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What's happening is that Donald Trump, an incompetent, untalented, discarded apple core of a man, is now clothed in all the symbols of power and prestige and competence and it's more obvious than ever that all those symbols are somehow just as hollow as he is.
Expensive tailored suits, private jets, the accruement of wealth and power, even the Presidency of the United States. They're all virtually meaningless and serve to promote a veneer of competence that simply isn't there. It's always been the case, but he makes it obvious.
The sad truth is that everytime he opens his mouth and sticks his foot in it, everytime he peddles racism and cruelty, he's simply highlighting that things have always been like this, it's only been hidden from public view.
Most of these presidents have been incompetent. They play the role right for the cameras, but they continue to compound their own mistakes time and time again. They weren't outwardly incompetent though. Trump's open incompetence is what drives the point home.
Everything Trump does would be widely accepted and championed if he could just act the role better and hide the cruelty at the heart of it. He's simply peddling Republican ideology, time-tested ideas and strategy. He's just SO bad at it and so undisciplined.
If he were more disciplined, if he just hid behind American exceptionalism and cooled it with all his attacks and self-aggrandizement, he'd be popular. But he can't, and so he isn't. Truth is, in practice, he's a pretty traditional GOP president. It's the act that hurts him.
They've always been cruel, they've always been prejudiced, the problem is that the man embodying it is so obviously incompetent and awful that the veneer is fading and the reality is coming through.
People ask me all the time for some kind of hope, and here's the truth: this thing is so awful and transparent that maybe we can take a look at it and make real change. This is the most obvious the problem has ever been. That's honestly hopeful.
