Trump, Tyranny and Totalitarianism. Part 1.

Tuesday, November 8th, 2016 came as a shock to most professional political analysts. Now that Friday, January 20th has come and the fever dream of Trump has become our new standard, we must look to a radical political future in the west. The professional political analysts mostly culled from previous campaigns, successful or otherwise, spent their entire careers in the business of getting candidates elected. These professionals are inherently reactionary and conservative because the name of the game in campaigns is avoiding mistakes and covering your bosses’ gaffs.

White House staff members gathered in the Rose Garden after the election to hear Obama speak after the election. source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37932280

I suspect many of these "experts" who were very sure of a Clinton win, Republican and Democrat alike, made their names by being tireless campaigners. They likely began in their freshmen year of college, if not earlier, knocking on doors, cold calling voters during dinner and arguing with other partisan political enthusiasts about the issues of that particular election or news cycle.

These are the type of people who work very hard to get their bosses elected, but in all of the critical work they do, they hardly live in the ‘real’ world. This unreality of their lives is not a partisan attack; this is a political reality: most people who get into senior positions in campaigns and thus become ‘experts’ are fanatic zealots. But these types of experts lack any perspective to analyze the realities of a country. They are like golf caddies who are only able to provide advice on a course they have played on previously. To stretch this analogy further, they are not able to tell you why the course is laid out the way it is nor can they tell you what to do when you win the game.  This lack of big picture thinking and the fundamental disconnect from the grand political reality is why there has been such a stunning reaction to the results of the 8th of November 2016. The professionals never saw it coming because they don’t have much knowledge outside of their niche. They are veterans of ancient wars reliving past battles. 

Most political experts are designated as such because they are glued to their Twitter accounts and ride the news cycle from one bombshell story to another. They are much more likely to read a poll than a book, and it isn’t their fault. These experts are well educated to be sure but do it is wise to assume that someone with a degree, even from the prestigious institutions, are automatically capable of next order thinking. Let me be clear; this isn’t an anti-elite tirade. At its best, this article is a challenge to what made these experts elite in the first place. The lack of political analysis of what we have seen in the past year is most worrying. It has shown how frail our ability to think is and in an era of unthinking, we have President Donald J. Trump.

This analysis will focus on issues and ideas rather than the hyper-technical inside the Beltway reaction to the election that passes as analysis. There is a never ending flow of statistical breakdowns, demographic dissections, and navel gazing by the campaign management class but in all of this murmuring, the actual analysis is incredibly superficial because it does not address the ideas of this campaign. The only articles that come close to a discussion of ideas are those that engage with the outrage over this election result. The debate of the supposed ‘alt-right,' which is the embodiment of the "basket of deplorables" that Secretary Clinton spoke of, only begins to address the actual concern of this election result. I will use Hannah Arendt, and a work by Xenoohon titled Hiero after the tyrant who ruled Syracuse in 474 BC. My argument is plain, Trump as an individual is probably more like an ancient tyrant in the sense that it is personal aggrandizement that he seeks. However, the forces that his campaign unleashed in this election are dire and will be tough to control in the near and interim future. The use of resentment, racial division, anti-intellectualism and the complete disregard for any notion of truth has set an incredibly dangerous precedent that I do not expect President Trump to exploit to their fullest, instead, if America is not strengthened, these new terrains of political anger will be used by some even less scrupulous demagogue.  

Hiero not Hero

Crowning the Victors at Olympia - Hiero of Syracuse and victors - James Barry source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hiero_of_Syracuse_and_victors.jpg

Trump, the human not the politician, is undoubtedly a brutal man with brutal tastes. His public image is almost a Scrooge McDuck-like celebration of greed for greed’s sake.  From the buildings he has his name attached to with golden letters, to the obsessive need to flaunt his conspicuous spending habits, Trump, the public personality, might well have been a caricature of a business tycoon rather than someone trying to pass himself off as a legitimate business owner. This ability to play the role of a successful businessman is why he was so well suited to the unreality of reality television. Who better to play a money obsessed CEO than a true megalomaniac with a deep need to show off his wealth in the gaudiest ways possible?  So, it may seem odd to use a text from ancient Greece to describe a 21st-century figure. Xenophon's dialogue explains, to a great degree, what might drive a man like Trump and the double-edged nature of his ‘success.' The length of the text is quite small in comparison to some other ancient philosophical dialogues, and the plain reading of it is quite simple. Simonides, a poet, discusses with Hiero, the tyrant, the differences between private life and the life of a tyrant. Throughout the text, Hiero complains of his life as a tyrant and the many issues he has to be concerned about that he did not have to worry about in his life as a private citizen. Towards the end of the text, Simonides begins to give advice to Hiero on how to be a happier and more effective tyrant.

