The Man-Boys Who Would Rule Us
Consider the traits on display by the pride of right-wing males hungry to lead America: immaturity, a frail connection to the truth, Daddy issues, and an authoritarian tilt
It is 25 days before we Americans vote, and a Hurricane Milton of half-truths, twisted facts, and downright lies swirls around us — political projectiles coupled with incessant pleas from both Democrats and Republicans to pony up for one of the most obscenely expensive elections in history.
Let’s step back for a minute.
Forget the issues of Election 2024 — fake, exaggerated, and real.
Forget abortion, inflation, immigration, or whatever gnaws at you.
Focus on the people. On their characters. On whom they have been.
Breathe deep into your diaphragm and take a hard look at those who would influence your life for the next four or more years.
On one side, you have an ambitious, up-by-her-bootstraps career politician who suddenly seized the role of presidential nominee. The child of immigrants, she’s well off and has had a successful career as a prosecutor and senator. At home, there’s a nebbishy (at least that’s the vibe) husband, a couple of cool stepkids, and friends in high places. Judging by the awful campaign for the nomination she ran in 2019 and talk of staff discontent during her vice-presidency, she’s a happy warrior with an edge. There is joy there, but you probably don’t want to cross her. Plus, she owns a Glock.
The Smiling Diva?
Her acolyte is an up-by-the-straps-of-his farm-boots soldier-teacher-politician whose swift rise to vice-presidential candidate was more calculated than it seemed. After all, he was a congressman for more than a decade and is in his second term as governor of a major state. At home, there is an ambitious wife (the progressive version of Lynne Cheney?) and a couple of sweet kids. The Midwest schtick to which he clings gets old fast, but he seems like an okay guy.
The Professional Everyman?
On the other side, there are Man-Boys with some serious issues.
At the top of the ticket is a brooding rich kid who yearned for the approval of his demanding father. He is a gold-spoon-in-the-mouth huckster and entertainer who has had enormous successes and crashing defeats in everything from real estate to casinos to steaks, to vodka, to fleecing poor sheep who signed up for his “university.” He has never, as far as is known, admitted being wrong about anything. He sees himself as a font of intelligence and perfection and possibly has even come to believe the evangelical freaks who see him as “anointed.” His self-adulation is as legendary as his admiration for strongmen, leaders who impose their will without question — laws and traditions be dammed. He craves praise. Feasts on adoration. Strikes viciously at critics. Lies when it suits him.
The Messy ‘Messiah’ From Queens?
His running mate might be the slickest of the bunch, even though he’s the youngest. An up-from-the-trailer-park smarty-pants pretty who was much fatherless, abandoned by his addict mother, and raised by granny “Mawmaw,” he grinds his way to Yale Law School. He is taken under the wing of a right-leaning, German-born venture capitalist; does a so-so turn in Silicon Valley; remakes himself as a glib politician; disavows his utter disdain for the man at the top of the ticket; stows his integrity; becomes a fallacy-spreading attack dog. This eager-to-please hillbilly has also embraced a sophisticated, conservative Catholic philosophy under which the church-state divide would be breached and religion would influence all facets of government.
The Holier-Than-Thou Hillbilly?
Supporting the GOP candidate for president is a silver-spoon-in-the-mouth (gold utensils are considered gauche in New England) child of wealth who also wanted the top job. Son of a loving if-complicated father. Never able to achieve the heights of his Dad. Recovered drug addict. Unrecovered sex addict whose second wife hung herself. Self-absorbed purveyor of conspiracy theories and quack science when he’s not doing shirtless, Putin-esque pushups at age 70. Traitor to the traditions and positions of his storied family. Collector of dead bear cubs, whale heads, and brain worms. This dude has more skeletons than the Catacombs of Rome, but he could be America’s next health czar.
The (Permanently) Prodigal Son?
And then, of course, there is the childish mega-MAGA-billionaire who bought a once-ubiquitous social media platform and dramatically devalued it while turning it into his personal, self-aggrandizing, faux tough-guy megaphone. A not-always-entirely-legal immigrant who has had a troubled relationship with his father, he rails against immigrants, and spreads misinformation with abandon. A wildly successful serial entrepreneur and dictatorial executive, he is also a wildly successful serial progenitor, fathering children with wives, girlfriends, and employees (that urge to procreate is at least one thing he has in common with his Dad, who has had two children with his stepdaughter). Once relatively apolitical, the Mars-bound genius is now a major (and secretive) GOP donor who could wind up as the overseer of government efficiency.
