Monday, June 18, 2018

Da Donald and Why They Love Him

The Boston Globe ran a list of the 10 policy promises Trump made to his base and how thoroughly he's delivered on them.


Working with the former shoe factory workers, the assembly line workers in Methuen and Haverhill, Massachusetts, I see another reason, and it has nothing to do with policy. They can barely articulate a single policy, beyond, "Well, we really should build a wall."


What they like is his lack of civility, his profanity, his lack of manners.


The Brits sometimes say given the choice of a society governed by manners or by laws, you will be better off with manners.


For my working class, paycheck to paycheck folks, this resonates as exactly what they hate.

They are actually made uncomfortable by manners and formality. They take delight in the uncouth. "How are you this morning, Mr. Smith?" actually makes them squirm.

"He's okay. He don't screw around, you know? He just says 'Fuck 'em all. We don't need 'em," these folks say, grinning.

It doesn't bother them he dresses in dark suits, wears expensive ties.


Like the British working class who strove to be just as middle class as they could be, our American counterparts follow a similar path.


"Lady Chatterley's Lover" depicted a society which is very recognizable in today's America, where the upper class moves past the lower classes, separating itself from the "drizzle of resentment" which permeates the country, and living in walled off communities, isolating themselves from those lower beings, much as the young women in the play "The Hairy Ape" did.


The discomfort evident among the anti Trump delights my friends in Haverhill and Methuen.


You had it coming, they say. This is what real revolution looks like.

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