This dialogue provides a plausible and fitting explanation of the drive for ever more possessions and recognition that perhaps only Freud could outdo. Simonides puts forward a sensible argument that gets the dialogue moving. His initial argument is that average citizens in their private lives get great pleasure from the sensual activities of life and the joy of owning objects. He reasons that a tyrant must derive even more pleasure because a tyrant would have access to all the physical pleasures of life. Hiero, the tyrant, argues,“tyrants have much fewer pleasures than private men who live on modest means, and they have far more and greater pains." (p.4)

This is the way the early part of the dialogue works. Simonides suggests ways that tyrants might enjoy their position and Hiero knocks these arguments down. For instance, Simonides states the belief that tyrants must enjoy having festivals and festivities more than the average citizen since they are the centre of attention. But, Hiero argues that he cannot enjoy these celebrations because the crowds represent a danger to his safety. Just as perversely, Hiero argues that he cannot enjoy meals in the same way that an ordinary person does because the tyrant gets used abundance. It is only a commoner who will enjoy the unusual variety of a feast because it is not part of their normal existence.

source: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Trump-eats-50-steak-with-ketchup-foodies-aghast-10963313.php

For a man like Donald Trump, these problems have been cultivated over his entire career. The problem with making yourself a household name is that you will never be anonymous and you can never really mingle with ‘normal' people if you fear for your physical safety, not to mention the lack of privacy.  Similarly, Trump was brought up in the lap of luxury, so his understanding of not being able to enjoy the fruits of modern society has never been a real issue for him. He has never known privation or want. Sure, as a child he may not have had a private helicopter and jet but, these kind of toys are marginal gains. He has never faced the very real prospect of not being able to feed, clothe or shelter himself or his loved ones. Again, he might have moved up from rich to hyper-rich but does that produce any substantial joy? Not likely. However, a genuinely ‘extrospective’ (if you will allow me to coin a term) may never realize how they are on a hamster-wheel of failed satiation of desires.  Of course, I do not know the man. But, if I take him at face-value, and I would argue that is all he wants us to do, then I must conclude he believes that over that next hill of physical desire there is a Shangri-La that will simultaneously make him feel completely accomplished and also make everyone love him as well. Hiero, our introspective tyrant, knows this is a futile pursuit.

Moreover, Hiero says that a tyrant cannot trust the opinion of those around him. Hiero's observation is a somewhat obvious point, but, it is nonetheless profound. Hiero asks, rhetorically, what pleasure, “do you think a tyrant gets from those who say nothing bad, when he knows clearly every thought these silent men have is bad for him? Or what pleasure do you think he gets from those who praise him, when he suspects them of bestowing their praise for the sake of flattery?”

Consider the façade of The Apprentice and reflect on that passage. In this simulated world that Donald Trump created he was unquestionable, his accomplishments were unrivaled, and his judgements were final. In a now famous scene, Donald Trump asks Meatloaf, Lil Jon, Mark McGrath, Star Jones, and others whether he should run for president. Of course, no one objects to the suggestion and for good reason as Trump himself states “Anybody that raised their hand [to say no to the idea] would immediately be fired because they are stupid.” (video here) Of course, reading too much into this little exchange that, is admittedly, framed in a comedic tone would be a bit reckless. The profound truth of it is plain; a man with the wealth and fame of Trump will find it difficult to get anything but bootlicking from his inner circle. Critics and philosophers usually do not hang out with these types of people and when they do it is to stroke the ego of power-hungry man.

Some of the most insightful passages of this dialogue come from the segments where Hiero addresses the personal life of a tyrant. In the realm of marriage, tyrants, according to Hiero, are constrained because

“unless the tyrant marries a foreign woman, necessity compels him to marry an inferior, so that what would content him is not readily accessible to him. Furthermore, it is attentions from the proudest women which give the most pleasure, whereas attentions from slaves, even when they are available, do not content at all, and rather occasion fits of terrible anger and pain if anything is neglected.” (p. 6)

The reasoning, which is addressed and fleshed out in the text, is that marriage is only pleasurable (and I certainly would contest this argument, at least partially) when it elevates the social status of the couple. There is an inherent truth in this for nearly any wealthy person because how can anyone who has severe wealth inequality with their spouse believe that they are together because of love rather than greed? This dilemma is, perhaps, one of the most profound problems that the tyrant must face: the tyrant cannot love and cannot truly be loved. Again, Hiero is an unusually introspective tyrant whose soul seems to be unhappy with the injustice of his position. Naturally, Hiero sees his position as tragic but, Trump may not. Because a man like Trump is on this hamster wheel of ever more possessions and the need for admiration from the crowd, he seeks the most obvious way of showing his prowess by marrying physically beautiful and desirable women with whom he seems to enjoy the one-dimensional aspect of love:  physical desire and the jealousy of others for 'possessing' that desirability. Once this key feature has faded in his eyes, Trump finds another woman whom he thinks will serve the same purpose. I could be wrong, and I do hope that there is some semblance of an intensely personal relationship between Trump and his wives but we have to work on the assumption that what he projects is who he is else why would he project it?

