seeking to advance
a revolutionary
transvaluation
In his opinion essay, “The Moral Challenge of Trumpism,” David Brooks quotes a Mr. Damon Linker who writes:
“Trumpism is seeking to advance a revolutionary transvaluation of values by inverting the morality that undergirds both traditional conservatism and liberal institutionalism. In this inversion, norms and rules that counsel and enforce propriety, restraint and deference to institutional authority become vices, while flouting them become virtues.”
For me, this simple but wonderful use of words hits at what I feel about the incoming administration.
Mr. Brooks expands on the idea of “norms and rules that counsel and enforce propriety, restraint and deference to institutional authority become vices, while flouting them become virtues.” writing:
What does heroism look like according the MAGA morality? It looks like the sort of people whom Trump has picked to be in his cabinet. The virtuous man in this morality is self-assertive, combative, transgressive and vengeful. He’s not afraid to break the rules and come to his own conclusions. He has contempt for institutions and is happy to be a battering force to bring them down. He is unbothered by elite scorn but, in fact, revels in it and goes out of his way to generate it.
In this mind-set, if the establishment regards you as a sleazeball, you must be doing something right. If the legal system indicts you, you must be a virtuous man.
In this morality, the fact that a presidential nominee is accused of sexual assault is a feature, not a bug. It’s a sign that this nominee is a manly man. Manly men go after what they want. They assert themselves and smash propriety — including grabbing women “by the pussy” if they feel like it.
In this worldview, a nominee enshrouded in scandal is more trustworthy than a person who has lived an honest life. The scandal-shrouded nominee is cast out from polite society. He’s not going to run to a New York publisher and write a tell-all memoir bashing the administration in which he served. Such a person is not going to care if he is scorned by the civil servants in the agency he has been hired to dismantle.
Now comes my point.
I know so many folks who say something along the line of “… I voted for Trump, but I don’t go along with all these things he says or does.”
See there is this train.
I don’t like the train.
I don’t like where the train is going.
I don’t like the accommodations on the train.
I don’t like the schedule the train runs on.
I don’t even like the color of the train or the arrangement of the seating or how I get my tickets on the train.
BUT they serve a really good lunch on the train on Tuesdays so I buy and ticket to ride the train.
I might get my lunch, but I get everything else, including ending up where that train is headed when I bought my ticket and provided the means for the train to operate.
As Mr. Brooks writes, “… character is destiny.”
No Haiku For You 