Will Donald Trump rise to legendary stature or remain a cult figure?
We all — famous, infamous, or obscure like me — live inside a story.
Shakespeare nailed this.
"As You Like It":
“All the world’s a stage,
"And all the men and women merely players…."
"The Scottish Play":
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
"That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
"And then is heard no more."
Most of us poor players are extras (background actors). Some (like me) play bit parts with a few lines and, if lucky, a supporting role.
Then there are the lead, starring players in our drama: presidents, other world leaders, and cultural icons like Taylor Swift.
A few climb even higher than fleeting stardom. Larry Hagman (best remembered for his role as the villainous J.R. Ewing in "Dallas") became a superstar.
Or higher. Hagman's mother, Mary Martin (Peter Pan and many other iconic roles), "was asked what she thought of her son becoming a legend. Her response: 'I'm a legend. He's a cult figure.'"
Donald Trump achieved cult figure status in his first term.
Will he now rise to legendary stature?
What would that mean?
I was conceived and born a few years after my father, Max, returned home from World War II. I grew up in a historic postwar era of narrative heroism.
A staple fare of movies and television were Westerns. In my pre-"Bonanza" youth, TVs were cubicle, and black and white.
The sheriff or U.S. marshal confronted cattle rustlers, bandits, and bank or train robbers. "Draw, podner!"
The era's stories were of the good guy(s) against the bad guy(s). According to George Will, who was celebrated recently in The Washington Post, the genre of the Western was invented in 1902: "Who ... is responsible for Ross Perot's [businessman/amateur politician, precursor to Trump] remarkable political rise? Owen Wister is. ... [H]e published a novel, 'The Virginian.' It pioneered a literary genre, the Western; it invented the cowboy of popular imagination, and it defined a region, the West, as a repository of American yearnings and regrets."
One might challenge Will's crediting Wister for inventing the Western genre. That was Albert Einstein's favorite novelist, Karl May.
Wister's primacy is true ... for the United States. America first!
Thereafter, the heroics and histrionics of the Wild West were embellished with the heroism of the Greatest Generation. My dad spent the war as a U.S. Navy petty officer dispensing free Baby Ruths.
Then, America stormed Omaha Beach.
Dad and his wife, my mom, Roz, took me and my little brother to the (free to vets' and their immediate families!) 1962 premier of "The Longest Day," featuring John Wayne among other cult figures.
What has this to do with politics? Ronald Reagan, mocked by his adversaries as a "Grade B movie actor," starred in numerous Westerns. Reagan had a profound sense of narrative and fused the Western with the Cold War theme.
Recall the 1984 parody campaign poster portraying a white-hatted Reagan grabbing a black-hatted Brezhnev in the facetious "Bedtime for Brezhnev." Reagan rode his movie celebrity (and California governorship) to the White House.
Reagan's preeminent purpose there? To win the Cold War.
Reagan, by his progress toward winning that war without casualties and without triggering World War III, was reelected in arguably the greatest landslide ever.
With victory over the Evil Empire, the culture changed.
Heroism was out. Anti-heroes ("Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown.") and noir ("Apocalypse Now") dominated.
Then, the culture changed again. Enter "reality" (using that term advisedly) TV.
Donald Trump, having starred in "The Apprentice," rode down the golden escalator and into the White House. Trump and Reagan: actors from very different genres.
Both understood boffo. As I wrote here: "The Daily Beast reported: 'In a clip aired on MSNBC, Trump continued: "If I went back to NBC right now to do something, they would do anything I wanted to do, showbiz wise ... Because one thing I know about that business — and I learned more about that business than anybody else could learn in a short period of time. It's about one thing: ratings. If you have ratings, you can be the meanest, most horrible human being in the world. There's only one thing that matters: ratings."'"
Reagan, by setting in motion the forces by which capitalism beat communism, ascended to legend. Ivory tower, left-leaning historians begrudge him such recognition.
Future historians are likely to vouchsafe Reagan greatness of Rushmorian proportions. A legend.
Donald Trump, with his avid MAGA (and Karens) base, attained cult-figure status. It is harder to achieve the stature of legend from a "reality" TV stardom (and beauty pageant impresario) narrative.
Will Trump rise to the occasion? We shall soon see whether President-elect Trump remains a formidable cult figure or inaugurates his promised "golden age for America," thereby rising to legendary stature.
Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of the 200,000+ follower "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $104T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.
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