A Very Unremarkable, Very Average White, Male, American Baby Boomer Loses Again

I don’t know anyone who writes about Donald Trump professionally and critically who enjoys writing about Donald Trump. That’s because writing about Donald Trump is tedious and annoying. The man is shallow, predictable, and pretty damn boring. Measured as if he was Trash TV, covering Trump is like writing recaps for Knife Family: The Senior Years. Even his outrages, when taken as a whole, are same-old, especially to those who know his biography.

Trump watchers know that the man is primarily driven by deep insecurity and the desire to be loved and admired. His father Fred Trump withheld affection from his son, regularly berating him, a parenting technique designed to turn Donald into “a killer.” If Young Donnie wanted an attaboy from pops, he had to win and win and win big. If Donnie longed a back pat, he had to demolish his adversaries. If Donnie wanted to prove his worth to dad, there best be a pile of money in front of him and a trail of smoke behind him. As a result, money accumulated and destruction caused were and are Donald Trump’s measure of self-worth.

Through Roy Cohn, Donald Trump learned that attention is currency (and outrage an attention-seeking tool). Trump might not be the richest man in New York City, but he can be the richest man in New York City in the tabloids…and perhaps that attention will give dad a smile and Donald an in with the Manhattan In-Crowd (and not mockery in Spy magazine) which would make Dad right and his detractors wrong. Wrestling promoter Vince McMahon and TV producer Mark Burnett reinforced Trump’s focus on attention and helped him hone his attention-getting skills.

Buried in all that is Trump’s bigotry, the attitudes and beliefs that he picked up from his father and from growing up in Queens, New York in the last half of the 20^th Century. My folks were White New Yorkers of Trump’s era and while not active bigots like Trump, they trucked in the same ethnic and gender stereotypes – the Shiftless Negro, the Lazy Mexican, the Sinister/Wise Oriental, the Honorable Drunk Indian, the Bad Woman Driver, the Flamboyant Queer, the Drunken Irishman, the Mafia Dago, the Stupider Pollack.

Dig up some comedy records from the 1950s and 1960s, and all the stereotypes listed above are joked about over and over. Dial up some TV shows from the same time period and these stereotypes lurk, albeit softened a bit, though check out Don Rickles riffing on a 1970s variety show and oof! Politicians and preachers – “honorable men” – used these stereotypes to define some people and move others. Into the 1970s, when I was in grade school, “positive” ethnic and gender stereotypes were taught to us through Ethnic Awareness weeks and Career days. So, what Trump learned was the same thing a lot of us picked up.

Another cultural influence on Trump (and the rest of the U.S.) is the historical documentary on TV, specifically documentaries on the American Civil War and World War II. The interpretation and presentation of these wars was shaped by the story-telling and historiographical trends and ideas of the time, approaches that are outdated, problematic, and that we didn’t feel shift until the 1990s.

The old Civil War history went like this: It was a War of Brothers. Brother against Brother in the fight over State’s Rights. The Brothers War, a tragedy! Why can’t we all just get along? And then, slavery was mentioned, though how much and from what angle depended on how deep the history-tellers were into the Lost Cause of the Confederacy (aka the Southern view of the War). In most cases, there was a lot of focus on leaders and military maneuvers. When “the people” got attention, it was often a Gone with the Wind treatment, sympathetic to the “plight” of the South’s former slavers. The Black slaves? Props. The White sharecropper? Who?

Early TV documentaries on WWII mimicked Allied wartime news reels. There is a heavy focus on the Great Men leading the fight, Our Boys, and specific battles. When the doc makers want levity, they zoom in on the demand and desirability of stocking and chocolates, and then cut to scenes of GIs receiving “letters from home.”

The Germans were portrayed more as adversaries than enemies. Their ethnic stereotyping was far less cruel than what was thrown at the Japanese. Much was made of “German order.” At worst it was orderly. At best, order resulted in Nazi style! - style that was fetishized. We were taught that “Those Nazis might have been bad, but they sure looked great! Those buildings, the uniforms, the way that they march!” There were more outs, even for the “worst of the worst.”

Hitler? Booooo! But he was a “great orator” who “told it like it is” and who “got things done.” And, he was a vegetarian who loved animals, so he couldn’t be that bad. Better to focus on Germany’s General Rommel, the Desert Fox, who killed for Hitler but “wasn’t really a Nazi” and “never really believed in what he was doing.” Besides, he was a brilliant tactician and did his job well, so that makes for some balance, right? Basically, mid-20^th Century WWII documentaries taught us that there were good people on both sides.

When I graduated high school, as far as the “Good War” goes, I knew far more about military events like the Battle of the Bulge than the Holocaust, a term I didn’t understand until my last years in high school (ironically, a high school with a relatively large Jewish student body). One reading of The Diary of Anne Frank and whatever I picked up from punk rock lyrics was the extracurricular foundation of my understanding of the real history of WWII, an understanding flushed out in college and after.

The documentary portrayal of WWII’s Pacific Theater was much different than what we were taught about Europe. The Germans were bad, but the Japanese were the worst! First off, they aren’t White. I mean look at them with their squinty eyes and rat faces, hungering to destroy everything “civilized,” so that they can make all of us slaves! And our women! Those lusty heathens are after our White women! And once our White women get their fill of Oriental loving, they will forever long for the Harem or Concubine or Whatever They Call It.

Certainly, the Japanese engaged in atrocities and were fueled partially by their own bigotry and prejudices, but their war was essentially imperialistic. They wanted to control people, they wanted to profit from them, not annihilate them, not like the Nazis. Their war aims were distinctively different, as different from the Germans as from the Italians who had different aims than the Germans. Still, the Japanese were afforded none of the “outs” given to the Germans (or the silence allowed the Italians) – no style points, no Desert Fox, no “Tojo gaslit the Japanese people.” Simply, “Evil Japs, just look at them!”

