In the current campaign, Trump is behaving like a professional wrestler while Trump’s opponents are conducting the race like a boxing match. As the rest of the field measures up their next jab, Trump decks them over the head with a metal chair.
The rest of the Republican field is concerned with the rules and constructing a strategy that, under those rules, will lead to the nomination. But Trump isn’t concerned with those things. Instead, Trump is focused on each moment and arising the maximum amount of passion in that moment. His supporters love it.
The key to generating passion, Barthes notes, is to position yourself to deliver justice against evil forces by whatever means necessary. “Wrestlers know very well how to play up to the capacity for indignation of the public by presenting the very limit of the concept of Justice,” Barthes writes.
Trump knows how to define his opponent — China, “illegals,” hedge fund managers — and pledges to go after them with unbridled aggression. If, in making his case, he crosses over a line or two, all the better.
Als je het fenomeen Trump wilt begrijpen, moet je Franse filosofen gaan lezen, zo hoor ik de laatste tijd.
Judd Legum (ThinkProgress) wijst op een essay van Roland Barthes waarin deze het fundamentele verschil tussen een bokswedstrijd en show-worstelen blootlegt. Wie wel eens een aflevering van WWF-worstelen met flamboyante personages in uitzinnige kostuums heeft gezien, zal onmiddelijk aanvoelen waar Barthes op doelt.
Politiek als mediaspektakel. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Reacties (1)
Lichtelijk ironisch, is het niet?