GOP Chair and “Kenosha political operative” Reince Priebus
Thursday
A tiny little kerfuffle in the GOP is giving me an excuse to revisit about the only thing I remember from Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, which I read back in the 1970s. The dust-up involves a top aide of Ohio governor John Kasich calling GOP chair Reince Priebus a “Kenosha political operative.” Someone from or associated with Kenosha also shows up in an extended riff that Pynchon executes upon a sequence of six words:
you never did the Kenosha kid
Priebus, who is indeed from Kenosha, Wisconsin, threatened sanctions against Kasich and other of Donald Trump’s primary opponents who are refusing to endorse him. The threat led Kasich’s chief strategist John Weaver to retort that his boss “will not be bullied by a Kenosha political operative that is unable to stand up for core principles or beliefs.” (I agree that Priebus has no core principles or beliefs.)
In Gravity’s Rainbow, World War II American serviceman Tyrone Slothrop has been fed truth serum to figure out why his sexual trysts always occur at points where German V2 rockets will land 24 hours later. Pynchon’s thematic point, like Stanley Kubrick’s in Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Love the Bomb, is that orgasmic explosions followed by death (or “the little death”) link missiles and sexual intercourse.
As he fights through his serum-induced haze, Slothrop imagines different contexts, word meanings, and punctuation for the sequence of words. It’s a very Joycean exercise (as in Finneghan’s Wake) and may also have been inspired by Joseph Heller’s riff on John Milton and Washington Irving in Catch 22. I must admit that such language play is not really my thing. I prefer my words to be a bit more stable and my referent points a bit more grounded.
I see Slothrup’s riff as applicable to the RNC’s Kenosha Kid, however. Priebus is leading a post policy party (whatever Obama’s for, they’re against it), which finds its ultimate articulation in Trump’s ability to embrace a wide variety of contradictory positions. For instance, he can be the nation’s leading birther for five years and then, in an instant, accuse Hillary Clinton of founding birtherism and applauding himself for ending it. Even worse, Priebus, Mike Pence, and various Trump surrogates repeat his contortions. Accountability, apparently, is for wimps.
In such an environment, words are infinitely malleable. Or to use another analogy, they slip their halters and run wild and free, as they do in Pynchon’s riff. There are nine variations or sub-variations:
(1) Slothrop imagines sending a letter to “the Kenosha Kid” asking, “Did I ever bother you, ever, for anything, in your life?” and hearing back,
You never did.
The Kenosha Kid
Next he imagines four interchanges:
(2) Smartass youth: Aw, I did all them old-fashioned dances, I did the “Charleston,” a-and the “Big Apple,” too!
Old veteran hoofer: Bet you never did the “Kenosha,” kid!
(2.1) S.Y.: Shucks, I did all them dances, I did the “Castle Walk,” and I did the “Lindy,” too!
O.V.H.: Bet you never did the “Kenosha Kid.”
(3) Minor employee: Well, he has been avoiding me, and I thought it might be because of the Slothrop Affair. If he somehow held me responsible —
Superior (haughtily): You! never did the Kenosha Kid think for one instant that you …
(3.1) Superior (incredulously): You? Never! Did the Kenosha Kid think for one instant that you … ?
The next variation imagines the Kenosha Kid as a god who hands down language to humankind but forgets the word “the”:
(4) And at the end of the mighty day in which he gave us in fiery letters across the sky all the words we’d ever need, words we enjoy today, and fill our dictionaries with, the meek voice of little Tyrone Slothrop, celebrated ever after in tradition and song, ventured to filter upward to the Kid’s attention: “You never did ‘the,’ Kenosha Kid!”
The next variation turns “kid” into a sentence-ending verb:
(5) Maybe you did fool the Philadelphia, rag the Rochester, josh the Joliet. But you never did the Kenosha kid.
Then there is “kid” as a baby goat that is to be sacrificed:
(6) (The day of the Ascent and sacrifice. A nation-wide observance. Fats searing, blood dripping and burning to a salty brown…) You did the Charlottesville shoat, check, the Forest Hills foal, check. (Fading now…) The Laredo lamb, check. Oh-oh. Wait. What’s this, Slothrop? You never did the Kenosha kid. Snap to, Slothrop.
Finally, in the strangest dialogue of all, Slothrop imagines some dark nebulous figure called Never “doing”—as in busting or even killing—the Kenosha Kid. Will Slothrop be next?
(7) In the shadows, black and white holding in a panda-pattern across his face, each of the regions a growth or mass of scar tissue, waits the connection he’s traveled all this way to see. The face is as weak as a house-dog’s, and its owner shrugs a lot.
Slothrop: Where is he? Why didn’t he show? Who are you?
Voice: The Kid got busted. And you know me, Slothrop. Remember? I’m Never.
Slothrop (peering): You, Never? (A pause.) Did the Kenosha Kid?
Does this make you feel better about the somewhat dull policy wonk that Trump is running against? At least you know what her positions are.