Sexual Healing

The text argues that the physical pleasure from sex is fleeting if it is not accompanied by the lasting power of love. Hiero says that,

 “we all know these pleasures of sex give much greater enjoyment when accompanied with love. But love in turn is least of all willing to arise in the tyrant, for love takes pleasure in longing not for what is at hand, but for what is hoped for. Then, just as a man without experience of thirst would not enjoy drinking, so too the man without experience of love is without experience of the sweetest pleasures of sex.” (p. 6-7)

The tyrant is denied this profound pleasure because they can never truly know love as no one is their equal and everyone has, at best, mixed intentions. Love is denied for the tyrant because he can never exist in a state of assuredness that their partner does not love them for some ulterior motive. Looking at the personal life of Trump is not a tactic I would condone for most public servants. Trump has made a career out of broadcasting his personal issues throughout the media. To the point of using his failed marriage to Ivana as the punch-line in a Pizza Hut commercial (video here). The point being, Trump treats his love life as a competitive and public sport of finding beautiful women to act as his trophies. Hiero tells us that this is ultimately a vain and unending pursuit because it lacks the real connection of genuine love.  

source: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/yes-it-was-donald-trump-who-first-introduced-pizza-huts-stuffed-crust-world-173639/

This problem of never being able to be truly intimate with another person extends into the realm of friendships as well. Hiero laments that he has lost all the pleasures of friends once he became a tyrant because "I see in them no good will for me". He speaks of his days as a private citizen where he could truly enjoy the company of all of the best people in society. Now, he must actively avoid such people and can never have a bond of friendship with anyone so that he must supplant this deep human desire with the cheap substitute of his slaves. 

This, in turn, leads him to a deep problem of governance. Hiero grieves saying,

“I will tell you of another harsh affliction, Simonides, which the tyrants have. For although they are acquainted with the decent, the wise, and the just, no less than private men [the tyrants] fear rather than admire them. They fear the brave because they might dare something for the sake of freedom; the wise because they might contrive something; and the just, because the multitude might desire to be ruled by them. When, because of their fear, they do away secretly with such men, who is left for them to use save the unjust, the incontinent, and the slavish? The unjust are trusted because they are afraid, just as the tyrants are, that some day the cities, becoming free, will become their masters. The incontinent are trusted because they are at liberty for the present, and the slavish because not even they deem themselves worthy to be free. This affliction, then, seems harsh to me to think some are good men, and yet to be compelled to make use of the others.” (p.12)

This revelatory passage might, above all else, understand some of the cabinet choices of the Trump administration. Why, for instance, would Trump select Governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy? While the former governor has experience in government, of course, this is a portfolio that previously had a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at its head and in the Bush administration a person who was the co-founder of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Perry was the presidential hopeful who campaigned on the pledge to cut the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Education but was unable to remember the names of these departments during the infamous "oops moment" in 2011 (video here). The failure to remember which departments he intended to cut [he forgot the Department of Energy] was bad enough but Perry has later stated that only now does he understand the vital work that the Department of Energy does and now believes it must be kept. This is not a cheap shot against Governor Perry but a serious question as to his abilities especially in comparison to the former Secretaries of Energy. If these choices are understood in with the context of the Hiero dialogue, it is clear that Trump is acting out of a sense of self-preservation. He can not actually trust people who have motives outside of elevating their boss. These appointees share a common concern for looking out for their own hides. He can understand this singular aspect of their character and can vaguely trust it because he at least knows where they are coming from. Much more dangerous are those who have a sense of principles and justice. 

source: http://screenertv.com/news-features/celebrity-apprentice-donald-trump-puts-meat-loaf-out-of-his-misery/

In sum, the argument I am making is that Trump, the individual, has a tyrannical soul. By reading the dialogue of Simonides, we get a glimpse into what a tyrant wants and what fuels their ambitions. I do not believe Trump is a unique phenomenon in this respect either. We all may have tyrannical parts of our psyche. The part of us that wants constant adoration, gratification, and ever more things to both enjoy for ourselves and to make others jealous; this is the easy part of a tyrant to understand because most of us have to curb this ugly part of our desires. Perhaps this is why Trump connects to so many on at least one level. He is seemingly uncomplicated by a sense of remorse or good taste when it comes to hiding his ambitions to dominate others and show off his wealth. A part of us might see that and be a bit jealous that we cannot also parade our vanities as obviously as he does.

This dialogue teaches the reader a lesson that we probably already knew. That lesson is that our most basic desires and insecurities will never be fully addressed by the accumulation of wealth and fame.  This basic idea has played out in the meteoric rise and fall of Hollywood stars or fictions like the Orson Welles classic, Citizen Kane. Fundamentally, we all have some root understanding that if our soul, for lack of a better term, is shattered no amount of fame and glitz can fix it. Xenophon's dialogue informs us, however, that despite this knowledge, a tyrannical soul will try to use wealth and power to heal their inner fractures.

to be continued in part 2....   

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All page references are from Xenophon's text as found in Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève On Tyranny Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1961, a book I would highly recommend even for the casual philosophy student.