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Stephen H. Provost is an author of paranormal adventures and historical non-fiction. “Memortality” is his debut novel on Pace Press, set for release Feb. 1, 2017.
An editor and columnist with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, he has written on subjects as diverse as history, religion, politics and language and has served as an editor for fiction and non-fiction projects. His book “Fresno Growing Up,” a history of Fresno, California, during the postwar years, is available on Craven Street Books. His next non-fiction work, “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street,” is scheduled for release in June.
For the past two years, the editor has served as managing editor for an award-winning weekly, The Cambrian, and is also a columnist for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
He lives on the California coast with his wife, stepson and cats Tyrion Fluffybutt and Allie Twinkletail.
Ruminations and provocations.
Filtering by Tag: Reagan
Arkansas lawmakers’ objective in passing their anti-trans law is clear: Stop doctors from doing what they believe is right for their patients, what their patients believe is right, and what the patients’ parents support. Talk about government intrusion. That’s a trifecta.
Read MoreIt’s 40 years this spring since I graduated from high school, and it’s easy to feel old when you realize how much the world has changed during those years. But if you really want to feel old, compare the changes in the past 40 years with those that occurred in the four decades before that!
Read MoreI used to think Donald Trump’s claim that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it was a bit of hyperbole from a circus clown. I never imagined it would actually be an understatement.
Read MoreTrump’s immovable “base” isn’t loyal to him so much as they’re desperately loyal to the idea of a vanishing white-majority nation. He’s made himself a symbol of that by pandering to white supremacists and defending Confederate symbols, so they’ve latched onto him as a potential savior. But the fact is that, despite their panicked fervor, they’ve never pushed Trump’s popularity into majority territory.
Read MoreDonald Trump doesn’t like the Koch Brothers. This should come as no surprise. Trump always operates based on three generalized assumptions:
The establishment is bad.
The status quo is bad.
He’s the victim.
The Koch Brothers are about as “establishment” as you can get.
Trump’s pedigree as an outsider railing against the corrupt proletariat (to use the old-line communist term for it) goes back a long way. Let’s look at some of the evidence:
His antipathy toward former President Barack Obama is well-documented. Whether it’s because of his racial heritage or the fact that he remains a beloved figure by millions of Americans, Trump clearly can’t stand the guy. He not only spread lies about his birthplace, he also called him “one of the worst presidents, maybe in the history of our country” and made the outlandish claim that “he founded ISIS” (the terrorist group, not the Egyptian goddess).
One might expect Trump to attack the leader of the opposition. But what’s striking is how readily and how often he disparages members of his own party. Not only is this counterintuitive, but it breaks what’s known in Republican circles as the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Those words were uttered by none other than the most venerated Republican of the 20th century – at least within GOP circles: Ronald Reagan, the man nearly every GOP candidate sought to emulate for nearly four decades.
Trump’s bad blood with the Bush family (which is about as “establishment” as you can get: two presidents and a governor) runs so deep that neither former president voted for him in 2016 – even though they belong to the same party. Trump called the younger Bush’s decision to invade Iraq “the single worst decision ever made.”
Trump also attacked the Republican Party’s most well-known and, arguably, most revered senator, John McCain, saying, “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
And in 2016, he called Mitt Romney “one of the dumbest and worst candidates in the history of Republican politics.” In short, he’s disparaged his own party’s last three presidential nominees in the kind of vicious terms usually reserved for enemies of the state.
But he didn’t stop with those in government. The NFL, the pinnacle of corporate success in the sports world, and the Koch Brothers, perhaps the party’s most reliable and generous donors in recent years, were next.
Trump’s distaste for the establishment is deep-seated. He’s been on the outside looking in much of his life. He was a developer in Queens who wanted to succeed in Manhattan. He was the owner of a spring football league team who wanted to play with the big boys in the NFL. (The owners kept him out; is it any wonder he’s trying to make life miserable for them now?)
It would be easy – and probably accurate, on some level – to view Trump’s heavy-handed approach to the presidency as the work of a control freak with authoritarian tendencies. But there’s more to it than that. Trump has spent so much time on the outside, he doesn’t know how to be an insider. More than that, he doesn’t want to be. He wants to refashion the presidency in his own image, not just because he’s a know-it-all with a massive ego (he is), but also because he doesn’t trust the establishment.
If it appears that Trump is a threat to the nation’s institutions, it’s because he doesn’t value them. He looks at them with suspicion as the instruments those in power used for so long to suppress his “superior” way of doing things. He might pay lip service to the Constitution, but he has no interest in maintaining the prestige of the presidency. He doesn’t care about old money or old ideas; he has his own way of doing things, and it’s “modern-day presidential.”
