Trump Term Two, With Even MORE Deplorableness

There’s a moment in Nicholas Fisk’s Blitz-era memoir Pig Ignorant when he, intimidated by the deft workmanship and ribald worldliness of two clerkesses, invokes his titular dunderheaded descriptor: “They make Nick realize, yet again, his pig ignorance and humble status.”

Their expansive knowledge of nightclub tunes and wry banter, along with their superwoman dexterity, intimidate Fisk, who feels small and provincial in their presence.

It’s a feeling I’ve shared more than I care to admit—outside the length of this confessional column anyway. Since decamping my small-town fastness shadowed by cooling towers for our imperial capital, I’ve experienced plenty pig-ignorant moments. Washington, DC, is a transient city attracting aspiring Americans near and far, many of whom, freshly graduated out of top-tier universities, wish to use our sprawling government machinery to achieve a more just society.

I, too, shared those aspirations upon arrival but in the opposite direction, innocently believing a finely worded policy argument could win the country’s freedom. Bliss it was to be so naively alive!

Fine dialects, rarefied discussions, heated debate, casual conversations, all with strivers and sell-outs with nice university credentials and connections, served as reminders that my cultural upbringing, average as it was, consisted mostly of Nickelodeon cartoons and Tony Hawk Pro Skater games. But even arguing with arrivistes can shrink your ego, especially if they can pronounce varietals like sangiovese and tasteless side dishes like bok choy.

(The late critic Terry Teachout once said, “the mispronunciation of words is a mark of a self-taught person, and as such a badge of honor.” That’s a nice cope. If only the jackanapes who cackled at my butchering of multi-syllable words like “ignominious” and “açaí” considered autodidactism a positive.)

I wasn’t quite a foreigner on arrival to our sprawling government metro, but was certainly an outsider, if not for my Podunk state-school degree and community-college credits, but for the consciously career-limiting act of working in conservative non-profits. Pity me—it turns out even homeschooled children of five toiling for Mayberry America’s return have a cultural upbringing beyond Kids WB Saturday morning programming.

I bring up this inferiority complex because of the upcoming election, and the prospect of a second Trump term. Should the former president pull a Grover Cleveland, hurdling even more institutional barriers blocking his path to the Oval, including 90-odd felony charges, his executive branch will be staffed by even fewer polished Washington movers than before.

“Feeling betrayed, Trump wants a second administration stocked with loyalists” shivers one NBC headline. Politico ran a positively titillating report on theofascists anxious to staff a Trump team who believe “Christian values should be prioritized throughout government and public life.” Heaven forfend! Future bureaucrats might actually believe in the radical proposition that all men are created equal! Don’t tell the new chief diversity and inclusion officer for the White House.

Trump’s first foray in the presidency was marked by tension: a balance between true-believing underlings who wouldn’t succeed anywhere else in Washington, and actual seasoned players, who fancied themselves the “adults in the room.” This created the impression of dysfunction, when, in reality, overseeing nearly 3 million employees is going to lead to messy policy.

Given how many former top-tier personnel are now speaking out against their former boss—Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Vice President/Chamber of Commerce fluffer Mike Pence—the so-called professionals won’t be welcomed back to the admin. with open arms. Meanwhile, the rumpled and grouchy MAGA set will have a tighter grip on the reins. The Guardian warns of the “[g]rifters and sycophants” eagerly waiting to fill Trump’s next crew, which is another way of saying beer-belching backbenchers who don’t go out of their way to cultivate legacy-media contacts over smocked cocktails at The Hay-Adams.

Should Trump manage to juke the chokey and squeak in another win, then mass hire America-First fist-pumpers fresh off their Turning Point USA internships, expect a deluge of hand-wringing headlines about “amateur hour” gimmicks and pig-ignorant muck-ups. Think: Trump’s first travel ban or the national emergency declaration for the US-Mexico border. But this time broader, more far-reaching, klutzier, and even less thought-through fumbles, with a slew of enjoining lawsuits filed before Trump even finishes his oath.

For the actual anti-governmentist, the prospect of neophytes at the helm sounds positively delightful. It’s the Roll Safe meme: You can’t suppress liberty, or do much of anything, if you don’t grasp how the government actually operates.

Trump term two could be even more pig-ignorant than the first one, rendered ineffectual with a bunch of Twitter shitposters in charge. So, sounds pretty keen to me. Accuse me of tall-poppy syndrome, but, like Rod Dreher, I prefer dumb deplorables to overly educated elite respectables.

Towards the end of Fisk’s remembrance, as he’s enduring Germany’s frequent bombardment on London, he recalls witnessing a brief organized street fight that ended, as all alley altercations end, with two men bloodied beyond recognition. After the crowd scatters, Fisk is harrowed, believing he witnessed evil manifested in wanton violence. “That was evil. The real thing. The genuine article…But a thousand-bomber raid is different because War is different. Isn’t it?” he ponders.

Washington sophisticates sincerely believe our warmarking is different. That’s what separates them from us unrefined pigs, bred in the slop of video games, Power Rangers, Wishbone books, and FM radio.