On Medium: Why Democrats are as Nihilistic as President Trump
Read on about how Trump's nihilistic "transactions" act as unwanted reflections of the liberal's trust in science-centered progress which threatens to undermine the liberal's humanistic values.
What do you think was Trump's most inhuman action, that was unique to his presidency?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to choose. The standard for inhumanity should be similar to that of insanity. What we'd be looking for is an action that's so obviously irrational as to appear alien in origin.
DeleteTrump's penchant for making out even natural disasters to be purely about him and his victimhood certainly qualifies as so narcissistic as to be psychotic. That's not a politically useful tactic but an overflow of a severe mental disorder. So when he shows that he clearly doesn't empathize with the victims of the coronavirus, because he's not psychologically able to, that's a level of inhumanity that's hard for a normal person to fathom.
When he got the coronavirus, relied on a team of doctors and their special treatments no one else could have gotten, and then boasted that the coronavirus is no big deal, that level of shamelessness likewise qualifies as inhuman (or subhuman).
But those are just examples that stick in memory because they're recent. His whole "presidency" was like that. There was that time he sharpied the hurricane diagram to save face. The illusion of saving face was more important to him than the fact that no one really believed his obvious, absurd lie, and that was insane.
But who would want to remember the millions of examples, big and small, that proved his inhumanity? As I argued elsewhere, Trumpism is largely about the weaponized Gish gallop, the overwhelming of the world with malignancy.
I suppose misanthropes might find some of that humorous.
DeleteDo you think the economic and political elite in the US have been indifferent to the plight of the working classes? And maybe they voted in Trump in nihilistic rebellion?
ReplyDeleteI've written as much in several articles explaining the nature of Trumpism. See, for example, the links below.
DeleteI think Trump's voters are interested in conspiracy theories, the cult of Trump (a substitute religion), trolling (vengeance against the plutocratic establishment), and cynical entertainment (black comedy) from politics.
https://medium.com/bigger-picture/grim-theater-the-greater-rationality-of-reelecting-trump-321584d2a938?source=friends_link&sk=90e28d239164bad3b16ac63b157e2fd1
https://medium.com/discourse/trump-trolling-and-the-re-wilding-of-the-american-failed-state-55852970d001?source=friends_link&sk=50252a912174a6a98edae438339b562c
https://medium.com/@benjamincain8/is-president-trump-a-tool-of-tribal-america-67cbf9d52f13?source=friends_link&sk=f6081dc61ae3fdeff5d2b1c23f375cdc