He tweeted that.
So, what is Trump’s way of doing things? About the only thing consistent about his philosophy, other than the economic protectionism that inspired the current trade war with China, is its volatility.
The fact that the establishment wants to “keep things the way they are” helps explain why Trump is so hostile to the status quo. But his impulse to cause chaos goes beyond that. Trump needs chaos in order to feel comfortable, so if there isn’t an enemy to fight, he creates one ... either by goading someone into getting down in the gutter with him or manufacturing a conflict where none existed before. The endgame: to depict himself as the victor, whether or not he truly accomplished anything.
The national anthem controversy with the NFL, the “Merry Christmas” crusade and the summits with foreign leaders all pit Trump against an adversary he can claim to have bested, whether not he’s actually done so. In the end, it doesn’t matter. He’s amassed a loyal enough following that those who believe in him will continue to do so, no matter how outlandish the claim. (This is, by the way, undoubtedly why loyalty is so important to Trump: It’s a necessary bulwark against those pesky things called facts and data. Climate change. Obama’s birth certificate. The size of his inaugural crowd. The list goes on and on.)
Trump’s insistence on upending the status quo, for good or ill, perpetuates his victimhood. He gets to depict himself as the much-maligned underdog who somehow comes out on top. That’s an archetype that resonates with a lot of Americans. Whether or not it truly applies to a billionaire real estate developer and reality show host, he’s convinced them that it does, and that’s all that matters.
He gets to be the victim and be “winning” at the same time. Talk about chaotic.
The irony about Trump’s approach is that it isn’t conservatism. Not only has Trump badmouthed, at one time or another, most of the senior figures in the Republican Party, he’s turned the GOP on its head. Conservatism generally defends the status quo, but Trump has challenged it at every turn, defying party orthodoxy on everything from tariffs to Russia; depicting enemies as friends and vice versa. There’s a good reason many see Trump’s tactics as something out of George Orwell’s 1984: He hasn’t just changed the equation, he’s inverted it.
He’s succeeded because he’s tapped into a large segment of the population that identifies with his victimization: aging white America. They don’t see the status quo as conservative anymore; they see it as an artificial construct foisted upon them by Democrats who have unleashed “diversity” as a Trojan horse inside the gates of Fortress America. (Hence the quest for a border wall.) Trump has also forged common ground with Republicans – and some independents – who believe that the Democratic Party is a tool of big-money liberals and corrupt Clinton cronies.
And the Koch Brothers? Charles Koch recently indicated his organization would consider supporting Democrats who shared the group’s values. There may not be many of those, but regardless, those words were likely music to Trump’s ears. He doesn’t want any part of the Koch Brothers and their establishment Republican politics. Tying them to Democrats enables him to do two things: discredit them as traitors among rank-and-file party members and reinforce his narrative that the Democrats are puppets of the monied establishment.
Trump can then refashion the Republican Party as a party of the working class, at least on the surface, depriving Democrats of a foundation that dates back to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. He’s seeking to force political a realignment the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Southern Democrats abandoned the party for the GOP during the Reagan years, when Christian conservatism was flexing its political muscles under the likes of Jerry Falwell and James Dobson.
Trump has retained this social conservatism as an element of his movement (although, as a New Yorker with little religious pedigree, he has no personal stake in it). Now he’s adding economic populism to the mix; it’s a natural fit, and one that’s at odds with the Koch Brothers’ vision of corporate dominance. This realignment makes sense strategically, and also, not coincidentally, fits perfectly into Trump’s anti-establishment crusade.
It’s appealing to many in the economic lower classes because they’re often rural-based social conservatives who feel uncomfortable relying on urban secular Democrats to protect their economic interests. They don’t trust them. They had a natural distrust of Hillary Clinton (who, it should be remembered, abandoned Arkansas for New York), and Trump stoked this distrust to his own benefit by relentlessly portraying Clinton as “Crooked Hillary.”
One reason Trump’s base is so solid is because Bible Belt conservatism and blue-collar populism are such a natural fit. Instead of relying on an uneasy coalition of corporate heavies and “values voters,” he’s creating a more natural alignment between social conservatives and the working class – specifically, the white working class. In doing so, he’s narrowed overall party support, which is to be expected because homogenous groups are less broad-based than coalitions. But he’s also solidified it, because “purity” breeds loyalty – to other members of the movement and to Trump in particular.
Loyalty is exactly what Trump wants. He eats up the resulting pseudo-messianic adoration at pep rallies designed to attract true believers. It feeds on itself and strengthens the foundation of the movement, even as it alienates those on the outside.