The Sociopathic Tesla?
We have already seen what one grievously flawed leader can inflict on the nation even with stand-up patriots on the inside pushing back. And those voices of relative reason won’t be there next time. Beneath the not-so-fabulous-four above will be a rabble of twisted sycophants looking to outdo each other and get a paternal pat on the head.
But you decide.
Short Takes
The Apprentice
The movie Donald Trump doesn’t want you to see opens today on almost 1,800 screens across the country, but it is unlikely to move any polling needles.
The screenplay by journalist Gabe Sherman doesn’t break a lot of new ground if you are even vaguely familiar with the rise of Trump. A soft young man with a towering ambition is on the make in New York in the 1970s and early ‘80s, looking to leap from his father’s grubby, racist real estate empire in Queens to the heights of Manhattan.
He is taken under the bespoke wing of the cruel and creepy power lawyer Roy Cohn, who served as chief counsel to the ultimately discredited commie hunter Senator Joe McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, in the 1950s.
[In a maybe not-so-odd twist, Robert Kennedy, whose eldest son, RFK Jr., now genuflects at the altar of Trump, briefly served with Cohn on McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations.]
Cohn takes a gay shine to the young Trump and schools him in what apparently have become the guiles that guide him: there is no right or wrong, no truth; admit nothing; and always say you are winning.
Jeremy Strong has been getting a lot of press for his portrayal of Cohn, but it often seems a more stunning impersonation than compelling interpretation. Sebastian Stan as Trump transformed into a speed-popping Cohn mini-me who outdoes his teacher in the duplicity department might be the sleeper performance.
One brutal (but well-sourced) scene with Trump’s first wife, the late Ivana, shocks and gives credence to claims that The Apprentice is a hit job. But as you watch the hyper-ambitious Trump coddled by a ferocious man attracted to him, it’s hard not to think of another once-pudgy young blood consumed by the thirst to be somebody who becomes the pet project of a potent and wily power player. That would be JD Vance.
My Book Report
By Deidre Depke
Family Matters
My daughter always starts a novel by reading the end. Once she knows the conclusion, she turns to the beginning. It’s a way to relieve anxiety, she says — there’s no worrying about outcome for the characters. If you’re that kind of reader, then Jami Attenberg is for you.
Her latest is A Reason to See You Again. As in past work, Attenberg regularly reveals a character’s future fate in the middle of a scene. Like this, in which a character is driving down a highway and decides not to take the exit leading to her father’s home:
“It was the only chance she had to see him, but she didn’t know it at the time. He would die in a year, and she would become an orphan—that was how she would feel, even though she was nearly 30.”
Reason is a domestic drama centered around three women, Frieda and her daughters, Shelly and Nancy. They tell their stories in first-person, self-contained chapters. Others play supporting roles: an erstwhile aunt, a niece, a close friend. There are a few men as well — but tales are never told from their points of view.
Alcohol abuse is a through-line, as is technology (nobody likes it, particularly cell phones). But family and the ties that sometimes unfortunately bind is the subject of this novel. At the root of it all is the patriarch Rudy, a Holocaust survivor and Frieda’s husband. He dies by chapter two, but his presence hangs over most of the next 40 years:
Shelly thinks about her “feeling of guilt that she was alive, and he wasn’t. He had never fought with Frieda. He was just happy to be alive. She wondered if this guilt had chased her for his entire life.”
I’m giving you the wrong impression here. This novel is neither lugubrious nor fraught. Reason is a ball — biting and funny with sharply executed characters brimming with neuroses but no self-delusions. Here’s a line from later in the scene above:
Shelly “drained her martini and ordered another. If she could have ordered the hangover directly, she would have, just to get it all over with already.”
Attenberg’s best-known novel is The Middlesteins, the story of Edie and Richard Middlestein, a suburban Chicago couple whose marriage falls apart because Edie can’t stop eating. This one is funny, too, with vivid characters and lots of caustic observations about middle America.
Need a new book? Read an Attenberg.
The List
My millennial nephew John is a technology exec who works 18 gazillion hours a week. He and his wife also have two young children. So I was pretty happy the other day when he texted his mother and me the link to Truelit’s 100 Best Books of the Quarter Century. The list was developed and voted on by Reddit users, whose average user is age 23. Kids still read books!
