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Monday
One of the most satisfying takedowns of Donald Trump I’ve ever seen comes from one Nate White. It’s in answer to the Quora question, “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”
Perhaps I like it because of my own Bates-Fulcher-Jackson British lineage. In any event, I’m indulging myself—and hopefully you—by running it in its entirety.
I promise you a literary angle as well, however. At the end, White alludes to Frankenstein, and I have a few things to say about the novel’s applicability. First, however, here’s White’s explaining the reasons for British dislike:
A few things spring to mind…
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
–Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
–You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form. He is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.
Whew!
Now to that Frankenstein allusion, which may be to the movie but applies equally well to the book. Here’s the creator’s description of his “creature.” He happens to be yellow rather than orange and his hair isn’t blond. Still…
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.
And here’s Dr. Frankenstein’s reaction, which even who outwardly support Trump secretly share::
[B]reathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavoring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams.
While the allusion to Mary Shelley’s classic–that the GOP has created an uncontrollable monster–is so commonplace that it has become a cliché, returning to the original text provides a few added insights. NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, one of our foremost academic authorities on fascism, notes that moneyed interests often believe that they can control authoritarian bullies, only to find that the bullies are calling the shots in the end. Along with tax cuts and labor suppression, the business community gets a trashed country. A lust for power trumps ethical considerations, which is the case as well with Dr. Frankenstein. Although he, at least, has some early reservations:
When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it.
Ultimately, however, he commits himself utterly and as a result finds himself making horrific compromises. I think of Gary Cohn, the president and COO of Goldman Sachs who became Trump’s chief economic advisor and who, despite being Jewish, was willing (in exchange for tax cuts) to overlook the president’s coddling of anti-Semitic fascists chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” (It was only one of many Faustian bargains that Republicans have made with Trump.) Dr. Frankenstein’s work is just as grubby:
Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit…. I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.
And what is the result? The creature, released into the world, turns Dr. Frankenstein’s life into a living hell by killing what is most dear to him, his lovely fiancé.
Unlike the GOP, however, the scientist spends the rest of his life seeking to destroy the blight he has released upon the world. He doesn’t think the monster can be appeased or will just go away and he doesn’t count on someone else dealings with the problem. (At least he doesn’t think this after his fiancé is killed.) In this way, Dr. Frankenstein is more like those NeverTrump Republicans who now seek to undo the force they once enabled. Contrast them with those who, whether out of conviction, self-interest or fear, remain loyal to the former president.
I’ve noticed one other parallel that may hold out a little hope for us: Frankenstein’s creature ceases to be a problem once his creator dies. At that point, the monster no longer sees a reason for existing and departs into the unknown.
A narcissist’s greatest fear is that he is nothing. To be ignored confirms the insecurity that propels him. Trump becoming irrelevant—whether because of imprisonment, electoral defeat, or other means–is the consummation we should all devoutly wish for.