If I had been 30 or 35 years younger in 2016, I would have voted for Donald Trump.
I would have selected him because, in my callow youth, I equated “outsider” with “good.”
I was too young in the 1970s to care about Watergate, except that the televised hearings interrupted my favorite cartoons, but I still absorbed the basic cynicism about government that was Nixon’s legacy.
The ugliness of the nation’s response to Vietnam, the burgeoning military-industrial complex, the rise of lobbyists and their hidden and not-so-hidden agendas, the proliferation of nuclear arms — all of it got into my DNA in a generalized, non-partisan way.
It ultimately led to a generation — or more — of people like me who came of age believing that all career politicians, Republicans and Democrats, were smarmy and not to be trusted. (I’m sure older readers will attest that governmental distrust did not begin in the 1970s.) I also believed gridlock was good, so a government that was mewed up in debates and didn’t accomplish anything was less likely to hurt anybody.
See? Cynical.
As we Watergate kids grew up, some of us became content creators whose projects underscored and extended that pessimistic worldview. “The X-Files,” for example, combined Nixonian distrust and paranoia with a healthy dose of public-health anxiety (vaccines, carcinogens and the rest) and urban legends to create a heady broth that influenced yet another generation.
These same misgivings and paranoia begat the modern iteration of Fox News, which begat QAnon, which begat a thousand and one memes where facts take a backseat to smarminess, conspiracy and the quick comeback.
All of which is to say that there is an undeniable appeal in the outsider, the maverick, the person who promises to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, to borrow an old expression, by tossing a grenade into the political system and chortling gleefully amid the ruins.
Donald Trump would seem to fit that bill. He comes from the corporate world. He has a healthy disdain for the status quo. His very presence irritates all the right people.
Eighteen- or 20-year-old me would likely have punched Trump’s ticket based on those qualities alone.
What I’ve come to realize over the decades, however, is that blowing things up isn’t enough. The guy with the live grenade in one hand needs to have blueprints in the other and a construction crew right behind him.
Trump is all about the destruction. The destruction of civil discourse. The destruction of democratic norms. The destruction of the rule of law, except where it benefits him.
In the last several months alone, we’ve seen him flounder through a pandemic, civil unrest and now an impending election. His administration’s lack of response and denial of science have contributed to the sickness and demise of more than 170,000 people.
Yet, somehow, he still has the active support of some 40 percent of Americans who have apparently made peace with the misogyny, racist dogwhistling, and election meddling. They are still fascinated by the guy with the grenade.
I’m convinced that, for many voters, politics is like being a fan of a particular sports team. No matter how awful the record, no matter how many people the star player assaults, it’s still their team. To abandon the franchise is to risk that worst of appellations: the fair-weather fan.
Good governance, of course, is not about blowing things up or backing the same horse, time after time. It’s about making laws to protect people and help them live better lives.
In my older and somewhat wiser years, I prefer to believe that many career politicians subscribe to a similar definition. They have dedicated their professional lives to working within a system of carefully delineated — yet imperfect — checks and balances to bring about their vision of what better lives look like.
They may disagree about what tomorrow should be. Some may be more willing than others to cross certain lines to get there.
And for those who are in it just for the money or the glory, or for those who step off the straight and narrow, well ... that’s why we have a free press.
Mavericks are fun to read about in novels or watch in movies. We cheer when they cut through the red tape by coercing a confession with force or punching through problems.
But real society shouldn’t work that way, not and call itself civilized. Trump is not building anything; he’s tearing it all down. Along the way, he’s gone from outsider to insider, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy about the inherent corruption of politics.
Let’s stop glorifying the maverick mindset and start appreciating those who work for change from within, through diplomacy and collaboration. Maybe that way, future generations can grow up with a healthy skepticism, minus the cynicism.
Or maybe I’m still cranky about missing my cartoons during those endless Watergate hearings.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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