Sunday, October 15, 2017

Is Trump a 'heel' or just become himself?

So WTH, I'm going to start posting stuff again, if only to document some of the insanity of the Trump Years. I don't know if I have any special insight, as I'm not a trained psychologist, but here goes anyway.... 

Here, Matt Taibbi and backyard wrestling's liberal "heel" Daniel Richards described what I've noted for a while now: Trump is all negative, all the time.

Even when Trump is for something -- like, um, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at the recent Values Voter Summit -- he can't do it without naming an enemies list.  His enemies are God's enemies.

Trump's fuel is spite and vengeance....And I guess that's where Taibbi kind of muddies the waters, speculating that Bannon trained Trump how to exploit cultural wedge issues.  Nope, not entirely.

Indeed to be a truly good heel, it can't be entirely an act, as Taibbi said.  The difference is that Old Man Trump has changed.  Young Man Trump was kind of a winking, coy political chameleon -- just watch his interviews from the 80s and 90s.  But by now, it's all a big positive-negative reinforcement loop: the crazies, old people, flyover states, Bible-thumpers, gun-lovers and neo-Nazis all love him; the liberals, young, gays, both coasts, and minorities all hate him. Meanwhile Trump has consumed Fox on TV as his main media for years now.  Trump was not always, but has become, a quintessentially isolated, rich, grumpy old white man.  

And Trump, who prizes loyalty above all else, loves who loves him, and hates who hates him. In that sense, he's still apolitical, he's still the narcissistic shell of a man he's always been, but he realizes he's made his bed with the crazies and now he has to sleep with them.  And this time there won't be a quickie divorce.


Wrestling's Newest Star, Daniel 'The Progressive Liberal' Richards, on Trump
By Matt Taibbi
October 9, 2017 | Rolling Stone

URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/wrestler-the-progressive-liberal-daniel-richards-on-trump-w507900