Donald Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Trying to understand the appeal of Donald Trump, it struck me this is a story we've seen before--the appeal of the exuberant over the buttoned down mind, the appeal of the libidinal urge over restraint.  It's Prufrock vs Sweeney. Prufrock measured out his life in teaspoons and coffee cups. Sweeney was erect.


It's Robin Williams rebelling against the straight laced professors and administrators at the uptight prep school, urging his young students to "seize the day."


It's Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" getting into Princeton by dancing in his underpants and throwing wild parties while the grinds resent him.


So Donald plays Jack Nicholson's Randal McMurphy to Hillary's Nurse Ratched.

Randal,( or "Randy" for short,) is the guy who may be a little daffy, but he is so much fun to watch.  (And remember "randy" means "horny" or libidinous.) Guys can be into women, as long as they are funny, at least in show business, (unless they are Bill Cosby.) 
Italy had Carlos Berlosconi and Musolini, who bragged about their sexual exploits, with often unwilling women, but in more Puritanical America, we've always told ourselves we are different.  It depends, of course, on which America you are speaking of, however. In the down home, Here-Comes-Honey-Boo-Boo America, women say, "Oh, you just sock him in the mouth and move on." Boys will be boys.


Of course, as my musician son told me, even the most wild and free sounding musician, a Van Halen or Jimmy Hendrix "practiced with a metronome."  It was a striking image--what could be more disciplined, less uninhibited than a metronome, ticking insistently, side to side?

But music is about beat, rhythm and that means discipline.

We all understand there are areas in life which require people who have great discipline--you don't want a free swinger operating on your brain or sewing new arteries into your heart.

But we do tend to think the Hollywood story of Jack Black and his school of rock which only requires tightly wound little minds releasing all the energy and joy beneath.

Donald does radiate joy, in a perverse, dark sort of way.  That's why his salacious expostulations failed to shock his ardent fans--it was jut more of the joy, more of Donald being the free swinging Donald--"ain't no thing."

I heard a woman defending her support of the Donald by saying that Hillary attacked all those women who were victimized by Bill Clinton and so she was complicit, as guilty as Bill in the violation of those women. So now Jennifer Flowers is Hillary's fault!  She went on to say it was more important to have Donald Trump appointing Supreme Court justices who would reverse Roe v Wade than anything else. So, in the end, she rationalized what she did not like about the Donald by saying Hillary's worse when it comes to protecting women, and anyway, there are more important things.

We'll find out November 8th how many like her are out there.