Deconstructing Trump

Reading "A Hill To Die On," the part about Paul Ryan's story prompted me to Google Ryan--where-is-he-now?  

Apparently, he moved his family to a Washington, D.C. suburb, and got himself a pay off as a member of Fox board of directors. 

The usual story.  Twenty years in Congress and they put you on the day shift, with a pay off from the guys who run things. For a lot of men who are from small towns and feel insignificant, they get accustomed to all the ego stroking in Washington, DC and they stay there, even after they retire or are defeated.  How you gonna keep them on the farm once they've see DC?

But what I had forgotten, if I ever knew it, was the story of Ryan's conflict with Trump.  Trump would call him several times a day when Ryan was Speaker, but when a story came out in some Washington insider book quoting Ryan as saying Trump knows nothing about how government works, Trump responded: Ryan was a "lame duck failure" and "They gave me standing O's in the Great State of Wisconsin and booed him off the stage."

Well, same old same old Trump.
But then I thought: What was Trump referring to?

A little more Googling and it turns out Ryan had criticized Trump for his belligerence on the campaign trail, for stoking passions rather than dealing in ideas, in March, 2016 at a Wisconsin rally and got booed.  In October, in Ryan's hometown, Trump mentioned his name, at a Trump rally, and boos rang out.

I'm not even sure if this is the whole story, but the whole story is nothing that has to do with anything Trump says. It's just the daily Tweet barrage. You don't think about any of it; you just let it wash over you. It's the pubescent kid trying to establish he is the big dog, belittling a rival.

What was Trump actually doing?

A/ Trump was saying "people in Wisconsin" liked him better than they liked Ryan.
     --"They" liked me but booed him.
B/ Trump was saying that antipathy toward Ryan was deserved.
     --He's a failure
C/ Trump was saying his own popularity was deserved.
     --"They" gave me standing ovations.

Of course, the first question is: Did any of this really happen?
And the answer is, yes, Ryan did hear some boos, but also applause, in his March appearance on stage. And yes, there were some boos from the Trump rally audience in October at the mention of Ryan's name.
Nothing close to being "booed off the stage." But such exaggeration is always greeted with laughter by Trump's supporters. "Given 'em Hell, Donald!"

And what of the "they"? 
Who, exactly is "they"?  Is they all the people in Wisconsin? Just people of voting age? Just people who actually vote? Or just people who come to political rallies, or in the second instance, in October, Trump fans who come to Trump rallies? 

The Trump "they" is that diffuse idea of "everybody." 

Now you've got the equivalence of the audience as the general public, as a rowdy crowd as the voice of the people.

"They" are the people who enjoy watching Trump beat on somebody.

Well, there were always crowds at lynchings, crowds at the guillotine. 

There is one thing Trump was proved right about: When Ryan exhorted the folks in that Wisconsin "Fall fest" event to reject Trump's vitriol and to think about "ideas" instead, he was politically wrong.  Trump was tapping into anger, diffuse, inchoate anger among folks in the Rust Belt and Ryan was telling them to cool off when their passions were running high.

A lot of this is done on instinct, and neither Ryan nor Trump could likely offer much of an analysis. 
Trump could read a crowd and Ryan could not.

The question for 2020 is whether that crowd in front of you represents what most of the folks out there think.