Trump’s approach flies in the face of Republican attempts, largely unsuccessful, to expand the party by pursuing a “big tent” approach advocated by the Bushes and others. By contrast, Trump’s motto is, “If you’re not for me, you’re against me.” His message: People shouldn’t have to apologize for what they believe and who they are. This, of course, is why such fringe groups as white supremacists are so strongly attracted to Trumpism: Membership isn’t predicated on philosophy, but on loyalty. He doesn’t have to come right out and embrace them. His willingness to overlook their most repugnant ideas is enough.
Establishment Republicans, for the most part, have seen little choice but to go along with the program, and they’ve no one to blame but themselves. In creating “safe” districts via gerrymandering, they’ve unwittingly engineered the perfect platform for Trump: pockets of true believers who fit Trump’s sweet spot – working-class social conservative – like a glove. Traditional GOP members can’t go against Trumpism without all but guaranteeing they’ll lose in the primary.
The result is that the Republican Party doesn’t stand for much of anything anymore. It exists at Trump’s pleasure and can be remade, at a moment’s notice, at his whim. Tariffs? BFF photo ops with Vladimir Putin? Personal behavior that’s about as far from “Christian” as you can get? None of it matters. What matters is loyalty. Welcome to Cosa Nostra Americana.
Ronald Reagan? Who’s that?
Stephen H. Provost is an author, former journalist, historian and media critic. His book Media Meltdown in the Age of Trump examines the toxic relationship between journalism and Donald Trump, focusing on the media’s transformation from impartial observer to ringside commentator and sometimes-combatant in the 21st century culture wars.
I try not to wade too deeply into the snark-infested waters of political commentary - partly because they're so badly polluted and partly because I'm afraid I'll just add to the snark.
Too many politicians are unscrupulous narcissists who throw out promises like they're beads at Mardi Gras, hoping we'll expose ourselves so they can get a cheap thrill out of it. For us, the thrill isn't quite so cheap. The quid pro quo for those broken-beaded promises usually amounts to campaign contributions and votes (but mostly campaign contributions).
Which brings us to Donald Trump.
Unscrupulous? Repeated bankruptcies and more flip-flopping on the issues than your average bear, donkey, elephant or RINO. (Now a Republican, he not so long ago supported gun-control, said he believed in "universal health care" and was even a registered Democrat from 2001 to 2009.)
Narcissist? Hey, I don't trust anyone who talks about himself in the third person and brags about how he's supposedly a magnet for female attention. (He not only said he'd date his own daughter if they weren't related, he also claimed that every woman who appeared on his TV show "The Apprentice" flirted with him, "consciously or unconsciously.")
But this isn't a piece about the seedy side of politics or even about that guy who has the audacity to call himself "The Donald." It's about us.
What do we, the electorate, see in this guy?
When asked what they like about Trump, people repeat the same thing time and again. It's his bluntness. His directness. His supposed willingness to "tell it like it is," polls and political correctness be damned.
I suspect it all comes down to this: Many of the people who like Trump wish they could say the things he does and get away with it. Some of them would love to demean women, dismiss their critics as a bunch of morons and build a wall to keep anyone "not like me" on the other side of everywhere.
Trump's supporters revel in the fact that he can get away with things they'd never dream of trying. Because he's rich. Because he's famous. Because he feels like it. But here's the irony: They're the ones who allow him to get away with it by refusing to ever call him on his you-know-what. It doesn't matter how often he flip-flops, how many people he mocks and scorns or even why he's disrespecting them. It barely even matters what he says at all. What matters is that he can say it.
Whatever "it" is. And that's the scary part.
Anyone who knows me knows I hate political checklists, litmus tests and interest group ratings, whether they're issued by the NRA or the NAACP. They're the swords of Damocles that political "purists" hold over the modern candidate's head. Politicians - and voters - who dare to defy them by thinking for themselves are thrown under the bus routinely because they don't toe the party line, an attitude that's helped create the severe polarization seen in government today.
The political highway is littered with the wreckage of candidates who crashed and burned because they didn't toe the party line. The slightest deviation from the accepted platform is greeted by impassioned calls off "Off with their heads!" - after which donations typically slow, campaigns struggle and candidacies flame out.
Not so with Trump, a tycoon who acts like he doesn't need to placate donors because he can fund a campaign using his personal fortune ... even though he's actually accepted millions of dollars in donations. Regardless of how much cash he's raking in, he perpetuates the idea that he "can't be bought," and with it the impression that he can say whatever he wants without any consequences.
Voters are attracted to rich candidates because they're supposedly not "beholden to special interests." These "mavericks" seem like a breath of fresh air in an age of litmus tests and political dogmatism. Buy do they really change the status quo?
Hardly.
