“An angry man is a stupid man.”
–Chinua Achebe
Although the below prose poem is a darkly comic take on a Trump Rally I got briefly stranded in, the description of this angry couple is pretty close to the truth.
Trump Rally
A face from a fun house mirror pressing against my driver’s side window. Giant shark teeth and a mouth twisted in rage—a gargoyle image of a banished second-rate mythological harpy some third-rate Greek poet had failed to write about after being distracted by a toothache. Which reminded me, once again, about the serendipitous arc of history that weak-minded people cling so hopelessly to, with predictable results. I’m with the guy who got arrested for standing naked among the lily pads in the town’s pond, except I wouldn’t have been touching myself. That’s how people get into trouble. They make a barely acceptable symbolic gesture, then go overboard, alienating even the most hardcore troublemakers—like when this woman writes “Fuck you” on my window with purple lipstick, as my beat-up SUV inches slowly through the crowd. I’m on my way to get a scone, a seemingly apolitical gesture, but now she has my attention. “Smile! Be happy!” I say, lowering my mask. “Jesus loves you! I’ve got a Jesus as big as my hat!” I point to my black felt fedora on the passenger-side seat. Which is my attempt to distract her and exit this current dark tunnel of mania. There’s much yelling, a little spitting, until she’s dragged away by a shaggy guy holding a sign that promotes the castration of a certain gay journalist. Knowing that bleach cures and child molester conspiracies will soon follow, I motor on, eventually making my way home. I sit on the back porch, sconeless and forlorn. I tell my wife about the woman. She has her back to me and seems to have put on twenty pounds since this morning. “Smile! Be happy! Jesus loves you,” she says, in a snarky, unfamiliar voice—an ominous sign that I’ve been followed home.
Though raised working class, I have spent most of the last thirty-five years around middle-class and affluent white guys. It wasn’t a deliberate choice. That is, I didn’t quit my drywall construction business to become an English major and eventually a professor because I felt that hard labor was demeaning or that my coworkers were dummies and/or thugs. I left because I foresaw the closings of all the steel plants and factories in Buffalo. If people don’t have jobs, they have no upward mobility. Consequently, they aren’t looking for new housing or reasonably priced condominiums. I foresaw a painful tsunami of layoffs, alcoholism, and utter frustration barreling toward Buffalo, after which people would be lucky if they could to pay their bills while holding on to some kind of dignity.
My anticipation of this economic nightmare drove me back to college and an academic profession. During that career, I wound up raising my family in middle- and upper-middle class white neighborhoods on the East Side of Providence, and then in a Rhode Island suburb, let’s call it Marshfield, where I never ever wanted to be. To me, the suburbs had always been about as interesting as spending a day checking out antique shops specializing in all things associated with bullfrogs. But my wife and I guessed that Marshfield would be best for our youngest son, who had a peanut allergy and wasn’t as tough as his older brother, who could handle the city magnet school he attended in Providence.
Much to my surprise and relief, I have liked most of the men I have met in Marshfield. Over the years, I have gone to church, coached many youth sports, and delivered food and clothes to the homeless with these men. I’ve had coffee and played golf and basketball with them. When you’ve coached with a man, you form a kinship every bit as strong as the Knights of the Roundtable. You instruct and nurture the kids and share in their ups and downs while battling their unrealistic parents, so that when you see these guys on the street, you give them a guy hug or a fist pump.
But something extraordinary happened after Donald Trump became president. He was notorious for saying things I always suspected a minority of white guys, in moments of frustration or rage, might feel but were too decent to say out loud. But what followed were comments like the following: “I think any guy who sexually harasses a woman should get punched in the nuts, but, let’s face it, many women who say they were sexually assaulted were drunk and sending off mixed signals;” or “I’m the least racist person you know, but you have to agree that if a black guy married your daughter, you wouldn’t like it”; or “We need more immigrants to fill all these service jobs, but we can’t keep supporting them. Every time I’m in the doctor’s office, I see three or four Hispanic women with four kids who can’t speak English, all of them on Medicaid, which comes out of my wallet.”
You could argue that these comments aren’t completely crazy. Certainly, there are women who have unfairly accused men of groping. Certainly, it is often difficult for mixed-marriage families to be accepted in certain American towns, which is why a lot of white parents don’t want their daughters dating guys of color (unless they’re rich). And certainly, the social support system will break if everyone everywhere gets a free ride.
But the above comments were rarely expressed in this measured tone. There was always a whiff of racism and misogyny in the air when they were spoken–a wish for the old days when women knew their places and when there was a clear separation of races. I’m sure these guys themselves knew they were flirting with bigotry. Note how often their complaints were preceded by a concession, which basically says, “I’m telling you how fair-minded I am before I say something racist or misogynistic, so you won’t think I am racist or misogynistic.”
In spite of these comments, even now, I have trouble seeing these decent family men as bigots, mostly because I have witnessed them do much good over the years.
That is, until, in spite of all the signals that Trump was both dumb and loony, they continued to support him.
I knew these guys wouldn’t invite a guy like Trump to dinner, or let him spend two minutes alone with their wives or daughters, or put him in charge of their money. I mean, he’s an obvious grifter, a serial groper (and that’s being fair), and failed businessman (just proved last weekend).
These men would even make fun of him, especially his cartoonish behavior. If you don’t know what I mean, Google a video of Mussolini, whose manic gestures and Three-Stooges-like facial expressions Trump must have modeled himself after. When my oldest son came back from Japan after eight years of living there and saw Trump on TV, he couldn’t stop laughing. He thought the real Trump he was watching on TV was a Trump impersonator, because the real Trump’s absurd gestures and goofy faces were so absurdly exaggerated.
