Donald Trump as Master Dreamweaver
Living Make-Belief, Chapter 12
I’m spending a few months analyzing the ideas in Jim Dator’s new book Living Make-Belief, along with related works. The introduction to this project can be found here. All entries are listed here.
Chapter 12 of Living Make-Belief explores how Donald Trump exemplifies Dream society logic; of the precursors in Chapter 11, nobody has been nearly as Dreamy or reached the presidency1. Dator quotes historian Angus Burgin to the effect that Trump came onto the scene with a fictional biography2 and offering fictional solutions3 to fictional problems4. Dator attributes Trump’s popularity and success to a few factors: his continuation of the populist demagoguery from the American South that I wrote about last week; the fact that so much of our experience is mediated by images, more directly tied to our emotions than words, and the creation of images is something Trump excels at5; and the fact that he “is not acting a role…. no Truth, but no Falsehood either” (p. 180).
Dator explores a central contradiction of the current situation. On one hand, Trump’s ascendance is a clear indicator of a Postmodern age. The idea that all truth is socially constructed and exists to structure power, or that power is fundamentally the ability to dictate truth, is central to the present moment, not just because Trump’s actions align with it; the Woke Left, Trump’s mirror image, is built around the idea that society is fundamentally a power struggle over reality, and in the last decade that worldview has spilled from the academy into every corner of society6. BUT! Trump’s base is what Sarah Palin described as the “Real America”, the people with what Andy Hines would call Traditional or early Modern values, who believe in traditional families, depended on blue-collar working class jobs like coal mining or manufacturing, and certainly don’t think much of the work of Foucault or the people that read him. It’s one Postmodern team telling the people who hate Postmodernism that the other Postmodern team is the only thing keeping them from the life they imagined they could have lived in a different decade.
The chapter also explores Trump’s quasi-Messianic status among Evangelical Christians. Much of this is due to his narrative of unjust persecution and how attacks against him are seen as symbolic attacks on all his followers. More than a response to a sui generis politician, this is the culmination of decades of societal shifts away from institutional Christianity toward “nothing in particular”, the infusion of New Age beliefs into Christianity, and increasingly fiery rhetoric among the remaining committed core regarding tribulation and an imminent final battle between Good and Evil. All these are elements of what religion in an American Dream Society looks like.
Dator quotes at length from his own 2017 speech about what Trump’s presidency might bring. Naturally, he offers four possible futures corresponding to the Manoa archetypes: a baseline where elites continue to dominate American institutions and policy decisions, despite changes in style; a collapse where the US dismantles the Post-War order without building anything new in its place, potentially leaving states on their own; a slide into fascism where the litany of Trump’s statements/actions and the media reaction to them distract from creeping authoritarianism; and a transformation where artificial intelligence takes an increasing role in running society, aligned with its own sense of the good.
If you’re reading this and thinking something like “so what are the options for bending the future in a preferred direction?”, you’re not alone. I have been disappointed so far with the lack of advice that would justify Dator’s subtitle, Thriving in a Dream Society. I’d love to get his input on this - or yours!
Dator lists modern politicians as examples of the same trend, but judges only Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi as Trump’s equal. He also examines exemplars in industries outside politics, such as Taylor Swift, Shohei Ohtani, Oprah Winfrey, and Elon Musk.
Briefly, the story of the self-made billionaire with supernatural deal-making abilities, which he invented himself and The Apprentice amplified.
Infrastructure week, Obamacare replacement, etc.
The deep state, voter fraud, etc.
Honestly, think of one iconic Biden picture that’s not just him looking confused.
Notably, creating performances to enforce group membership, such as land acknowledgements and other shibboleths.