Boring the Base

The public is fickle. It loves novelty. When the Donald hit the political stage all guns blazing he was like the hottest Vaudeville act ever. The many frustrated citizens among us, especially old White men, saw his outrageous pack of lies as exciting and refreshing. After eight year of a thoughtful, cool and calm Black man in the White House, a man who spoke in carefully measured terms, Joe Sixpack and Jenny hayseed were dying to embrace a whole lot of political fireworks.

This was especially true when every dubious word Mr. Trump uttered was intended to inflame what quickly became his ever-loving base, the nation’s restrained and not so restrained xenophobes. His key, but often-used phrase, Make America great Again (MACA) was a call to take America back to a time when his fans ruled the nation and those others knew their place. Indeed, it was a time when America’s middleclass bubble welled up between 1946 and 1976 as a temporary result of the devastation that World War Two had upon America’s industrial competition.

Meaning that for a big chunk of their lives some had had it all, and now they don’t. Certain social scientist have describe these, now you have it now you don’ts, mainly White folks, as the “New Poor,” a most volatile element of the body politic. The GOP had been Dog whistling these folks for more than thirty years. To the temporary horror of the Republican establishment Trump throw away the dog whistle and picked up the bullhorn of a much crude style of gutter politics. PC was out and for the less sophisticated straight talk was in.

But prior to our current president, those mostly intelligent presidents that preceded him were always worried about overexposure. They instinctively understood the novelty aspects of politics — people become easily bored. It’s hard to stay fresh. Alas, for President Trump, being a narcissist, over exposure for him is a foreign concept. He will go on repeating his golden hits, pet phrases and juvenile name calling long after it has gone stale. Even red meat spoils after long exposure. But he won’t notice.

I strongly suspect that his entertaining lies and tweet storms have already begun to lose some of their luster with the faithful. By 2020 I fully expect that he will come off to the general public like a comedian that has remained too long on stage. By then folks will once again be hungry for an adult leader, even Joe Sixpack and Jenny Hayseed