earshot:
The captain, with some indignation, replied, “I see, sir, you are below my notice, and I shall inform his lordship you are below his. I am sorry I have dirtied my fingers with you.” At which words he withdrew, the parson interposing to prevent the squire from stopping him, in which he easily prevailed, as the other, though he made some efforts for the purpose, did not seem very violently bent on success. However, when the captain was departed, the squire sent many curses and some menaces after him; but as these did not set out from his lips till the officer was at the bottom of the stairs, and grew louder and louder as he was more and more remote, they did not reach his ears, or at least did not retard his departure.
So Trump, after Biden administered a Lennie-like beating with his address, sought to recover his dignity by making fun of Biden’s stutter. And got his sycophantic fans to join in.
Classic bully sadism.