American Hustle and Trump as the Chief Hustler

What is of value?  More importantly, who is of value?  Adam Gopnik and others have posited that Donald Trump chose to run for president because he was so savagely lampooned by Barack Obama at a White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011.  Though Trump has denied this and there is a convincing alternative version of the night, we find the narrative of the reaction to the presumably humiliating moment as the pivotal moment in Trump's decision making compelling.  In that moment, Barack Obama was reacting to a protagonist; Trump was a leading member of the “birther” group who had maintained that Obama was born, not in Hawaii, but in Africa and therefore was not a legitimate President.  It was the week that Obama’s “long form” birth certificate was released, and he was lampooning someone who had long been a thorn in his side and he was, at least as we heard it, being merciless.

To say that someone is not a legitimate President is a grave charge to make.  Isn’t it ironic that there are many of us who do not believe that Donald Trump is a legitimate President of the United States – not because of his birth but because of his lack of qualification for the job?  But the truth of the matter is that he was elected not just in spite of the lack of qualification, but largely because of it.  Many of us are, in fact, disdainful of the office of President – and perhaps no one has offered more disdain of the functioning of past presidents than Trump.  And he has tapped into something that is broadly felt – the Presidency is something that any chump can do.

Our national narrative is that anyone who is born in the United States of America can grow up to become President.   In the case of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, this has proven to be a double edged sword.  That Obama – a person of African heritage – can go grow up to become President – demonstrates the promise of that narrative statement: anyone, even someone who is Black, can become President.  But for many, I believe that having a President with African heritage cheapened the office and led to the alternate meaning – anyone – regardless of qualification or ability – can become President.  From this perspective – even someone who is Black can be President – and here I am relying on the deeply engrained racism that Ta-Nehisi Coates and others and pointed out.  Electing someone with no political experience and no military experience to do what I believe to be the most complicated job in the world is not a problem because – well, let’s face it, if a Black can do it, anyone can.

I believe we need to change the narrative.  It should read something like this: anyone born in the United States who is inordinately smart – not just book smart but people smart – and who dedicates their life to public service and to understanding just exactly how complex both domestic and foreign policy are – and who is able to convince the majority of Americans that he, she or other can effectively manage the affairs of state for four years at a time can become President.  From this perspective, there is, frankly, a very small pool of people who are qualified to do the job and would be effective in it.  We should be picking from that pool.  And, frankly, most of those people – regardless of their heritage – will likely have been leading lives of privilege for a very long time and their understanding of the downtrodden people of this country and the world will be based on exposure and empathy – not on lived experience.

At my University, when one of the faculty members was elevated to the presidency of the University, the faculty rejoiced.  Finally, one of our own would be leading us.  He would understand how a University is intended to be, how it is intended to run.  Within the first month or so he made four very public decisions that created all kinds of difficulties because he was not a seasoned administrator who understood what it takes to run a University.  I was surprised to learn that administration is actually a skill.

So: the consequence of this narrative is that we will have elites in the office.  They may come from traditionally marginalized groups, but they themselves will likely not have been marginalized for a long time, if ever.  But those who experience themselves as marginalized are not going to connect with these individuals as candidates.  Donald Trump – billionaire Donald Trump – was seen as the hero of the marginalized because he was seen as an outsider – as someone who had been made fun of by those in power.  And we believed that he was seeking revenge – just as we would like to seek revenge – for insults that those in power have meted out to us.  We see power as something that is wielded to destroy – not to elevate.  And Obama was doing that at that dinner.  He was at the Dais and making fun of Donald’s little reality television show world from the podium of true power.

How are we going to shift this dynamic?  First of all, I think it highly unlikely that we will.  It is a dynamic that is welded into place on playgrounds and in locker rooms and classrooms in Elementary, High School, and College.  Who is better than whom?  On what scale?  In the movie Stand by Me the weak protagonists, being picked on by the bullies, hurl back that the bullies will never earn more than $20,000 and will be working for the weak kids when they grow up.  Especially in a capitalist society, we are going to conflate self-worth with net worth. 

If we are to shift this dynamic, we need to shift our sense of value.  We need to believe, in some fundamental way, that our lives are priceless – and that we are grateful to have them.  One of the most enduring images from a trip to Nicaragua was being at a potter’s home and studio.  It was incredibly primitive.  His house was kept dry by one of those ubiquitous blue tarps.  He had an outhouse.  He fired his pots in an outdoor oven built of bricks and heated by burning sticks.  And he had received a micro loan of about $150 that had allowed him to purchase a potter’s wheel – and he was now much more productive than he had ever been and he was able to make many more pots in a day than he ever had and they were of better quality.  His comment?  “Thanks be to God.” 

When we are able to live our lives from a position of gratitude – rather than entitlement – when we are able to feel that we get to do something rather than that we have to do it – during these parts of our lives we are generally going to be happier.  When we are grateful to live in this country, under this President – or, to live in this country where we can express our discontent with this President, we are more likely to have a higher quality of life.

