What Keith Richards Can Teach Us About Beating Our Donald Trump Addiction
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The answer is not that the nation needs to check into a secret clinic in Switzerland for blood-replacement therapy. The Rolling Stones guitarist explained in his 2010 memoir, “Life,” that this story (which was circulated as an article of faith in my adolescence) is an urban myth. But in this book and in interviews he talked about how in the late 1970s he weaned himself from a decadelong heroin addiction in ways that genuinely are relevant to how the nation could wean itself from Trump addiction.
By the time Richards decided he needed to get clean, after an arrest in Toronto and with his family and musical life spiraling, the culture of addiction had seeped into nearly every aspect of his daily life and relationships. Junkies were all around him, bonded by a shared assumption that nothing mattered more than the next high and there was no escape from self-abasement. He declared independence by declaring indifference. That was, in turn, a declaration of superiority.
“You know, after 10 years on that stuff, you live in this other world, where everybody you know’s one,” Richards once said. “So the cats would come around and try to sell you stuff, so I started to get off — my high for a while was watching their faces when I said ‘no.’ ‘Hey man, just a taste, man.’ And just when they couldn’t make a sale just to watch their face, that would be my high.”
There is a chance to borrow Richards’ technique during the Trump-Biden transition. It starts with a recognition that Trump’s power is not political in the traditional sense but psychological. It relies on an insight he probably first gleaned as a toddler but sharpened through decades in New York’s celebrity culture that once you provoke someone into an emotional response they are in a contest on your terms. So he learned how to surprise, to entertain, to confuse and distort, to offend. As he moved to the political arena, Trump exploited one more psychological reality: His supporters are attracted to him precisely because he so easily outrages his opponents.
This means that Trump’s power — just like Keith Richards’ drug transactions — requires two sides to work. His hold on supporters will wane at the same time his hold on political foes and the news media does. Just say no and watch their faces.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/17/keith-richards-donald-trump-addiction-436860
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