So, we know that Trump is of average intelligence at best, a-literate, close-minded, a “creature of habit,” non-curious, shallow, trivial, dull-witted and arrogant. We know that he seeks attention and affection, and has learned that he can get it from the public via the mass media. We know when and where he was raised and how culture was viewed back then and how it impacted White Americans. We know how Trump was taught history and from what perspective that history was taught. We also know that as a Baby Boomer, Trump was impacted by President John Kennedy’s assassination, an event that, coupled with Watergate, made many American apolitical or “political independents.”

All of the above adds up to a very unremarkable, very average White, Male, American Baby Boomer who holds views that many of his generation and type hold.

Writing about Trump is tedious and boring because it is writing about a very unremarkable, very average White, Male, American Baby Boomer. What sets Trump apart are the only reasons to pay attention to him: 1) Trump is the president of the United States and 2) Trump is the leader of a political party/movement. Yes, Trump is filthy rich, but if he was a filthy rich shy guy with no political ambitions, we wouldn’t know of him. His wealth isn’t the draw. At best, it is an angle in the story of a very unremarkable, very average White, Male, American Baby Boomer.

I write all this as in introduction to how I plan to cover Trump over the next years. I don’t care about the man. I have no reason to figure out why he is saying or doing every single thing he says or does. I know his biography, his nature, his psychology, and because I know history, I know why Trump acts and it is uninspiring.

What I am interested in is how we interact with him, specifically how those who oppose Trump interact with him. Why? Because it is those who oppose Trump who will determine how these next years play out.

We know what Trump is going to do. He might lie about it when asked, but, because he is dull and lazy, we know that most all of what he is going to do is what he’s already done or tried to do: Go after immigrants, attack perceived enemies, insult allies, denigrate “minorities,” and try to make as much money as possible any way possible, legal or not. He’s advertised his plans in interviews (friendly interviews are where he is most frank). His people also talk of his plans, openly and through press leaks. Whatever else can be read in Project 2025.

On January 20, we knew that Trump was going to sign a shit ton of bad executive orders. We knew that the days that followed would see more. We knew that most of the orders would be rehash, and that some would be seemingly new. One of the seemingly new Trump orders was Tuesday’s fiat to stop all funding of government grants. I write seemingly because one of the stated reasons for the stoppage was to ferret out DEI programs, basically Black and Brown people (at this point when the right says “DEI” we should be hearing the “N-word”). New words, new target, same old shit.

Before anyone dug into Trump’s Tuesday order, people on social media started to freak, a freakout that has a ripple effect. The tenor behind the freakout was fear of Trump the Monster, the above average, supremely talented, extremely dangerous super villain who is going to eat us all like we were maraschino cherries atop a deep-fried money sundae. “What are we going to do? All these programs that people need are going to end and everyone will die.”

I have a good idea on what to do: Read up a bit. Do that and you will discover what Steve Vladeck did:

Even as the Trump administration has embarked upon a flurry of controversial initiatives over the past week, I’ve been reluctant to swing at every pitch. But this action belongs in a category unto itself. In essence, the Trump administration is claiming the unilateral power to at least temporarily “impound” tens of billions of dollars of appropriated funds—in direct conflict with Congress’s constitutional power of the purse, and in even more flagrant violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA).

So, legally, Trump’s order is shit.

Less than one day after Trump issued his order, it was challenged in court and U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked it. Additionally, “[s]hortly after the decision by Judge AliKhan, a group of attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia filed a separate challenge in federal court.” All the challenges echo Vladeck. And there could be more challenges to come, as many of the NGOs and non-profits who would be impacted by the freeze have threatened suit.

On Wednesday, under pressure from mayors, governors, state legislatures, Congress, financial backers, lawyers and the American people – Republicans, Democrats, Indies, and the rest of us – and told by economists that a freeze would tank the economy, Trump walked back his order, which has people talking about Trump’s problems when trying to rule via executive order in his first term, which has Trump on the defensive.

Once again, Trump has proved something that shouldn’t have to be proven over and over and over again: Trump is a flawed politician, a self-centered operator who won’t listen to advice, an ignoramus who doesn’t know much outside what goes on in his head, and a pompous oaf who can’t read a room not peopled in his favor. He is also sloppy and lazy, surrounded by culties, sycophants, and opportunists. While he does have talented people around him, they are greatly outnumbered by the mediocre, people he seems more comfortable around. Really, this is a guy who had to have Laura Loomer pried off of him. He is not self-aware and he doesn’t know what is truly good for him.

Measure Trump by his actions – not his boasts – and he is a serial loser. That is a fact, not an insult, and it is something that I wish was hardwired into our brains. Having to revisit Trump’s many failures (Trump steak, Trump U, multiple casinos bankrupted, etc.!) is a waste of time and energy. Having to make the case to people who oppose Trump that their adversary is a man with weaknesses who can be defeated is tedious.

I loathe having to respond to posts in which I try to take true measure of the man based on what we know and not what we project. I hate assuring people that I am not dismissing Trump or underestimating him, but sizing him up so that we can fight the fight that must be fought, a fight against a real person and not a bogeyman. I hate having to repeat what I see as the obvious, and I am sure many of you hate reading it. But it has to be done, for if we are going to fight back and win, we must fight against real people not imagined supervillains. And, yes, many of those real people are monstrous and villainous and pretty damn shitty, but they are people and they can be beat.

While I imagine that I will have to rewrite this essay for a future post, I will let Trump the Man rest and focus more on how we react to him so that we can beat him. More to come.