Think how scary it must be when you end up as a caricature of a caricature.
But what it always came down to for these men was money. How many, many times I heard about their 401ks. “Yeah, Trump’s an asshole, but I like the way my 401k is doing.” “Yeah, he’s a fat pig, but every time I want check out on him, I look at my 401k.” As if one’s growing stash of money compensated for calling immigrants rapists, telling followers to punch out people, and I could go on for about an hour.
I knew it made no sense to argue with these guys, so I always responded to their insensitive analyses as follows: “You know, I’ve always thought of you as a decent guy, and I realize that Trump’s policies work for you, but, at this point, I think that anyone who ignores his hate-filled name calling and general incivility is either intellectually, morally, or ethically challenged.”
Not surprisingly, I have lost a lot of close acquaintances recently, which is fine with me. I have even come to enjoy making the above statement. It almost makes me feel like a holy man, though my wife, who is a prosecutor, patiently explained to me that giving that little speech to strangers may just get me shot in the face someday.
So what drives these guys to abandon principles that I’ve seen them live by?
Greed and fear of course, and power. Some of them are like squirrels who just can’t get enough nuts (dollars) even though they are choking on them. Others fear that anyone who isn’t white may move into their neighborhood and lower property values, or turn their low-income housing into crack houses. But I think they also know that a certain power comes from exclusion. That’s why they call country clubs “exclusive.” I have no problem with country clubs being exclusive. You have the right to be with members of your own socioeconomic class. I myself have enjoyed playing golf at country clubs, as long as its members don’t demonize the people who don’t have the money or pedigree to join. My previous father-in-law once asked me why I was spending so much time talking to my Australian caddy. I smiled and said, “Because he’s more interesting than you.” Fortunately, that father-in-law had a good sense of humor.
But as disappointing as middle-and upper-middle class white guys can be, working-class white Trumpers really break my heart. Dudes, I sympathize with your rage, having been dismissed and insulted at different times in my life. I know how humiliating it is to be too broke to fix your car. Or to have to go on unemployment and food stamps. I know that many of you barely have money for necessities and childcare. You should be angry. You and your wife are working two jobs apiece while corporations use Covid and inflation to pad their pockets, and politicians from both parties insultingly think you’re stupid enough to believe that a $15 an hour minimum wage is a game changer. Also, how can you not be furious when your “good health insurance,” according to your employer, forces you to pay a $200 copay when you take your daughter to a specialist.
But your situation isn’t caused by those nasty Libs, or the blacks, or the gays, or the Ukrainians, or whoever your new object of hatred is this week.
Yes, the Democrats can be clueless but most of them aren’t as mean as the other party, who is masterful at manipulating your anger, offering trickle-down economics as a solution. Wrap your head around that one: If we make the rich richer, their wealth will trickle down to us. Really? All I can think of when I hear the phrase “trickle-down economics” is a golden shower. (Gross, but true).
If I seem mad, it’s because I am. It hurts to see you being expertly manipulated to the point that you actually say Donald Trump is “one of us.” You end up making yourselves a two-bit extra in a movie written, directed by, and starring Donald Trump, your only purpose being to bolster his career and self-image. It’s hard not to imagine you all following an Orange-haired Pied Piper off a steep cliff, and as you are about to be cut to shreds by the sharp rocks below, Trump gleefully glides away in his golden parachute, often with your hard-earned dollars stuffed down his pockets.
And yet, how can one blame Trump? He’s just being himself. He’s not the cause of your anger. He’s a lightning rod attracting all the male rage, grievance, racism, and misogyny that’s already out there. What blows me away is that you allow yourselves to be duped. Many Libs, who often equate intelligence with education, think the working-class is not bright enough to recognize this manipulation. That’s why when they campaign, they drop the “g’s” on their “ing” verbs, hoping to make them sound regular-guyish. (“We just have to keep tryin’ to raise the workin’ class up and keep raisin’ hell.”).
But you aren’t dumb. You choose to ignore Trump’s dark side because there is a certain kind of power that comes from siding with bullies. When you get on the Trump Train, after years of struggle, you feel physically and socially on top for a while, even though that means being morally and ethically on the bottom.
I often think of my father and his working-class friends sitting at a bar, and Donald Trump stumbles in, buys everyone a drink, then starts his trademark rants. At first, they’d laugh and say, “Do you believe this guy?” Then, after about fifteen minutes, they’d tell him to “Shut the hell up.” And if he didn’t, one of my father’s tougher friends would drag him outside and slap him around.
My father had his own anger management issues, but he was always interested in solutions, not problems. He felt that violence wasn’t the answer, that is, unless someone threatened his family. If I had started whining like so many white guys do today, he would have said, “Peter, please shut up the hell up and do something about it. Maybe just work harder.”
What he meant, I think, was that I wasn’t a victim, and to declare myself a victim was counter-productive and even unmanly.
As I write this, I wonder if anything I have said will make a difference. Probably the best I can do is to hope that white guys will eventually step up, see the complexities involved in political, social, and religious differences, and try to understand each other, instead of resorting to violence and name calling.
But if not, Gents, no worries, because I may have just discovered a foolproof solution to the problem. Which will be revealed in my next essay which will drop next Monday, December18.
You can find Peter Johnson’s books, along with interviews with him, appearances, and other information at peterjohnsonauthor.com
His most recent book of prose poems is While the Undertaker Sleeps: Collected and New Prose Poems
His most recent book of fiction is Shot: A Novel in Stories
Find out why he is giving away his new book of prose poem/fragments even though he has a publisher for it by downloading the PDF from the below link or going to OLD MAN’S homepage. His “Note to the Reader” and “Introduction” at the beginning of the PDF explains it all: Observations from the Edge of the Abyss