To kill some time, you can compare the Truelit list with The New York Times Best Books of the Century, the how-many-did-you-read interactive (I know you loved it). The Times surveyed “literary luminaries” to construct its list. Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend ranks as number one. You know the book and Ferrante’s sequels, I’m sure.
The less mainstream 2626 by Roberto Bolano tops the Truelit list. Written in Spanish, the 1,100-page posthumous novel was translated in 2008.
Here is its publisher’s description: “Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa — a fictional Juárez — on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared.”
Surprise!
The Vegetarian by Han Kang makes both lists — and its South Korean author now has a Nobel Prize. The novel’s protagonist is a depressed housewife who gradually gives up eating meat. Her family’s reactions range from confused to threatening. Few Nobel gamblers had their money on Kang, but the choice seems inspired in retrospect. If you haven’t tried Vegetarian, put it on your list. It’s delicious.
Dump, The Musical
From now until November 5, The Constant Tribune will feature excerpts from a musical about the Election of 2016 and its aftermath. Some scenes include songs from an album available on Spotify.* For previous scenes, see earlier issues of TCT, starting with the newsletter of September 12.
Act One, Scene Twelve
On the stage of Freedom University, the last Republican presidential primary debate is taking place on CNN. Anderson Cooper introduces the candidates.
Cooper Good evening ladies and gentlemen here at Freedom University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and at home. This is the last debate between candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. The final four, you might say.
Please no cheering or booing or clapping during the debate.
Good luck to the candidates, now let’s introduce them.
Dr. Ben Carson.
No one emerges from behind the stage curtain. Cooper repeats himself.
Cooper Dr. Carson. Dr. Ben Carson, please come forward.
Carson stumbles forward from behind the curtain. He blinks, collects himself, slowly saunters across the stage.
Good evening.
I’m old Ben Carson
and I’ve seen plenty.
I’ve opened brains,
and I’ve save so many.
Now all those brains
got me to thinkin’
I’d probably be
as good as Lincoln.
Got a boot-strap story
and folks all know
I’m a no-threat black guy
who talks real slow.
For The Grand Old Party
I’d be a knight in armor
and heaven knows
I’d be no Obama
Carson smiles and blinks repeatedly. Scattered applause.
Cooper Well, um, thank you, Dr. Carson.
Senator Ted Cruz of the great state of Texas.
Cruz struts boldly across the stage, clutches his podium.
Cruz
My name is Cruz,
I’m gonna cruise
How do I know?
God told me so.
He said, Ted
To get ahead
Just trust in me
And they will see
Your brilliance,
God-given brilliance.
My dad’s a preacher,
But I’m a reacher
Who can grasp
The golden hasp
And lock the nomination
To rule this craven nation.
Or at least that’s what I thought.
My plan was solid
But then that squalid
Orange bastard roared,
Defied the Lord,
Did things untoward,
To women, holy women.
Oh, Lord, please do tell
How such a sinner bound for hell,
A man who loves the serpent,
Can beat your saintly servant.
Dear God, with your awesome might,
You and me can win this fight
And so I pray, I plead, I sob
Help me squash this sordid slob.
The audience is silent save for two hands clapping.
Cooper Thank you, Senator Cruz. That was an even more unusual opener than Dr. Carson’s.
And now from the world of business, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina. Ms. Fiorina, the stage is yours.
A woman with searing eyes and expensive clothes walks purposefully to her podium.
Fiorina Hello, Anderson and good evening ladies and gentlemen. It’s wonderful to be here, but before we begin, there is one thing I would like to make perfectly clear...
It’s a bitch to be a bitch in the GOP.
Red-state roosters don’t want the hens
upsetting the pecking order.
They want to close that border.
It was a tough to be a bitch in the corporate class,
but I smashed through that glass,
knocked all those suits on their ass
and thought in my naivete
that there would come a day
when someone could climb to the top
of the Republican rock
without a goddamn fucking cock.
But no, oh no!
After two hundred and forty years,
it’s still nothing but tears.
These days substance doesn’t matter
amid the online noise and chatter.
What wins is the shrill,
cheap talk, the sound-byte thrill.
So if you’re a woman with moxie,
though no longer foxy,
you’ll never take the ultimate hill.
Yes, my friends, it’s a bitch to be a bitch in the GOP,
even a rich bitch in the GOP.
