Put to the test

Apparently last night CNN enabled Donald Trump and his ghoulish admirers to project his "World Class Demogogue" act. Scary. And the pants-on-fire emergency Trump constitutes to any half-decent American democracy continues.

So I suggest attending to Fintan O'Toole who uses commentary on porn star Stormy Daniels' memoir to scratch at the demogogue's tawdry underbelly. Remember Stormy? She's the woman who Trump was so eager to erase that he fudged his books and rendered himself subject to prosecution by the Manhattan D.A.

Part of Trump’s political persona is that of a very rich man with the same tastes as his much less wealthy followers. He connects to many of his voters through a shared love for things that liberal sophisticates disdain: fat-rich fast food, pro wrestling, trash TV, NASCAR, and, as it turned out, porn stars. Daniels is a product of that universe. She is a Republican who insists that “Part of the American dream is making money. I am a firm believer in capitalism.”

More importantly, as she is acutely aware, her fans and Trump’s came from the same constituency. Presumably, most of them have since protested her betrayal by deciding to spill their seed before some other goddess. But in 2006 Trump was right to sense that she and he were in the same business. She recalled in her memoir,

As my fan base grew over two decades of work in film and feature dancing, my demographic was usually middle-aged white men. Forty-five- to sixty-five-year-old white dudes—Republicans, basically.

Perhaps they saw the same thing in him as they did in her. A middle-aged man at a Trump rally could experience the same ritual reassurance about the security of his status as a white dude that he might get from having Daniels strip and dance before him. In addition, just as Trump’s live appearances were his TV image made flesh, the god coming out of the machine, Daniels was paid a premium for her live act because the clubs knew that their customers already felt connected to her filmed image from her porn movies.

Very close to the surface of her amply displayed skin, Daniels had the same raw nerve that Trump became so good at touching: the resentment of those who fear that uniquely American term of contempt, white trash. ...

O'Toole's conclusion is an indictment of our culture.

... Trump himself understood that to the fans he shared with Daniels, having sex with her was not a negative. As he told Cohen about the Daniels story, “If it comes out, I’m not sure how it would play with my supporters. But I’d bet they think it’s cool that I slept with a porn star.” For her part, Daniels was ever more certain that “Me saying I slept with him would just be another consensual notch on his belt that his fans could pat him on the back about.”

This is the ironic twist in the tale—there was no scandal to hush up. In Trumpworld, scandal no longer exists. The shameless cannot be shamed. ... Making a drama out of Trump’s sex life is turning politics back into another freak show, the very genre in which he thrives.

The guy's a ghoul and he brings out the worst in his fans. Despite the bravery of E. Jean Carroll, and a Manhattan prosecutor, and most likely many more legal guardians, we're stuck with fighting this foul monster so long as he has breath.