This is particularly good. I was trying to explain your "narratology" idea to a friend recently, and I was struck again not just by how well it works (insofar as I understand its workings) but also by how it's a genuinely novel and useful tool that many journalists and commentators — who are poised on the edge of accepting it — would profit from (figuratively and literally).
In the present context, I'm struck by how many people who really should know better continue to express real bafflement at why Trump took the documents — Did he just want bragging rights, or souvenirs? (Of course not.) They have trouble with the revelations because they're so baffling. (Josh M. had a reasonably good — but still flawed in the way I'm discussing — reaction this morning, wherein he basically said, Stop trying to make this into more than it is; it's gravely criminal but at heart it's just stupid.)
What you've done in these two brief essays (today and in January) is answer all of that — shown how Trump can simultaneously be idiotic and inconsistent AND be the moving party in a complex and legitimate scheme to misuse the documents to his gain.
As always, I wish more people paid attention to the work you do — you deserve yesterday's "victory lap" and many more.
Very good stuff indeed. I really don't get why people insist on pounding the square Trump peg is the round "stupid" hole. Was Sam Giancana stupid? Meyer Lansky? John Gotti? It's a really flawed simplification of his skills and motives. Sure, those documents were good for bragging and maintaining the illusion that he is still The President, but above all else they are leverage, as a few people have noted, something useful for smearing enemies and making money, especially in international deals.
Come on, he IS very stupid. He doesn't understand anything and can't read; he is clearly totally unaware of any abstractions or theory; his knowledge of how anything works is superficial to nonexistent. Mattis wasn't the only one to emerge from a meeting calling him a "fucking moron." (Look at the transcript with the Prime Minister of Australia for a great example.)
I understand what you're saying in terms of his cunning and his feral ability to sense weakness and protect himself, but none of that makes him any less stupid. Bush II was smarter, and that's saying a lot. Even Reagan could (sort of) hold an adult conversation about policy. With Trump it's like dealing with an angry, badly-educated teenager.
He understands how to make money and stay out of jail, despite serial bankruptcies and more crimes than you can shake a stick at. He is very good at manipulating people and controlling the public conversation about him. He's uncultured, uneducated, and (I believe deliberately) unsophisticated. Certainly most people consider that stupid, so I know it's a losing argument. But I think the stupid label lets people underestimate what he's capable of, which is very dangerous because he's very dangerous.
He's always had an army of servants and retainers doing it for him and wealthy rescuers starting with the $500 million his father spent bailing him out from failure after failure and going on to the Italian Mafia, Russian Mafiya, and Gulf royals. He may be a kind of Vincent Gigante figure, not as crazy as he acts, but being the titular head of an organized crime mob isn't the same as managing it. One main danger is that he has terrible judgment, from the consequences of which he's always been saved in the past.
And the other main danger is that he hires terrible people who may be competent in their own right, like Jared Kushner or Stephen Bannon or Stephen Miller or William Barr or the minions discussed in this post. That's what the post is really about--Trump is no doubt guilty of all the charges in the indictment, but everything he did himself was clownish and stupid, with trying to hide the dangerous stuff by spreading it among the different boxes, or having the boxes moved all over the building while the video cameras recorded all the moves, or using the stuff as bragging material without realizing that he was making recordings that could be used as evidence. And the effective criminals in the document theft were not Trump but Nunes and Meadows and Patel and so on. I don't believe Trump mapped out strategies and orders for them to follow. I think they did all that themselves, and Trump just messed it up for them and got himself caught.
So, I read part of a Charlie Pierce post about Trump's latest shenanigans (he calls Trump a dunce) and for some reason it reminded me of something in Dino: Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams by Nick Tosches, which along with Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail and Peter Guralnick's 2 volume biography of Elvis makes up a definitive profile of 20th century America. I dug up my copy and found it: the word menefreghista, which Nick translates as one who does not give a fuck. Trump is menefreghista. His lack of curiosity, interest, or concern about anything not directly related to his immediate well-being certainly looks a hell of a lot like stupid if you in turn are not curious, interested, or concerned with the well being of Donald Trump. He has a focus on himself that I think is not very understandable to someone who is not a privileged narcissist who has surrounded himself with yes men and assassins. Strategically he has made insane mistakes, such as not just copying and returning all the documents, so I think it's legitimate to call him stupid in that sense, but it's clear a lifetime of privilege makes you blind to long-term consequences. I mean look at Elon Musk. The both should know better, but oh so clearly they don't.
