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Reverend James Squire

The Elephants In Trump's Room



 

There are two elephants in Trump’s room. One relates to Biden’s response to him when he says something that is outrageous. The second is that he hits two groups of people, the haves and the have nots, at the same time which raise his poll numbers to a higher level.

 

Notice that after Trump makes a particular egregious remark that President Biden will reflect, “we are better than that.” Maybe we are not. Maybe that is a statement from a place of entitlement. I believe that there are people who have felt powerless for a long time. Trump seems to represent an “anything but the same old political establishment” mentality. I and they are still trying to figure out how Congressmen and women make $174,000 a year with extraordinary perks and a few years later are millionaires many times over. Manchin voted against aid to help children in poverty and then drove to his multimillion dollars yacht that he lives on during the week. That makes people look for someone not on the take.  

 

Trump says what a group of people want to hear and part of that is giving it to those people who are receiving more and more while they get less and less. It has been the formula down through the ages when a group watches another group, and they seem to have the life that others know that they could never achieve. The American dream was alive and well for a good many of us but others were left behind. It was the middle-class mantra. “Work hard and all your dreams will come true.” It was a statement that built this country.

 

I have watched a number of Trumpers interviewed. I want to scream, “He is taking advantage of you. He is only after what helps him.” No, they are not the “deplorables” as Hilary Clinton named them on a hot mike. They are people who want a taste of power, and he is offering that up to them on a daily basis. There is another form of elitism that I sometimes fall into which is the college educated vs. those who aren’t. The more educated, the more people sometimes look down on others who aren’t. When I lived in Swarthmore for seven years, your intellect was your currency. It could result in an above it all mentality for some.

 

Trump has a very limited vocabulary and is not very smart in the way that word is defined by those who wonder how he has pulled off this whole masquerade of his. He is smart in a different way, and it is the winning formula that enables him to attract people who are on both sides of classism.

 

Most politicians have adopted the action of pointing to others in the audience and then a smile which communicates that I know you and I will help you when others have ignored you. But there is something else about his communication skills that feels a bit like that “buy one get one free” sign we come across in the grocery store.

 

First, he will say something that is like “blood in the water” for those who love his antics and want more which is why each indictment causes his poll numbers to go up. They are the have nots. But notice what the haves do. They explain away his immoral words. You could see this clearly in two recent exchanges.

 

The first is the interview where Hannity kept asking Trump if he really was going to be a dictator if he won. Hannity was not getting a clear, “No!” He repeated his question seeking to save Trump from himself so he would be more palatable to the haves. But Trump dashed his hopes with: “No, I will be a dictator on the first day, and then went on to a benign how which he thought was funny. However, it was clear that Hannity wanted to save him. In essence, Hannity was saying, “He didn’t mean it!” But he did. The have nots heard what they wanted to hear and the haves heard their version of Trump just being Trump.

 

The haves spend full time as well as too many Republicans making excuses for him. This formula sometimes takes the form of the absurd. In one of Trump’s recent statements right out of Hitler’s playbook, he indicated that we need to close the border so the “bad blood of the immigrants will not mix with our blood as Americans.” The have nots ate it up. Give us more of that old time religion of Trumpism. Show those haves (those who possess what we want which is more of the American Dream) who really has the power. I thought now how can the haves save Trump from all of his Hitler images that appear more frequently in recent days. It will be impossible.

 

J. D. Vance came through quicker than you can say, “Adolph Hitler.” I waited with baited breath. It was almost like waiting for a circus act of the man on the flying trapeze. J. D. Vance interpreted Trump’s words that he really wasn’t talking about blood. He was really talking about how Fentanyl is causing a horrific situation in our nation. He will save us from that. The haves piled on to that interpretation. I have heard of mansplaining where men typically explain things to women in a condescending way. Now we have Trumpsplaining where we need his words interpreted for us.

 

Couple whataboutism from Trump’s haves and have nots and you have a poll jumping candidate. Maga haves and have nots are saved again to be justified and honorable in their support of Trump.  That is two groups for the price of one statement for we hear what we want to hear. That is human nature.

 

J.D. Vance is a puzzle for me to solve. If you have read Hillbilly Elegy, you know that he came from poverty to go on to Yale Law School. If I had a few minutes with him, I would go nose to nose and say, “You have forgotten where you came from. You are equipped to know what communication looks like from the haves and the have nots. You have lived in both of those worlds. I have too. “Trump meant blood. He didn’t mean Fentanyl? Give me a break!”  

 

President Biden, you need to go to the grocery store. Take the gloves off and know that Trump is buying one, and getting one free! It’s about power and the American Dream, one group has it and the other group wants it.

 

In 1992 while running Bill Clinton’s campaign James Carville said the following about priorities: “It’s the economy, stupid.” I would put it another way: “It’s classism, stupid!”

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