On Thursday evening, August 6th,2015, an estimated 24 million Americans tuned in to watch the national broadcast of a debate of republican presidential aspirants. With such an audience, the standard was set for the highest rated non sports related telecast in cable network history.  I’m fairly confident this huge audience didn’t tune in to see Rand Paul articulate libertarianism, judge what Megyn Kelly was wearing, or query whether Jeb Bush would respond to the name Jeb Bush.  No, the great majority tuned in, I believe, to be potential witnesses to a real time train wreck.  On June 16th, the Donald Trump train left the station with his announcement that he was running for the Presidency, and has been teetering on the rails ever since.  A nation’s audience reveled in the chance he just might in front of everybody swerve completely off the rails and self destruct.

Donald Trump is the triumphant example of the progressive superficial vacuousness that has overcome the nation’s political discourse.  The Trump agenda for the country is essentially bluster.  Were it not for bluster, he would have no program at all.  But to Trump, what ails the country is not the lack of formative ideas to solve the nation’s challenges, it is the lack of politicians  being willing to lay it on the line, and tell it like it is.  Or at least tell it as Trump think it is to be told.   He sees the world not in layers of complex historical trends, intellectual assessments, and strategic insights, only as groups of winners and losers.  If you win you are “wonderful”.  If you fail, you are “terrible” and a “loser”.  In 1987, Donald Trump burst upon the national consciousness authoring a best seller called “Art of the Deal”, in which he relayed his recipe for success.  Among its breakthrough concepts, Think Big and Get the Word Out.  As Trump tells it, ” I like to think big. If you going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.”  The Donald starred in his own television show in which he identified “losers” and “fired” them.  He states he would bringing this cutting edge management style to the executive branch of the nation’s government.

Is it feasible that 25% of the nation’s voting public, as currently reflected in the polls, sees Trump’s  political core thought as innovative and worthy of the nation’s highest office?  I suspect not, but there has been a progressive tendency to look for leaders that elicit emotional reaction, rather than measured thought.  Its seen in the tendency to want to look to elect the “first” of something – the “first African American”, the “first Woman”, the “first Other”.   Leaders that stoke victimization seem more caring about individual problems and concerns, rather than promoting challenging processes that might actually solve them.  Politicians also seek to identify the “villains” – the “Rich”, the “Gun Owner”, or the “Christian zealot”.  Trump nestles into the psyche of the average voter that is not entirely willing to investigate why problems exist, but fairly certain they are being at least impersonally screwed by the establishment.  Since Trump sees himself as never being duped, he aligns himself with the voters, who see him as protecting them against unseen forces.

As he is the deliverer of emotional retorts, Trump is under no pressure to secure is the logic or the consistency of his statements.  He has been able to make outrageous and contradictory statements,  because to him, the outrage is not his lack of facts, it is everyone else’s lack of outrage.  As Kevin Williamson in National Review articulates:

Asked to provide evidence for his daft conspiracy theory that our illegal-immigration crisis is a result of the Mexican government’s intentionally flooding the United States with platoons of rapists, Trump’s answer was, essentially, “I heard it from a guy.” Challenged on his support for a Canadian-style single-payer health-care system, Trump described the system of his dreams in one word: “better.” As though nobody had ever thought: “What we need is better policies instead of worse policies.” Trump’s mind is so full of Trump that there isn’t any room for ideas, or even basic knowledge.

Logic like that used to be recognized in American politics as a form of satire.  Pat Paulson, a sketch comedian on the Smothers Brothers television show ran for the Presidency in 1968 and five times thereafter on the Straight Talking American Government(STAG) party

platform, with the healthy comedic cynicism of an observer of body politics’ inherent hypocrisies.  Paulsen, freely willing to be a flip  flopper and double talker regarding  his policy statements, when caught in his incoherence, always responded with the catch phrase “picky, picky, picky!”  His presidential campaign slogan was “I upped my standards, now, up yours!”  Paulsen always secured a certain protest vote, but everybody knew he was in on the joke.

In 1992, H Ross Perot, a Texas businessman with a particular hatred for the sitting President George Herbert Walker Bush, set himself as a Trumpian candidate,  and his form of satire was certainly less funny and somewhat more ominous in its success.  He was quoted as saying obtuse policy statements such as, “ If someone as blessed as I am not willing to clean out the barn, who will?”  and  “If you can’t stand a little sacrifice and you can’t  stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we’re never going to straighten this country out.”  Whatever potential policies Perot felt such remarks would evolve into, he never let on, but he translated it into 19% of the national vote in 1992, and although he didn’t win a single state’s electoral vote, Perot managed to take down a sitting President and give us Bill Clinton.

Perot’s success set the stage for the current “businessman savior” Trump, who feels his supposed dominance  in the business world would translate into the more arcane and compromise filled world of politics.  Of course such talents never need to show their skill level running for any lower office – the Chief Executive office of the country is fundamentally just big enough for their egos.

The 2016 republican field was felt to be one of the most talented in recent history, with multiple vetted and articulate candidates with willingness to confront one of the more challenging political environments in years.  Into this maelstrom comes the distortion of Trump, who looks to steal the energy and attention of the moment to pump his own ego and potentially upset the applecart.  Trump, the runaway train, threatens to take his circus “Independent” and achieve the same notoriety that propelled Perot, and likely bring another Clinton into the office.  It would suit Trump fine as he believes the office holders are meant to be “managed” for favors, and their policies consumer items for purchase.  It certainly wouldn’t phase him as to which party would be in power, as power comes from the Art of the Deal.   Is the country so gone that it can no longer participate in a real battle of ideas and help mold its destiny?  My gut sense is that the country has had its flirtation with the superficial (see current administration) and will trade it for some serious adults, not the theater of the absurd.  If so, Trump’s train will soon be passenger-less, and its conductor once again reduced to running beauty pageants, wrestling events, and roulette wheels.  I suspect after a period of time in the klieg lights, that will suit the conductor of the crazy train just fine.