I recently witnessed, in the course of a few hours, a stunning contrast between three presidents.
First, our nation’s current president shared an AI video depicting himself as a crown-wearing fighter pilot who bombs No Kings Day protesters with liquified feces.
Later I started reading Jon Meacham’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography Thomas Jefferson — The Art of Power. It starts with this quotation of President John F. Kennedy addressing every living Nobel laureate:
Brad Bull
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
A few pages later I learned President Jefferson “knew Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Spanish.” Tongue in cheek, I am surprised the detail-oriented Meacham omitted that Jefferson also was highly fluent in English.
One president exemplified mastery of languages and diplomacy. Another president spoke glowingly of a president other than himself. And then there was the image of Trump — civilly fluent in no languages much less six — his eyes glowing as he dropped payloads of shit on Americans.
The problem here is deeper than that disgusting portrayal of incivility. The real problem is that just under half the country voted for this kind of leader, while complaining that Hillary Clinton said, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.”
I cringed when I heard her say that. Clinton later expressed regret. Yet so many of Trump’s supporters ignore his lack of regret for anything he says or does — far worse than what Clinton said — and so he keeps getting worse and worse, because his supporters love it either with applause or silence.
It’s easy for critics to look at Trump’s diarrhea dumping video and say, “That was stupid.” But was it?
Whenever I impulsively say, “That was stupid,” it usually means one or all of three things: Lack of knowledge, making unfounded assumptions, failing to look through the eyes of others.
“Whenever I impulsively say, ‘That was stupid,’ it usually means one or all of three things.”
I once hiked to the top of the highest hill around. At the peak I found an enormous boulder. I scratched my head and later called a retired geology professor.
“Hey, Doc. I’m confused. I understand how there were huge rocks that had broken loose and rolled to the valley. But I don’t see how a loose boulder got to the top of a mountain where there was no higher place for it to have rolled from.”
“Well,” the geologist said, “that wasn’t always the top of the mountain. The top has eroded down to what you see now.”
I suffered from a lack of knowledge about geology.
Another time I was reading the label of a popular brand of earwax remover. It warned the product was toxic if orally ingested. However, I noticed that the ingredients listed “flavoring.” I said, “How stupid! If it’s toxic, what are they doing adding flavoring?!”
Then it hit me: Flavoring is not necessarily good flavor. The company adds bad flavor to make it less likely a child — duly elected president — might drink it.
I had suffered from an unfounded assumption about my definition of the word “flavoring.”
Similarly, in the 1980s, I was watching a music video with some peers. It depicted a young blue-collar couple. Rapidly, however, the guy kept changing roles. He was no longer a short-order cook. He jumped back and forth to various glamorous and heroic roles like pilot of a fancy private jet. When the video ended, I said, “That was stupid. A short-order cook wouldn’t be doing all those things.”
A female viewer said, “Maybe the video is saying that, in the woman’s eyes, the guy was all those things to her.”
Then I realized the visuals in the video were depicting a female’s perspective of what the lyrics from an old Air Supply song say from a male’s perspective. That male singer says to his girlfriend or wife: “You’re every woman in the world to me. You’re my fantasy; you’re my reality.” I understood those lyrics from my perspective as a male. But I didn’t see the female’s perspective of a guy being everything to her. I know that sounds obvious but missing the obvious happens when we fail to look from others’ perspectives.
“I viewed the video through those eyes and realized how that video would have made me feel safe.”
So after watching Trump’s shit bomb video, I asked myself whether perhaps I was lacking knowledge, making unfounded assumptions or failing to look through the eyes of others.
Eventually, I went back in my mind to when I was paralyzed by fear of change and enraged by anything that assaulted my conservative dogma. I viewed the video through those eyes and realized how that video would have made me feel safe.
While crass and disgusting, Trump’s video is not stupid. Stupidity involves empty haplessness. Trump knows what his base likes. He is not the problem any more than a bottle of wine on a counter is a problem. Trump is a pusher of the drug of impulsiveness, and there is a market for that among those weary of self-control. Trump knows his customers and how to sell their drug.
Thus, in the purest sense of the word, the base-pleasing video is not stupid. It’s actually worse. It’s profane, corrupt and exploitive of the human pain that craves libertine excess rather than the discipline of imperfect but civil Jeffersonian contemplation, discourse and democracy.
Brad Bull has served as a chaplain, pastor and university professor. He currently works as a private-practice therapist and freelance writer. He regularly participates in storytelling events.