Thanks for the word! It's new to me but I know enough street Italian to understand the etymology, from "Me ne frego" (would have meant something like "I fuck myself over it" but the verb has not meant "fuck" for 1000 years or so and it's OK to use it in polite company) plus the suffix "-ist" (the h is to keep the g hard before i).
That seems like a good analysis to me. An important difference between Musk and Trump is that Trump really does have a serious reading disability, which I've written about https://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2019/07/its-literacy.html, and probably some other learning disabilities, where Musk is stupid more by choice.
The central issue of Queens Man is Queens Man. Sometimes Queens Man cares about some random thing because Queens Man thinks it might concern Queens Man. Other times Queens Man be doin' that Queens Mannin' thing and that be the entire point of Queens Man at that moment. But applying logic or conviction or serious intent about other-than Queens Man is to miss the essence of Queens Man.
I know it’s tiresome for me to hammer this point but he’s stupid — it’s exactly the right word.
I once saw an interview with Ted Turner in which it was equally obvious how stupid he is, and I said so, and people reacted like I was trying to tear down the basic fabric of society, of capitalism. Turner is stupid; Trump is stupid. I’m sorry but it’s exactly the right word — the discussions remind me of outmoded ideas of “social intelligence” or even “feminine intuition.”
It’s possible to be very good at certain tasks (including manipulating people or gulling them) without being smart. I don’t know why it’s such a controversial position — but your statements on him suggest that you basically agree.
Again, it’s semantics…but it’s not, really, is it?
I refer you back to your remarks about Warhol's IQ.
Jun 10, 2023·edited Jun 10, 2023Liked by Yastreblyansky
You're very kind!
Seriously, the idea that it was never about the damn "supporters" with the red hats and the "anger" and "disillusionment" so much as it was the work of a group of bad actors with a clear agenda to manipulate the political process to get Trump into the White House to the direct benefit of — what's that phrase? — "an trans-national crime organization" centered around Russian oligarchs and a bunch of moneyed interests....you'd think people could see this but even now they can't.
This is particularly good. I was trying to explain your "narratology" idea to a friend recently, and I was struck again not just by how well it works (insofar as I understand its workings) but also by how it's a genuinely novel and useful tool that many journalists and commentators — who are poised on the edge of accepting it — would profit from (figuratively and literally).
In the present context, I'm struck by how many people who really should know better continue to express real bafflement at why Trump took the documents — Did he just want bragging rights, or souvenirs? (Of course not.) They have trouble with the revelations because they're so baffling. (Josh M. had a reasonably good — but still flawed in the way I'm discussing — reaction this morning, wherein he basically said, Stop trying to make this into more than it is; it's gravely criminal but at heart it's just stupid.)
What you've done in these two brief essays (today and in January) is answer all of that — shown how Trump can simultaneously be idiotic and inconsistent AND be the moving party in a complex and legitimate scheme to misuse the documents to his gain.
As always, I wish more people paid attention to the work you do — you deserve yesterday's "victory lap" and many more.
Very good stuff indeed. I really don't get why people insist on pounding the square Trump peg is the round "stupid" hole. Was Sam Giancana stupid? Meyer Lansky? John Gotti? It's a really flawed simplification of his skills and motives. Sure, those documents were good for bragging and maintaining the illusion that he is still The President, but above all else they are leverage, as a few people have noted, something useful for smearing enemies and making money, especially in international deals.
Come on, he IS very stupid. He doesn't understand anything and can't read; he is clearly totally unaware of any abstractions or theory; his knowledge of how anything works is superficial to nonexistent. Mattis wasn't the only one to emerge from a meeting calling him a "fucking moron." (Look at the transcript with the Prime Minister of Australia for a great example.)
I understand what you're saying in terms of his cunning and his feral ability to sense weakness and protect himself, but none of that makes him any less stupid. Bush II was smarter, and that's saying a lot. Even Reagan could (sort of) hold an adult conversation about policy. With Trump it's like dealing with an angry, badly-educated teenager.
He understands how to make money and stay out of jail, despite serial bankruptcies and more crimes than you can shake a stick at. He is very good at manipulating people and controlling the public conversation about him. He's uncultured, uneducated, and (I believe deliberately) unsophisticated. Certainly most people consider that stupid, so I know it's a losing argument. But I think the stupid label lets people underestimate what he's capable of, which is very dangerous because he's very dangerous.
