Once, and only once, in 2011, have I attended the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, D.C., on the grounds, as I explained then, that Voltaire is said to have cited when he declined a second invitation to an orgy: once a philosopher, twice a pervert. Luckily for the philosopher in me, it turned out to be an auspicious night. Not only, as we did not know then, was President Obama in the midst of the operation that would lead shortly to Osama bin Ladens killing; it was also the night when, despite that preoccupation, the President took apart Donald Trump, plastic piece by orange part, and then refused to put him back together again.
Trump was then at the height of his unimaginably ugly marketing of birther fantasies, and, just days before, the state of Hawaii had, at the Presidents request, released Obamas long-form birth certificate in order to end, or try to end, the nonsense. Having referred to that act, he then gently but acutely mocked Trumps Presidential ambitions: I know that hes taken some flack latelyno one is prouder to put this birth-certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And thats because he can finally get back to the issues that matter, like: did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? Andwhere are Biggie and Tupac? The President went on, We all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For exampleno, seriouslyjust recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprenticethere was laughter at the mention of the programs name. Obama explained that, when a team did not impress, Trump didnt blame Lil Jon or Meatloafyou fired Gary Busey. And these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night.
What was really memorable about the event, though, was Trumps response. Seated a few tables away from us magazine scribes, Trumps humiliation was as absolute, and as visible, as any I have ever seen: his head set in place, like a man in a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him. There was not a trace of feigning good humor about him, not an ounce of the normal politicians, or American regular guys Hey, good one on me! attitudethat thick-skinned cheerfulness that almost all American public people learn, however painfully, to cultivate. No head bobbing or hand-clapping or chin-shaking or sheepish grinninghe sat perfectly still, chin tight, in locked, unmovable rage. If he had not just embarked on so ugly an exercise in pure racism, one might almost have felt sorry for him.
Some day someone may well write a kind of micro-history of that night, as historians now are wont to do, as a pivot in American life, both a triumph of Obamas own particular and enveloping form of cool and as harbinger ofwell, of what exactly? A lot depends on what happens next with the Donald and his followers. Certainly, the notion that Trumps rise, however long it lasts, is a product of a special skill, or circumstance, or a new national mood, is absurd. Trumpism is a permanent part of American lifein one form or another, with one voice or another blaring it out. At any moment in our modern history, some form of populist nationalism has always held some significant sharewhether five or ten per cent of the population. Among embittered white men, Trumps base, it has often held a share much larger than that. Trump is not offering anything that was not offered before him, often in identical language and with a similarly incoherent political program, by Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot, by George Wallace or Barry Goldwater, or way back when by Father Coughlin or Huey Long. Populist nationalism is not an eruptive response to a new condition of 2015it is a perennial ideological position, deeply rooted in the nature of modernity: a social class sees its perceived displacement as the result of a double conspiracy of outsiders and élitists. The outsiders are swamping us, and the insiders are mocking usthis ideology alters its local color as circumstances change, but the essential core is always there. They look down on us and they have no right to look down on us. Indeed, the politics of Trump, far from being in any way new, are exactly the politics of Huck Finns drunken father in Huckleberry Finn: Call this a govment! Just look at it and see what its like . . . . A man cant get his rights in a govment like this. Widespread dissatisfaction with all professional politicians, a certainty of having been sold out, a feeling of complete alienation from both political partiesNot a dimes worth of difference between them was George Wallaces formulation, a half century agothese are permanent intuitions of the American aggrieved.
