16 Comments
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Bill Bodie's avatar

Excellent take. Also, look at the Trump's cultural lodestars -- The Village People, professional

wrestling, Les Miz, country music, etc. -- all from that era.

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John Ganz's avatar

I should’ve mentioned Les Miz!

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NancyB's avatar

Interesting. That would explain his recent tic of referring to the US as "hot"––as if geopolitics is no different than being on the guest list of a Vanity Fair post-Oscars party.

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Alice Dubiel's avatar

He may still want a spot on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” not realizing all has been exposed in NBC producers’ admission that they had to build sets for Trump Tower offices because the original site was too shabby for tv.

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Jack Leveler's avatar

Frankenstein creation of the Reagan Revolution.

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Attempted and failed flaneur's avatar

Yes, I think people underestimate the continuity between Reagan and Trump. Reagan’s first term also saw a massive slash to social services, which resulted in a massive and noticeable increase in homelessness. It’s just that Reagan garbed it in “avuncular” grandpa and Trump is “mean grandpa”.

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Laura I Troutman's avatar

There are two eras Trump would like to return to: the fifties of his childhood and unchallenged white male supremacy, and the eighties of Dallas, Dynasty, and unabashed love of luxury.

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Paul's avatar

This makes a lot of sense.

It is this sort of mentality that Fox news plugged into in the mid-1990's -- and in a way way has kept its audience there ever since.

He certainly seems to be trying to keep his hair looking like it did in 1989.

Maybe he associates his personal downturn with the election of Clinton in 1992.

Early 90's is when he meets Epstein.

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DBR's avatar

His neurodegnerative decline also probably helps lock him in the past even more

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Maddie's avatar

“People often wonder why Gen X in particular is so enamored of Trump. Well, could it be that they evince the same delayed development that always brings them back to their glory days.”

Not just us Xers — it often seems to me most of the Dems I think of as devout centrists, many of them boomers, somehow stopped developing in the 90s. They seem to cling to an ideal of bipartisanship that ossified in the mid- and late-90s and was hopelessly inadequate even then. All these years later it’s still hopelessly inadequate but rather continue to politically and culturally tread water than take a single step in a new direction (endorse Mamdani or the Green New Deal, etc.).

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Sherri Priestman's avatar

You’re right about centrists. As a Boomer I’ll tell you that Trump has radicalized me. I didn’t realize how blissfully I was misunderstanding the world until he came on the political scene.

John, it’s a pleasure reading your insights into the current moment, and now you’ve added a cogent explanation of what is going on in part. I’d really like to see you explore further the last two sentences of today’s newsletter:

“Trump may be trying to reimpose an old order, but he also seems to think it never really passed. For him, history didn’t end; it never existed in the first place.”

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henry sholar's avatar

that was the era after his great vietnam victory. i believe that war was his metaphor for his avoidance of sexually transmitted diseases. A real victorious 'veteran', that guy…

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AJ's avatar

I think his brain & memories are running backwards lile so many other dementia patient’s brains.

As for GenX, he feeds their deeply held, cynical, middle kid/sandwich generation feelings. And that makes them feel happy.

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Jeff's avatar

Definitely a take.

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janinsanfran's avatar

No wonder the mere existence of Obama broke his ossified brain.

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Keith's avatar

Y'know, Richard Nixon tried to get Trump interested in working as a Republican politician in 1973 or 4. At that time when Trump was perceived (and still perceived himself) as a successful businessman, he didn't take Nixon up on the offer. lucky for us, too.

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