Donald Trumps The New Yorker by George Merrill

I subscribed to The New Yorker, recently. I’d let my subscription slide some years ago and when I saw a good subscription deal, I took it. I received my new copy, and thumbed through the pages looking at cartoons.

To my surprise, all the cartoons in this edition were, as Trump himself is, all about Donald Trump. The New Yorker cartoons, as I recalled, were usually random, going from one social, religious, and political issue to another. Trump had clearly trumped all the cartoon selections appearing in April’s edition of The New Yorker.  

I counted no less than seventeen cartoons making oblique or direct references to many of Trump’s signature features. Among them included Trump’s vanity, his buffoonery, and his grandiosity. One cartoon sketched facial grimaces in which he appears to be having excruciating gas pains and another in which he looks petulant like a child whose mother just told him no, he couldn’t. Another targeted his folksy verbiage, “really terrific,” another his divisive rhetoric; still another his bizarre selection of advisors, and his naïveté around world issues.  While not everybody’s Renaissance man, he is every cartoonist’s bonanza. He remains, as with most narcissists, blissfully self-confident. For some, this is an attractive attribute. For citizens scared witless for their country and feeling powerless to do anything to make it safer, a presidential candidate with an aura of confidence, even bluster will give heart to some.

Comedians and cartoonists love prickly personalities. They are the mother’s milk of satire. Years ago Jon Stewart on the Daily Show aimed almost all of his spoofs at George W. Bush’s malapropisms and his administration that included the hawkish figures of Cheney and Rumsfeld. He’d also given President Obama a rough ride at times.

Trump presents as the archetypal adolescent. He loves shattering boundaries, demanding the center of attention, talking tough and name-calling. Some Americans confuse his provocative demeanor with credible political vision.

It turns out that his persona is similar to the “Ugly American,” a term that first appeared in the 1958 novel of that name by authors Lederer and Burdick. The book highlighted the political and diplomatic types during the cold war. It revealed how isolated, arrogant, loud and insensitive American diplomats and politicians – Americans in general – were in contrast to those of the Soviet Bloc. Soviet diplomatic teams were careful and sensitive in dealing with the subtleties of the people they wished to influence. The Soviets were superior diplomats. The book was a critique of American attitudes of superiority and entitlement that undermined our diplomatic and political activity.

Today’s climate is like the one in 1958 when the book ‘The Ugly American” was written. Then the cold war was in full force.  Nuclear arms race was underway, and Vietnam had been brewing on the horizon. The Russians launched Sputnik in 1957, casting doubts on America’s technological proficiency. Today, terrorism, gun violence, racism, bullying, immigration, economic inequity and unrest are our hot button issues.

Trump is so unapologetically self-referential, I wonder whether he could actually do the work required to meet the needs of others, and be able to engage in the give and take essential to the democratic system. Whatever happens, it seems for Trump, is all about him.

I don’t think Trump is the issue, however. He represents the shadow side of the American psyche that many find glamorous. He’s the straight man for one of America’s claims to entitlement, usually phrased, ‘we’re the greatest and most powerful country in the world.’ Our cowboy mentality is alive and well.

After 9/11 America joined the rest of the world as one nation among others as vulnerable as the rest of the world had been for centuries. It was humbling, but it led to a more thoughtful way of understanding just what our greatness is about. It’s not that we are the best, the most powerful, but that we have been singularly blessed. A need to be first, often breeds exceptional and entitled attitudes.  Those who understand how much they are blessed, act gratefully and with a measure of humility.

Compared to Trump, political figures like Secretary of State John Kerry who actually serve our country have far lower visibility in the media. Grandstanding is not going to create a better world.  If there are still inspiring images out there that can define what’s best about America, and many Americans, I’d vote for the one I saw on TV recently. Secretary John Kerry was signing the climate agreement he helped broker at the U.N. While signing the treaty, he is holding his granddaughter in his arm. It’s a powerful statement, a hopeful one about responsible world leadership and of serious and dignified diplomacy. I see in the image of Kerry one profile of those who work selflessly to insure a safe world for our children and grandchildren.

The picture may have included Kerry but was not all about him.  It was about the world that he, among others, cares about and works with quiet dignity to heal.

That trumps all.