Donald Trump’s jingoistic tribalism marks him as a dangerous buffoon

By David McElroy · August 3, 2015

When people tell me they admire Donald Trump, I tend to ask them which of his four bankruptcies they admire most.

The Donald has been a sick narcissistic joke to me for years. The fact that some people took him halfway seriously as a presidential candidate four years ago was disturbing. The fact that some people see him as a frontrunner today is appalling — because he’s potentially dangerous.

As a 2016 presidential candidate, I don’t find Trump especially interesting. I don’t believe he has the remotest chance of winning, partly because I have a naive belief that people will come to their senses before enough of them could support him and partly because I think he’s objectively a terrible candidate, completely apart from whatever insanity he believes.

But nations have a way of elevating insane people to positions of absolute power every now and then. Things like that tend to happen during periods of economic and political turmoil when most people don’t know what to do. In times such as those, scared people turn to blowhards who confidently claim they know what to do.

The uneasy state of the economy and the fear millions of people feel about the future of this country combine to create a situation in which an unstable and unpredictable man could come to power. I honestly don’t expect Trump to be elected — but I can see how it could happen.

That scares me.

I take some comfort from the fact that Trump is just the latest possible addition to a very long line of egotistical buffoons who come to power in their nations or tribes. The fact that people such as Trump can sometimes appeal to vast numbers of people is one of the darker sides of the human race, but it’s far more scary today — because the last thing we need is someone eager to prove how macho he is by launching nuclear missiles at some country.

I call Trump scary because he’s the ultimate version of the xenophobe who thinks there’s some magical difference between the people who live on different sides of imaginary lines that politicians have drawn on maps.

I’m not going to closely analyze Trump’s insane economic pronouncements because anyone who understands economics is already horrified by what he says. And anyone who finds what he says attractive is a populist who doesn’t understand economics in the first place.

Trump is eager to drum up fears about people who happen to have been born in places which the U.S. government doesn’t yet rule. He’s willing to make inflammatory statements about “rapists” in order to pander to the fears of ignorant people. He wants to slap a 25 percent import tax on everything made in China. Despite the fact that economists going all the way back to Adam Smith have patiently explained why free trade is good for everybody, he sticks to the irrational — but popular — idea that trade is bad because it “steals our jobs.”

Trump is egotistical enough and shameless enough that he’s not even bothered by having used the bankruptcy laws to rip off investors and those who’ve lent money to his companies. What he’s done is legal, but his tactics count on using the power of big government to magically erase his business debts when he makes promises that he can’t keep. The miracle is that anyone continue to invest in his schemes.

In a more honest world, we would call him a con man.

Trump bears a little resemblance to another blowhard who was seen as a buffoon when he first came onto his political scene. In post-World War I Germany, Adolph Hitler was an angry nobody. He even looked like a laughable buffoon when he first started in politics, as this comical picture from 1923 makes clear.

But this comical blowhard quickly started becoming popular with a certain group of ignorant German voters. They were the people who didn’t understand economics or history or politics, much less morality. They were people who were tired and angry about their country falling apart. They were eager to turn to a man who promised them that he knew how to fix things. And Hitler knew who to blame for their problems.

Hitler said he knew how to make Germany great again.

When we look back at how Hitler came to power, it’s easy to naively blame Germans and think Americans would never do such a foolish thing. But that’s wishful thinking. Americans are no different from anyone else. When human beings are scared about the future and don’t see answers, they listen to demagogues who promise to fix everything. They’re not too concerned with the fine print. They just want a leader who is certain — someone who they can trust to take care of problems they don’t bother to understand.

Anytime you make comparisons between anybody and Hitler, you risk having Godwin’s Law invoked, because comparing someone to Nazis has become such a cliche. But I think the historical and social parallels are worth noting. The same conditions that brought Hitler to power in Germany can create the same type of situation anywhere — including 21st century America.

I really don’t expect that to happen in 2016, even though there’s a substantial minority for whom Trump will have strong appeal. (As a side note, those people would call themselves conservatives, but I think it’s more accurate to call them populists.) The majority of the country will almost certainly end up holding their collective nose and electing some establishment toady who will continue right down the path of the last few presidents. Sadly, we’ve reached the place where a continuation of the disgusting status quo is a best-case scenario.

I’m not especially interested in the presidential race of 2016. My life is a lot more peaceful since I don’t especially care who’s elected (because I don’t think it matters). But I expect a social and economic collapse at some point in the future — and there’s a good chance that some jingoistic tribal buffoon such as Trump will be at the front of the parade when that happens.

People piously tell us that government should reflect “the will of the people.” As more and more people are drawn to ignorant populists such as Trump, remind yourself that this is the ultimate bug in the practical concept of democracy, not a feature to be celebrated.

If we’re lucky, Trump will be nothing but another entertaining political sideshow for the next year. If we’re not so lucky, it will mean things have taken a scary turn for the worse.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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