Monday, August 13, 2018

"The Master of Negation"



The title, "master of negation," could be a reference to only one person, the president of the United States of America, the terrible tempered Donald J. Trump.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump appealed to Republican primary voters who were less ideological than the avowed conservatives who flocked to Ted Cruz and other more doctrinaire candidates. He did so by presenting himself as a master of the art of negotiation. Yet his real talent, then as now, has proven to be his knack for negation, as Martin Gurri, author of The Revolt of the Public, has argued. According to Gurri, the politics of negation is a style perfected in online communities. By way of illustration, he writes, “if you asked an indignado or an Occupier or a Tea Partier what they stood against, you would get long, long lists of grievances. If you asked what they stood for, you’d get throat-clearing noises and generalities like ‘social justice’ or ‘the Constitution.’” The creation of a positive program of reform is almost beside the point. Revolt is its own reward. Even when Trump’s policy prescriptions are perfectly banal, he frames them in an exaggerated and pointedly polarizing manner, as if it were his goal to stoke outrage. And for now, a decent-sized slice of the electorate welcomes his politics of negation, or is more fearful of the new modes of negation that are arising in response to Trump than they are of him.
Trump is plainly obsessed with tearing down anything someone else has built. He would rather have rubble heaped in a vacant field than an edifice. It's why he goes after Merkel, the E.U., NAFTA, even Justin Trudeau.

Even Trump's spiritual blood brother, Recep Erdogan, got the treatment over some detained American pastor, the sort of person Trump does not give a crap about except as a handy pretext. Trump wanted to take Erdogan down (not that it's a bad thing) and so he used the excuse of some preacher to slap tariffs on Turkish exports in order to destabilize the local currency and undermine its economy. Voila, Trump the Indignado.
If the Democratic landslide does come this November, rest assured that Republicans will blame the president and his politics of negation for their fate. Know that this will be at best only half of the truth—the deeper fault lies with a congressional GOP that has utterly failed to rise to the challenge of binding America’s wounds.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trump may not care about the pastor, but Pence and the rest of the Christian Taliban certainly do. They want Brunson out of Turkey now to shore up Y'all Qaeda support before the midterms. Trump can't be happy about what the fall in the Turkish lira is doing to profits from Trump Towers Istanbul.

Cap

the salamander said...

.. as well, anything Obama must be torn down and he must be blamed for anything while at the same time, Trump with take credit for anything Obama did or set in motion over 8 years

The parallel in Canada is Andrew Sheer and the so called 'Conservative Party' All Sheer et al do is take contrariness to new levels. Even Jason Kenney at the moment, Ms Notely said the Trans Mountain twinning pipeline was stsrting construction, whined publicly that is was not already complete.. both shriek that Trudeau shut down Energy East & all its benefits - Energy Security For Canadians, and an end to imported Saudi oil, Jobs Jobs Jobs for Canadians, and the end of 'discounted Alberta Oil.. we will refine it ourselves (where ?)

It was the pipeline company that scrubbed Energy East, when Trump was elected and repealed the Keystone Pipeline application that Obama rejected.

So negation is similar to contrary politics.. Scheer and Kenney constantly attempt to deceive, publicly.. and Trump is a serial liar, fraud and business failure. His sons who personify dufus as much as Trump personifies dotage are like in big trouble via Robert Mueller's elegant, thorough forensic investigation. I suspect Manafort is ready to plead to avoid the rest of his life in prison, and do may flip on all the Trumps plus Jared Kushner. Ivanka and Melania will obviously claim to not know know anything..

The Mound of Sound said...

Cap, Trump may have a political reason for roughing up Erdogan but, as we've seen repeatedly, he has a flourish for such antics. He loves to diminish all who rival him and those who came before him. Edifices such as the Lincoln Memorial must gnaw at him.

The Mound of Sound said...


Sal, please don't shed a tear for Uday or Qusay. As for Jared, Giuliani has already hingted they're prepared to throw him to the wolves if that is deemed necessary to protect the virtue of Trump's true love, Ivanka.

Anonymous said...

Erdogan has said he will bring Russia into the game.

Anonymous said...

Mound, I agree that Trump loves debasing people and he displays that constantly in his tweets about just about every world leader. But he's a coward and guys like Putin, Netanyahu, MBS, Duterte and Erdogan scare him. I've yet to see him tweet negative things about these guys. That's why I think Pence is behind this and Trump is just along for the ride.

Cap

Northern PoV said...

"Trump wanted to take Erdogan down (not that it's a bad thing) "

ya think?

That kind of statement reeks of the western conceit mindset.
Show us where regime change (from the outside has worked)

Anonymous said...

Trump pandered to mostly the poor in America...the forgotten people. 61 million voted for him and D. Trump was put in the White House through the rule of Democracy right or wrong. In my opinion wrong but they did exercise their right. Now the world has to put up with his shenanigans egg on by the mischief of people who stand behind Trump. Anyong