averilburystedmunds: The Boastful Buffoon

Quote from a letter in the New Statesman of 22-28 November 2024.

"Jason Cowley quotes Philip Roth as saying no one could have foreseen the ‘catastrophe befalling the U.S. coming in the shape of ‘the boastful buffoon’. Well, someone did! In 1920 H.L. Mencken wrote in The Baltimore Sun newspaper:

“All the odds are on the man who is …. the most devious and mediocre …The Presidency tends to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts’ desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Apparently, Martha Snowden of Norwich is the N.S. letter writer who contributed the above perfect quote; perfect, that is, to describe the probable process by which the next U.S. President was elected. When Trump first stood for election in 2011? as Republican candidate, he was ridiculed and dismissed; he seemed a mixture of game show host and

Trump with Elon Musk interviewing him. Musk has poured
millions of dollars into the Trump campaign coffers.
In return, this unelected billionaire will have significant
national political power from Jan 2024.

perma-tanned low-level gangster. But, impervious to insult or criticism, he marshalled a growing band of far-right millionaire supporters who poured money into his campaigns trusting him to deliver the promised destructive policies to clean the swamp, dismiss thousands of civil servants in important departments like Health and Social Security and pursue personal and political grievances bent on retribution. And this section of American capital which gambled on Trump has seen satisfying leaaps in share prices of companies they own. And he keeps on winning! He has now won TWO Presidential elections!

Joe Biden, who beat Trump twice for the
Democrats but who unwittingly
helped Republican Trump
to beat Democrat Kamala Harris

Trump's extraordinary but sure-footed reaction to
an assassination attempt. He has an instinctive ability to
capitalise politically on potential disaster.

Trump addressing a M.A.G.A. rally

He is not a bright or educated man but he has an implicit and instinctive understanding of what motivates the American people; he 'gets' their grievances and destructive impulses perhaps because he shares them. The MAGA movement looks deranged from my armchair but it is huge and will probably endure for a considerable period or, God forbid, permanently. The American working class [their ‘middle class’] does not study politics or politicians but it responds emotionally to Trump’s calls to make America great again; to his immensely patriotic and loudly anti-establishment rallies which erroneously suggest political and social change, even class revenge. They feel warm, part of something big without noticing the harmful effects of his proposed political onslaught on systems mainly beneficial to them nor his inclination, or rather determination, to deliver significant tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals. In the 2020 Presidential election, 65% of non-college educated white men voted for Trump. I do not have the figure for 2024 but it seems unlikely to be less, particularly as both Trump and Vance concentrated efforts on courting this section of the population during the recent election, seeing it correcttly as key to victory.

Another example of the Trump-style of communication.
Only this example is mockery of a somewhat intellectually
superior and more eloquent former President.

My sadness at the ineptness of the average American sniper is only superceded by my

Typical unstatesman-like behaviour
as Trump publicly mocks the disabled
reporter Serge Kovaleski.

fear that a more expert variation will find its mark and America will be left to the untender mercies of J.D.Vance, an altogether more astute and lethal operator. He is an idealogue and leader of the anti-liberal American New Right which, despite its proclamations, is no friend to the worker; indeed more of a force contributing to the economic precarity and social discord of the working class from which J.D. himself sprang. J.D. is tough, determined, resolute; an unsentimental marksman with the experience of ascending from his cultural roots to national prominence and importance. The wartime phrase, ‘He takes no prisoners’ comes to mind. It is painful just to imagine the widespread social and economic disruption he might cause should the Donald not make it to the end of his next Presidential term. And I try not to acknowledge that, following the Donald, the next Republican Presidential candidate will undoubtedly be J.D.