In my college freshman-level acting class, I remember the professor saying that people who viewed acting as a way to get noticed or draw attention to themselves were engaging in emotional masturbation. To my somewhat sheltered seventeen-year-old self, this blunt appraisal was a real attention getter. As I progressed through the theatre program, I came to understand that self-aggrandizement was totally at odds with looking at the complexity of the character, the context of the play, and the interaction with your actors.
Strangely enough, this comment has repeatedly hammered at my brain during this Presidential election cycle. We have often heard the term “acting Presidential.” We’ve been bombarded with enough screen hours of Moran Freeman and Martin Sheen in the Oval Office to wonder why we can’t get a President like that. They’ve set the bar pretty high because, in this constant blurring of entertainment and reality, it’s easy to forget that these are characters, not real people The irony is that as we idolize screen leaders, we claim to want “authenticity” in our real candidates. No matter what you thought of his policies, Bernie Sanders went further than anyone expected based on pure authenticity. His message never wavered, he never pandered to the crowd. Ultimately being a Democratic Socialist who never ran as a Democrat proved a bridge to far, but there is no doubt he was authentic.
Now we are left with a binary choice. Sure, there are third, fourth, and even fifth party candidates. But, I’ve seen too many elections skewed by an also ran; so, I refuse to throw my vote away on “principle” rather than pragmatism. I want a real say in who governs for the next four years. The two remaining “real” candidates are under scrutiny for trust and authenticity. Hillary is constantly under attack for her stumbling attempts to explain email gaffs that she has already apologized for, her robotic delivery and her personal aloofness. Sorry, but I think that’s authentic. Not everyone is a glib extrovert. Some people are measured and cautious. They may not be the people you want to sit down to pizza and beer with, but they are probably safer to have in charge in a crisis.
So, do I think Hillary is the perfect candidate? Oh, hell no! It’s hard to look at the Clintons net worth and believe her claim that they were broke and in debt upon leaving the oval office. Full disclosure, when I retired, I was broke and in debt—and three years later, I still am. So yes, I might be willing to give speeches to anyone willing to pay me. Still, in my heart of hearts I know that no one short of Jesus is worth $300k a speech; and, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t speak in venues that could offer that fee. Then there is the murky conglomerate known as the Clinton Foundation. Such sources of income are questionable, but they are laid out in all their sordid glory in Hillary’s tax returns. That in itself is a kind of authenticity her opponent refuses to participate in.
Because Trump seems to operate without a filter, his detractors label him a loose cannon while his supporters label him authentic. I don’t believe either of those evaluations. I believe that someone with a past in reality TV and pro wrestling doesn’t just blur the lines between entertainment and politics. He erases it. Remember the GOP Convention’s silhouette entrance to We Are the Champions? Look up demagogue on dictionary.com and find “a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.” Sound familiar? Have you ever heard a single speech where policy and substance outweighed insults and name calling? When a reporter dares take him to task on an especially inflammatory comment, the response? The crowd seemed to like it.
What I find most confusing is Trump’s blue collar support, since that is my own background. He stands before his crowd in the full sartorial splendor, with custom made clothing manufactured in every country besides the U.S., topped off with the signature Make America Great Again baseball cap—the ultimate affectation of what he sees as regular guy attire.
Appearances aside, many supporters say he says the things they think. And some of those comments are a litany of blue collar complaints—complaints born out of real frustrations: lack of affordable education programs; layoffs from blue collar jobs with no alternative source of employment; inability to access emergency credit at an affordable rate; family illnesses where local medical care, much less out of state specialized care, is minimally covered by insurance; drug problems with no affordable rehab available; a house in foreclosure. These are real lower middle class problems that build the kind of anger and frustrations that make one look for scapegoats and saviors because false hope is better than no hope—until that “hope” proves falsest of all.
He parrots the right things, but I don’t believe Trump’s anger is authentic. A man who constantly boasts about his money, his family, his pricey education has no understanding of those issues, and if you don’t understand them, how can you really care about solving them? Trumps biggest problems have been some financial projects that went south. His solution? Cut and run without a backward glance, leaving mainly blue collar workers to take the hit. You may call him a smart businessman. Lots of other terms come to my mind.
We constantly hear from commentators and celebrities who know Trump personally that the brash, arrogant man we see on the campaign trail has little to do with the kind, charming man they know. If that’s supposed to reassure me, it doesn’t. It reinforces my worst suspicion. We are seeing the ultimate performance—a cynical, calculated, caricature of the frustrated middle class, at least as he sees it from Trump tower.
But I believe we’re smarter than that. We are better than that. And we deserve better than a parody of us at the lowest moments of our frustration and fear. But what do I know? I’m just a spinster with cats.