The modern climate of rigid political doctrine (groupthink), doesn't encourage voters to think for themselves. It's all about conformity. Yet the advent of Trumpolitics isn't necessarily an improvement, because it hasn't encouraged voters to think for themselves, either. Instead, it has created a cult of personality in which followers are encouraged to parrot whatever comes out of Trump's mouth, like the "dittoheads" or "clones" who call talk radio programs to regurgitate whatever rant the host happens to be spewing.
What he's saying doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that he's saying it.
A quarter-century ago, tennis star Andre Agassi did a camera commercial with the tagline "Image is everything." It was a nice play on words, and it worked well with the photogenic Agassi, who then sported not only an athletic figure but a leonine mane of hair that made him something of a sex symbol.
Trump could have come up with that tagline himself.
He's spent years building up his cult of personality, in which substance is unimportant - or even a drawback. The name "Trump" has become iconic; name recognition has always been a big advantage in politics, but Trump has taken it to a new level.
The catchphrase "You're fired!" from his TV show has become almost as recognizable. Is it any coincidence that Trump's ability to kick people off that show at his own discretion (whim?) parallels talk radio hosts' propensity for cutting people off before they finish making their point?
The phrase, along with Trump's status as host of the show, established him as an authority figure in households across America. Authority on what? It didn't matter. Nor did it matter that many of the people who appeared on his show were intelligent, more creative and even by some measures more successful than he was. What mattered is that Trump set himself up as the authority figure and America bought it, regardless of whether he had anything to back it up.
Now he's doing it again, and the stakes are a whole lot higher than Nielsen ratings.
He's not even trying to hide what he's doing.
His own words: "The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies."
Why?
"People want to believe that something is the biggest and greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration - and a very effective form of promotion."
Trump's open secret: He's essentially giving people a blank slate set against a backdrop of audacity and allowing them to project their greatest hopes and dreams onto it - onto him. Then he takes credit for making them come true before even bothering to lift a finger on their behalf.
This is nothing new in politics. Voters in every election cycle become excited by some new face on the scene - often an outsider or celebrity who's made a name in some field other than politics. John Glenn, Ross Perot, Fred Thompson, Herman Cain and, most recently, Ben Carson are examples. When they announced their candidacies, they, too, were blank slates. People got excited about who they might be, and their poll numbers spiked. But the voters soured on each these candidates as they discovered more about who they really were. Either they were too boring, too mercurial or too willing to believe that pharaohs built the pyramids as granaries.
Information was their undoing.
Pundits expected the same thing to happen with Trump, who by himself may have said more outlandish things than the rest of the 2016 candidates combined. But as of this writing, his poll numbers remain solid and people keep supporting him for one simple reason: It's not about what he's saying but the fact he can say "it" and get away with it.
Information is no antidote to that, because information is irrelevant in a cult of personality. All that matters is the cult figure's name, fame and salesmanship. He's everyone's instant, ready-made "me I wanna be." Trump doesn't talk about the issues beyond vague generalities because he doesn't have to. He's a celebrity, not a policy wonk. Kim Kardashian doesn't need talent to be popular. Trump doesn't need ideas. Same principle.
The Republicans have spent the past 27 years searching for the new Ronald Reagan, and Trump's the closest thing they've found. Reagan, like Trump, was a showman and converted Democrat with high name recognition and a lot of self-confidence. But even Reagan's ability to promote himself pales in comparison to Trump's. (Agree with him or not, Reagan did actually take specific policy positions on a number of issues, and he never referred to himself as "The Ronald.")
Trump's invulnerability (so far) to his own foot-in-mouth disease has makes Reagan's legendary "Teflon Presidency" look like a caked-on, baked-on kitchen disaster by comparison. Carson's odd notions on the pyramids sounded ridiculous, and they cost him plenty in the polls. But Trump? He can degrade women, threaten religious liberty - a supposed cornerstone of Republican dogma - spout unsupported stories about Muslims cheering the 9/11 disaster and absurdly claim the current president was born on foreign soil. Yet none of it, so far, has mattered.
That's because Trump has succeeded in convincing a sizable number of people that he's the embodiment of their fantasies - just as he bragged he would. He's not some two-bit circus magician from Kansas hiding behind a curtain and some phony projection; he's a used-car dealer who's spent the past three decades bragging about his ability to sell you a lemon. A fantasy. "The art of the deal," he calls it.
The astonishing thing is, after all this time, that so many people are still buying it.
Trump's no statesman, he's a salesman and a master of self-promotion who's preaching the gospel according to P.T. Barnum (as preserved by one of his critics): "There's a sucker born every minute."
And he's got plenty of us paying to see his sideshow.
