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Great new Tom Nichols column for the Atlantic: Elon. Trump. Resentment.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/11/elon-trump-resentment/672030/I will leave aside Ye, who has his own unique problems (although I will note that his early career was marked by his anger at being shut out, as he saw it, from hip-hop and then the fashion world). Prominent and wealthy Americans such as Trump and Musk, along with the former White House guru Steve Bannon and the investor Peter Thiel, are at war not so much with the American political system, whose institutions they are trying to capture, but with a dominant culture that they seem to believe is withholding its respect from them. Politics is merely the instrument of revenge.
Don’t be fooled when such people protest that they hate the dominant culture and want no part in it. Trump has spent his life as the outer-borough mook with his nose pressed to the windows of midtown Manhattan, wondering why no one wants him there. He claims to hate The New York Times but follows it obsessively and courts its approval. Musk, for his part, has put people in space, but when Twitter users started impersonating him, mostly to show him how idiotic his new “verify everyone for $7.99” plan is, he blocked and suspended them. (As one Twitter wag noted, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is like Elmer Fudd buying a platform full of Bugs Bunnies.) The great irony is that Musk’s other achievements might have vaulted him past perceptions that he’s a spoiled, rich doofus, but buying Twitter and making (and then deleting) jokes about self-gratification while telling people to vote Republican has pretty much obliterated that possibility.
Trump (and Bannon, Thiel, and others) is enraged, apparently, that his transition to elite-class status did not produce respect—or, at least, not the kind of respect he wants from the quarters of society from which he seems to crave it. Never underestimate the kind of anger that such insecurity can produce: Trump and those like him managed to get a ticket in the swankiest carriage on the train, only to find themselves sitting alone. And if that’s how it’s going to be … well, the only answer is to derail the entire thing, from locomotive to caboose, and make everyone suffer.
-snip-
If you still doubt the power of resentment, remember this: Trump wasted his years as the most powerful man in the world whining about how no one respects him. Thiel has spent many millions propping up two candidates who are shameful buffoons. And Musk just lit $44 billion, with a B, on fire so that he could be a hero to an army of trolls that continues to goad him into doing even dumber things, as the Bonfire of the Dead Presidents roars away.
-snip-
Don’t be fooled when such people protest that they hate the dominant culture and want no part in it. Trump has spent his life as the outer-borough mook with his nose pressed to the windows of midtown Manhattan, wondering why no one wants him there. He claims to hate The New York Times but follows it obsessively and courts its approval. Musk, for his part, has put people in space, but when Twitter users started impersonating him, mostly to show him how idiotic his new “verify everyone for $7.99” plan is, he blocked and suspended them. (As one Twitter wag noted, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is like Elmer Fudd buying a platform full of Bugs Bunnies.) The great irony is that Musk’s other achievements might have vaulted him past perceptions that he’s a spoiled, rich doofus, but buying Twitter and making (and then deleting) jokes about self-gratification while telling people to vote Republican has pretty much obliterated that possibility.
Trump (and Bannon, Thiel, and others) is enraged, apparently, that his transition to elite-class status did not produce respect—or, at least, not the kind of respect he wants from the quarters of society from which he seems to crave it. Never underestimate the kind of anger that such insecurity can produce: Trump and those like him managed to get a ticket in the swankiest carriage on the train, only to find themselves sitting alone. And if that’s how it’s going to be … well, the only answer is to derail the entire thing, from locomotive to caboose, and make everyone suffer.
-snip-
If you still doubt the power of resentment, remember this: Trump wasted his years as the most powerful man in the world whining about how no one respects him. Thiel has spent many millions propping up two candidates who are shameful buffoons. And Musk just lit $44 billion, with a B, on fire so that he could be a hero to an army of trolls that continues to goad him into doing even dumber things, as the Bonfire of the Dead Presidents roars away.
-snip-
More at the link, including on Russian resentment, and resentment in this year's Republican campaigns.
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