Editor’s note: This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer and former educator from North Calais.
[I] feel almost apologetic gorging myself (again) on the low hanging fruit of Donald Trump’s presidential bid and subsequent August unravelling — almost, but not quite. I’m far sorrier that a latent racist with a middle school temperament and a not-ready-for-prime-time foreign affairs acumen is still considered a viable candidate by roughly half the country. Which sadly says as much about half the country as it does about him.
What Trump doesn’t know is vast — the price paid for a lifetime surrounded by salaried stooges, compensated to aggrandize him in the relatively few moments he’s not aggrandizing himself. He’s never needed to actually learn anything because no one ever told him he was wrong, the end result of which is becoming more apparent every day: Not only does he resemble a bag of Cheetos, he’s just about as knowledgeable. Only in the post-factual universe could a bag of Cheetos imagine running the most powerful country in the world. But here we are.
Trump is in the process of re-re-tweaking his campaign staff, dumping Paul Manafort and his $12 million bromance with the Russian mafia and hiring Stephen K. Bannon of Breitbart News, known for its incendiary — frequently fabricated — “investigations” of perceived enemies as well as numerous conspiracy theories.
Other new arrivals in the Trump camp include Roger Ailes, who departed Fox News in disgrace after multiple accusations of sexual harassment; Michele Bachmann, who — among a host of outrageous reflections — thought Melissa Etheridge’s breast cancer would give her time to reflect on her sinful lifestyle; and even Fox’s Sean Hannity, one of the founding fathers of the post-factual society, a Trump shill from the beginning.
The dizzying spin began almost immediately as Trump was lauded for his “best week” of campaigning thus far, largely on the merits of not having insulted, alienated or viciously attacked anyone — relying on the teleprompter to remain on message and act “presidential.” But instead, coming off like an aging, down-on-his-luck Borscht Belt comedian auditioning for a role in “Death of a Salesman.” He reached out to black voters while addressing a confused white audience, suggesting since their lives already sucked, they should vote for him: “What the hell do you have to lose?” African-Americans remained unimpressed, polling at almost zero percent for Agent Orange.
Only in the post-factual universe could a bag of Cheetos imagine running the most powerful country in the world. But here we are.
As outrageous as The Donald’s candidacy might seem, in a post-factual society much of what he has said and done appears not to have mattered much, as he chewed through GOP primary opponents — several more qualified — by simply calling them names and — although behind in polls right now — he still has a reasonable chance to win in November, particularly in light of Hillary Clinton’s deep closet of ethical skeletons.
Before anyone gets complacent regarding the inevitability of Trump’s destruction on Election Day, we might take a breath and examine how some of the worst elements on the far right have hijacked the Republican Party, purging anything resembling reason and coalescing almost perfectly with the emerging post-factual culture that they’ve been creating for more than a decade.
In autumn 2004, just prior to George W. Bush being re-elected, journalist Ron Suskind wrote in the New York Times magazine about the tendency of the White House to rely on “instincts,” usually the president’s, primarily because he lacked the sophisticated knowledge to make decisions any other way. When facts were introduced into a discussion the perpetrator was frequently thought to be “disloyal” and predictably, comments eventually ceased and “faith” ruled the day.
The tragic consequences of the Bush years are well documented — former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said at the time the commander and chief was like “A blind man in a room full of deaf people.” But the worst aspects of the evangelical presidency are still with us with facts increasingly off on holiday while partisan mythology takes center stage. One frightening exchange between Suskind and a White House staffer went like this:
“You’re (Suskind) in the reality based community,” people who “believe that solutions emerge from your study of discernible reality.” … He continued: “That’s not the way the world works anymore. … We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
Allow those words to sink in for a moment. “We create our own reality.” The hair on the back of your neck should bristle as you realize the translation is that in a post-factual world, whatever confidence or hope we had in things working themselves out in a rational, orderly way, has been completely compromised. In the formerly real world, a presidential candidate who defames an entire religion, demonizes an ethnic group as “rapists,” or mocks a reporter’s disability wouldn’t be a candidate for long.
But with Trump’s immersion in the GOP’s carefully constructed dreamscape, where nothing seems to matter, anything appears possible. And with his new team in place, the question over the next several months appears to be: “How low can he go?”