Perhaps it was only a matter of time before someone with the plutocrat’s professional ethics made that leap into presidential politics. But the rest of the country had to catch up. We lauded robber barons like John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould for their business success, but no one suggested for a second that they were statesman material. Now, in an era when the market reaches deep into our private lives and even high school students are expected to be experts in self-marketing, the door is finally open. Enter Donald Trump.
He thrives where others flail. His rivals — including Hillary Clinton — have had to submit to their vocation as politicians and try to sell their character and integrity. Mr. Trump has had to sell only the idea of his success, which, according to the modern law of transitive properties, will make everyone who embraces him successful, too.
No wonder, according to reports, that Mr. Trump possesses such a fondness for McDonald’s, whose motto is “I’m lovin’ it.” The pitch requires no argument, no evidence, no complex rhetoric. You’re gonna love our burgers because the fact that billions of them have been sold proves the validity of the claim. You’re gonna love Mr. Trump because millions of Americans already do.
Seen in the light of modern commerce, Melania Trump’s lifting of lines for her convention speech from a speech by Michelle Obama had nothing improper about it. Success builds on success. There was nothing unusual about Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech in Cleveland, either. People were astonished that he did not tell a touching personal story, as all politicians do, and as Ronald Reagan did to consummate effect. Products, though, have no personal past or any kind of human dimension. A winning product is a result of the seller’s rigid, inflexible, even fanatical belief in the consistent quality of his merchandise.
The same goes for Mr. Trump’s bald lies at this week’s national security forum. He denied, despite hard evidence, that he ever supported the Iraq war. Pundits were dismayed. But his supporters love him all the more for his brazen adherence to the integrity of his “brand” over minor details like the truth.
Yet Mr. Trump seems to suffer from a manufacturing defect. Republican leaders seem to want to recall him as though he were a faulty airbag. And it’s unlikely that enough Americans will buy his marketing pitch for him to win in November.
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Lee Siegel, The Selling of Donald J. Trump
I love the trope of looking at Trump as a product of the hypercapitalist world order, and not as a person.
Products have no personal past or any kind of human dimension.
Hence, no personal story at the convention.
from Stowe Boyd http://www.stoweboyd.com/post/150207330982