He's always had an army of servants and retainers doing it for him and wealthy rescuers starting with the $500 million his father spent bailing him out from failure after failure and going on to the Italian Mafia, Russian Mafiya, and Gulf royals. He may be a kind of Vincent Gigante figure, not as crazy as he acts, but being the titular head of an organized crime mob isn't the same as managing it. One main danger is that he has terrible judgment, from the consequences of which he's always been saved in the past.
And the other main danger is that he hires terrible people who may be competent in their own right, like Jared Kushner or Stephen Bannon or Stephen Miller or William Barr or the minions discussed in this post. That's what the post is really about--Trump is no doubt guilty of all the charges in the indictment, but everything he did himself was clownish and stupid, with trying to hide the dangerous stuff by spreading it among the different boxes, or having the boxes moved all over the building while the video cameras recorded all the moves, or using the stuff as bragging material without realizing that he was making recordings that could be used as evidence. And the effective criminals in the document theft were not Trump but Nunes and Meadows and Patel and so on. I don't believe Trump mapped out strategies and orders for them to follow. I think they did all that themselves, and Trump just messed it up for them and got himself caught.
So, I read part of a Charlie Pierce post about Trump's latest shenanigans (he calls Trump a dunce) and for some reason it reminded me of something in Dino: Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams by Nick Tosches, which along with Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail and Peter Guralnick's 2 volume biography of Elvis makes up a definitive profile of 20th century America. I dug up my copy and found it: the word menefreghista, which Nick translates as one who does not give a fuck. Trump is menefreghista. His lack of curiosity, interest, or concern about anything not directly related to his immediate well-being certainly looks a hell of a lot like stupid if you in turn are not curious, interested, or concerned with the well being of Donald Trump. He has a focus on himself that I think is not very understandable to someone who is not a privileged narcissist who has surrounded himself with yes men and assassins. Strategically he has made insane mistakes, such as not just copying and returning all the documents, so I think it's legitimate to call him stupid in that sense, but it's clear a lifetime of privilege makes you blind to long-term consequences. I mean look at Elon Musk. The both should know better, but oh so clearly they don't.
Thanks for the word! It's new to me but I know enough street Italian to understand the etymology, from "Me ne frego" (would have meant something like "I fuck myself over it" but the verb has not meant "fuck" for 1000 years or so and it's OK to use it in polite company) plus the suffix "-ist" (the h is to keep the g hard before i).
That seems like a good analysis to me. An important difference between Musk and Trump is that Trump really does have a serious reading disability, which I've written about https://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2019/07/its-literacy.html, and probably some other learning disabilities, where Musk is stupid more by choice.
The central issue of Queens Man is Queens Man. Sometimes Queens Man cares about some random thing because Queens Man thinks it might concern Queens Man. Other times Queens Man be doin' that Queens Mannin' thing and that be the entire point of Queens Man at that moment. But applying logic or conviction or serious intent about other-than Queens Man is to miss the essence of Queens Man.
Stupid might be the wrong word. There's certainly something very wrong with his brain though.
I know it’s tiresome for me to hammer this point but he’s stupid — it’s exactly the right word.
I once saw an interview with Ted Turner in which it was equally obvious how stupid he is, and I said so, and people reacted like I was trying to tear down the basic fabric of society, of capitalism. Turner is stupid; Trump is stupid. I’m sorry but it’s exactly the right word — the discussions remind me of outmoded ideas of “social intelligence” or even “feminine intuition.”
It’s possible to be very good at certain tasks (including manipulating people or gulling them) without being smart. I don’t know why it’s such a controversial position — but your statements on him suggest that you basically agree.
Again, it’s semantics…but it’s not, really, is it?
I refer you back to your remarks about Warhol's IQ.
Always really glad to win your approval.
You're very kind!
Seriously, the idea that it was never about the damn "supporters" with the red hats and the "anger" and "disillusionment" so much as it was the work of a group of bad actors with a clear agenda to manipulate the political process to get Trump into the White House to the direct benefit of — what's that phrase? — "an trans-national crime organization" centered around Russian oligarchs and a bunch of moneyed interests....you'd think people could see this but even now they can't.
If you've got an NYRB subscription, you should read this:
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/06/10/the-ultimate-deal/