Now I know that it is easy for me to say this.  I live a life of privilege.  I don’t need a microloan – in fact I could offer a bunch of them without even needing people to pay me back.  I have been educated – and psychoanalyzed – and my children are relatively happy and healthy.  And it is a struggle for me to feel grateful for all of this.  At times I feel entitled to it.  I have worked hard to achieve what I have.  I have also worked from an incredible platform of privilege, which is hard for me to see – but I think it is hard for all of us to see.  How can we be grateful for all that those who have supported us have offered without feeling so indebted that we are paralyzed?

One reason that a President needs to have lived a life of public service is that this involves sacrifice.  Being a public servant leads one to live a life of privilege and, if one is aspiring to become President, serving as a Senator or a Governor leads to a lifestyle that is very comfortable, but not one that is over the top rich.  A servant leader – not a leader who is served by those who work for him or her – models restraint – and imposes limits on those who have accumulated wealth – including people like me.  I should pay taxes – to pay back what has been spent by the state on my education – and the roads that I travel on – and the safeties that I enjoy – and to pay forward – so that those who are deserving can be supported by the community and so that we can discover those who will lead and produce for us in the next generation.

But this is not enough.  We need to honor and support those with skills that are valuable – and valued – by the country.  The labor movement in this country fought to ensure that a variety of skills were valued, but in a world economy, the means of enforcing that in various industries requires different tactics.  I don’t know what those are – but I think we need to be thinking both locally and globally about how to value the work of all. 

The relationship between money and happiness is an interesting one.  It is strongest for those who have the least money.  Without shelter and food, it is very hard to be happy.  But, as my friend in Nicaragua demonstrated, once the basic needs are met (and what is basic in Nicaragua is very different from what is basic in the United States), the relationship between income and happiness is not nearly as strong.

I think that we would be a happier country if we knew that if things fell apart, there would be a net there to support us (I really don’t feel this way – and I don’t know how much of that is my personal psychology and how much of that is the culture that we live in…).  Finland is experimenting with the idea of giving everyone in the country an income, they would have to tax it back from those with actual incomes – but everyone would know that, if the bottom fell out, they would get a certain amount every month – no matter what.

I was all ready to post this – just needed to read it over for errors, when the reluctant wife and I watched American Hustle for our Saturday night date together (the younger reluctant stepdaughter joined us but fell asleep before we made it to the end).  Because of the length of this post, I won’t review the movie in detail, though it deserves it, but will note that it shoots all kinds of holes in my fantasy of a perfect world.  Specifically, in this tale taken from life, those holy Senators and Congressmen I referred to above can be bought and sold – they haven’t quite given up avarice completely to become public servants.  Even the best among them, those who are engaged in public service because they believe that is in the best interests of all, take a little graft and use it for the public good.  

More deeply, though, this movie portrays the lengths that we need to go to in order to achieve personal integrity.  The two lead characters, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) are con artists whose back stories clarify that they are broken people and the hustling that they do is part of what leads them to have a sense of personal integrity.  The question of what personal integrity is and means in the world of hustling New York, hustling Washington, and ambition in the FBI are asked in poignant and human ways.  Rosenfeld and Prosser actually are portrayed as achieving this integrity – in part by being able to outhustle the powers that be, but more essentially by being true to each other.

The movie also clarifies that not all politicians come from privilege – in fact, in a democracy, many of them are elected because they represent the common man.  The best of them do this well – as Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner who starred with Adams in Arrival) the mayor of Camden, New Jersey was doing – though he did take the money that was offered.  Benjamin Franklin wanted to guard against this by writing into the constitution that representatives and senators would not get paid, thus assuring that only men of means – who supposedly would be above being bought – would serve.  Trump’s shenanigans already indicate that no amount of wealth seems to put some above using office for personal gain.  My hoped for solution is hopelessly naïve because it doesn’t take into account the avarice and humanity of people.

I think we have a long tradition of public officials being very careful about such issues as ethics and morality.  At the same time, these same officials have privately engaged in heinous actions of various sorts – from our primal sin of enslaving humans and writing that into our founding documents to other crimes and misdemeanors too numerous to mention.  I think that Trumps craziness – NPR’s Mara Liaisson opined this week that he might be crazy like a fox rather than just crazy – I am not convinced – but in any case his straightforward and chaotic style is exposing the inherent problems in our political system – domestic and international.  My system – proposed above – would retain the status quo.  This is my second post on politics – I have left politics to the politicians until now.  Maybe that was an error.  Maybe we should all be paying more attention and thinking about how we want to construct the body politic - knowing ahead of time that it will not be perfect, but also knowing that it is a necessary part of our social functioning. 

To access a narrative description of other posts on this site, link here.   For a subject based index, link here.

To subscribe to posts (which occur 2-3 times per month), if you are on a computer, hit the X button on the upper right of this screen and, on the subsequent screen, hover your cursor over the black line in the upper right area and choose the pop out box that says subscribe and then enter the information.  I'm sorry but I don't currently know how you can subscribe from a mobile device - hopefully you have a computer as well...