Donald Trump, bold defender of white masculinity

Trump and sports promoter LaVar Ball are more alike than different, but their Twitter war has a long, ugly history

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
11.20.2017•5:00 AM

If Mike Judge writes a sequel to his great 2006 film "Idiocracy" (which now feels like a very prescient documentary and not a satire), he could easily cast president Donald Trump and sports promoter-manager LaVar Ball as the main characters. Both men are obnoxious, loud masters of self-promotion who play on the worst parts of American culture in order to make money. Trump is the champion of this debased culture; Ball is no more than a low-ranked challenger. Nevertheless, in many ways their public personas are more similar than different. Together, they are doppelgängers of crudeness. This fact is lost on Donald Trump, a person who lacks the capacity for critical self-reflection.

In his Sunday Twitter outburst, Trump went after Ball this way:

Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!

In another example of how Trump has soiled the White House, this idiotic temper tantrum came on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Alas, the American presidency has fallen from the heights and gravitas of Lincoln's oratory and leadership to the 280 characters of Twitter and a petit-fascist who demands constant praise and attention because his life is modeled on a reality TV show. Trump's behavior, of course, is part of a much larger pattern.

Trump appears to view himself as a monarch who must be shown acts of loyalty and fealty at all times and by all people. In his mind, he is a Leviathan, the physical embodiment of the State, who must be treated accordingly.

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https://www.salon.com/2017/11/20/donald-trump-bold-defender-of-white-masculinity/