Trump and Obama

Last night’s debate pyrotechnics probably confirm that nothing can change the Trumpian trajectory of the GOP nomination contest.

Again, Marco Rubio demonstrated that he has the talent, but not the timing, to break through, and may not be quite ready yet for prime time. Ted Cruz may win Texas, but that’s about it. Trump was bloodied but unbowed in his monumental ignorance, arrogance, and mendacity.

Trump is incomprehensible without Obama preceding him. They have in common a cult of personality fueled by dazzled worshippers and a corrupt media seduced or frightened into fawning compliance.

There’s a big difference, however. Obama will go down in history—certainly not as another Lincoln or FDR or even Ronald Reagan—but as a consequential president if not quite the “transformative” one he aspired to be. The reason is that he has an ideological core that guides and limits his pragmatism and opportunism, pointing him consistently in the direction of a redistributionist-regulatory state at home and abroad a retreat from the role of global superpower.

Obama is open to many criticisms, but being “unJewish” is not a valid one. In fact, his broad purposes, I would argue, continue to resonate near perfectly with the political predilections of a majority of American Jews, especially the younger cohort, though not Israelis.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no ideological core to delimit his unappeasable hunger for self-aggrandizement. In Freudian terms, Obama may be viewed as a narcissist—but like many narcissists, he has a strong superego, i.e., an ideology, that governs what he does. Trump is instead an unrestrained egomaniac who’s much more dangerous than a garden variety narcissist.

Trump’s true believers are like Mickey Mouse Club members who believe that every day is Wednesday when “everything is possible.” Their desires are not constructive; instead, they yearn for creative destruction of the current political order to be replaced by bread and circuses flattering their flawed egos. Bernie Sanders gives lip service to the notion of a “political revolution.” If a real one occurred, Sanders would be among the first casualties. The Trump folk really want one, at whatever the cost.

If Trump’s elected, however, there may not be any Wednesdays in the week for them to revel in. Ted Cruz would actually try to reverse the Obama Era. Trump won’t even try. Instead, he’ll seek to rebrand it as Trumpian. If he succeeds, his reign might provide a necessary interregnum for the progressive Democrats. After a pause that refreshes, they would be well positioned to resume power and take up where Obama leaves off.

But the other possibility is that, despite or because of Trump’s compulsive propensities for unscrupulous deal making (Israel beware!), things fall apart during his presidency. Indeed, a series of dark Wednesdays where everything bad is possible could occur at home or abroad. To mix metaphors, chickens might not come to roost, but “black swan” catastrophes could happen.

If that happens, what comes next may not be an Obama retread but someone who really acts out the rage to restore lost status welling up from  the region of the heart of darkness where the souls of our legion of Trump losers currently reside.