By James Poulos
Friday, July 01, 2016
In his best speech to date—clearing a low bar—Donald
Trump successfully showcased the failures of our political and economic elites,
but failed to make a case for economic protectionism. Worse, in a damning
indictment of his life’s work to date, Trump skirted the real reason he’s
benefiting from today’s nationalist moment.
The economic pain he identified is no chimera. Nor are
the culprits. But America’s angry crowd is fueled less by suffering than by
disgust at how our leading class does so little with their success and
prosperity that rises to the level of personal greatness.
Despite Trump’s clear willingness to keep shouldering the
burdens of a campaign for president, in one fashion he hardly differs from the
global and national elite he decries. Today, those in charge are those who move
money around. Even those who mainly make money or make things still play a
secondary role. Bureaucrats, speculators, and fixers dominate the elite,
perverting governance and banking alike. Through special credit, special
information, and special treatment, the management and manipulation of the
political economy defines the crowd at the top of the pyramid.
Certainly rich people can still stand up for the little
guy. Class does not determine politics. Today’s administrative elite, however,
is not just wealthy. It’s largely limited in its achievements to enjoying
wealth accumulated through patronage and money-shuffling. That—rather than its
wealth alone—is why the elite is so reviled.
Trump Is Grand,
But He’s Not Great
Trump has successfully styled himself as a populist
leader because—in so many ways—he acts how his fellow elites do not. He is,
specifically, so much more crude than any of them. At a time when partisans
regardless of party are increasingly likely to think vulgarity is essential to breaking the grip of
established power over the public imagination, Trump’s half-calculated
coarseness was sure to resonate with many. But in polite, elite company, his ideas are considered virtually
obscene—suitable for disgust, not debate.
Nevertheless, as grand as Trump’s gross nature may be,
there’s nothing great in it. For all the winning that colors his public life,
greatness does not. Americans hardly need a great president to return to
greatness, however much such a figure would help things along. What they do
want is a leader with the personal gravitas necessary to shame the ruling elite
for their banality and pettiness—for such comfort and self-satisfaction within
such lowered horizons.
On their own, the populists can’t make these charges
stick. Their commingled fury, resentment, and envy makes it hard, but their own
simple lack of greatness makes it impossible. Obviously, without question,
there is a heroism or grandeur in the determination of those who meet stark
everyday struggles head-on—a virtue that can often characterize a people as a whole.
But individual personal greatness among those at society’s pinnacle is
something else, and it achieves something else.
It authorizes a kind of scorn toward ignoble elites
that’s more noble than ordinary people can muster, however deeply pained or
pure at heart. The charisma of scornful greatness isn’t morally perfect, but it
can deal decadent elitism a powerful blow that solidarity alone cannot. Smart
populists understand a true charismatic can emerge from the humblest of
backgrounds. But we hold out hope we can make elitehood great again.
After all, as our vast love of sports should help us
admit, the whole point of elites is to broaden the scope of human life by
attaining greatness that matters—greatness that ordinary people can’t attain,
singly or together, even when they’re doing relatively well.
To Whom Much Is
Given, Much Is Required
For all their misbegotten policies, the real betrayal is
that our elites have fallen short of the mark of the kind of greatness withheld
for elites. However quickly, on however huge a scale, managing and manipulating
transactions does not arouse in us a recognition of elite greatness. That
colossal effort surely has increased net prosperity. Historically few humans
worldwide are now mired in extreme poverty.
The fact is we want more, and we need to admit it.
Decreasing net human suffering is a very good thing, but it is not everything.
Our elites’ lives—so much like ours but so larded with luxury—lack the
substance of greatness that could at least ameliorate the crushing anxiety
their economic policies have created. Were their stewardship sounder and their
ethic sturdier, the sweeping dislocation they’ve weathered in such fine style
wouldn’t make us quite so sick with rage.
Power, used well, serves others. Our elites, including
those who lucked, blundered, or schemed their way to the top, use their power
to serve themselves in sadly common fashion. They seem not to know or care that
those below still see a moral analogy between greatness and goodness, and see
the elite destroying it.
For us closer to the bottom, there’s a profoundly human
despair in feeling our own hollowness and vanity reflect blithely back from
those closest to the top. It’s a disappointing but predictable irony that
Trump, who’s supposedly all about greatness but has given humanity nothing
durably superb, used his speech on restoring America’s wealth to paper over the
impoverishment of the culture and the character of its elite.
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