Stone silence from the audience.
Cooper Um, thank you Ms. Fiorina. And now New York real estate magnate and former reality TV star, Ronald Dump.
The crowd erupts in a frenzy as Dump emerges from behind the curtain with both hands raised high. He stops to kiss an American flag.
Dump Thank you. Thank you very much.
The wild cheering continues. Dump is all smiles.
Dump Thank you. Thank you.
[to the cameras] I think they like me.
Listen, folks, it’s pretty clear why I am getting all the applause. I’m not a lyin’ politician like Ted. I’m not a washed-up corporate hack like Carly, God love her. And unlike my friend Ben Carson, I’ve got a pulse.
Ben took a lot of pulses when he was a doctor but never his own.
Raucous laughter.
Cooper Please, please. Let’s settle down.
Dump I think we all know why I am winning — so many huge wins all across the country — and why these chumps are losing. Okay, they’re not chumps, but they’re losing. Because they are running like politicians.
They’ll say anything to win. It’s sad. It’s a very sad thing. But Dump tells you the truth.
Remember Honest Abe? Great man, Abe. Fourscore. What did that mean anyway? Doesn’t matter. Abe. Dump. Truth
Act One, Scene 13
It’s Election Night. MARCY’S top team has gathered in a sumptuous hotel suite.
Judy What time do you think The Dumpster will make his concession speech?
Rodney Who the hell knows. These people are amateurs. They don’t know how it works. They’ll probably wait until every Eskimo vote has come in from Alaska.
Marcy [guffaws] It won’t be over till the fat man sings!
Lots of laughter as Jefferson Madison raises a champagne glass to Marcy.
Jefferson Before things get too hectic, I just want to say, Baby, you did a beautiful job. I know there were some scary moments, especially early on when Senator Lenin was coming on strong, but I always knew you’d do it.
Marcy Thank you, Jeff!
Jefferson It’s going to be good to be back in the old house where we belong. Here’s to President Madison, the third President Madison, but this Commander-in-Chief isn’t wearing breeches or brogues; the chief is in a pantsuit!
Act One, Scene 14
In the ballroom of Dump’s Florida club, Far-Along-Go, delirious supporters hoot and holler as the Dump Family, save for a stone-faced Fellania, stand on the stage grinning as the patriarch is introduced.
Fannon Ladies and gentlemen, we did it! You did it! Most of all, HE did it! My friends, the next President of the United States, Ronald Dump!
Dump Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. We won, and the reason we won is very simple. Not that hard to figure out. We won because the truth is you’re getting screwed. You know it. We all know it. Not a little screwed. Totally screwed.
Screwed by Wall Street. I’m from New York, I know these hedge fund guys. Some of them aren’t bad guys. But they own the politicians. Like Marcy the crook.
Shouts of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!”
Dump And we’re getting screwed by China. They steal our technology, make things cheaper, shut down our factories. Very sad what’s happened to the factories.
On my first day, I will put a stop to that. China will be back to making chop suey instead of cheating Uncle Sam.
They’re cheaters. They know they’re cheaters. And that will happen chop-chop.
Chanting: “Chinese on your knees! Chinese on your knees!”
Dump But the ones really screwing you are the illegals. The immigrants who sneak in here. They take your job, drive down wages. And what do we get? You know what we get. Gang violence, rape, burglary. You name it. Right here in America. Then they go on food stamps. But that will end. It’ll be over. Done. Finished. Finito. There will be a wall — a beautiful, sixty-foot wall that runs all along the border. It will stop them. It will stop them raping America.
And, hey, you know what? This is not fake news. Not fake at all. There are so many here now, and they’re not big people. A lot of them are very small. Brown and small. Not tiny like a midget, but small and brown. Yes, folks, another thing to say gracias to the illegals for is that we’re shrinking. Americans used to be big. But in ten years, the average American will be a weenie.
That’s right. China and the illegals are making us shrimps.
Chanting: “No Shrimps! No Shrimps! No Shrimps!”
Dump Look, I like shrimp. Shrimp cocktail. Red sauce. Red, like us. But I don’t want to be a shrimp. Who wants to be a shrimp?
Dump rails on but in silence, as if on a muted TV screen.
On a fire escape behind the ballroom that looks down on an alley lined with dumpsters, Fellania sings.
*Songs peformed by Tari Kelly and Mike McGowan
TO BE CONTINUED