Those emails with Trump-ets
Bob Graboyes writes about what he calls “Trump-et blasts” – that is, gratuitous anti-Trump statements in emails on a wide variety of unrelated subjects:
My friend’s note was merely one car in an endless freight train of similar emails rolling and rumbling into my inbox each day. In them, one can discern empirical regularities. Trump-et Blasts are never offered as hypotheses, opinions, or topics for discussion. Rather, they are always stated as Euclidean postulates—self-evident Truths that we surely agree upon and which warrant no discussion. Recipients of Trump-et Blasts have five possible Supreme Court-like responses: affirm, ignore, concur, dissent, or defer.
I’ve noticed these Trump-et blasts more in conversation than in emails to me, probably because almost everyone I know is aware of my politics and doesn’t bother with the random snipes in emails. It’s in casual talking that it comes out, especially if I’m part of a group. In a group, even if people know I disagree, they’re not catering to me. And why should they, actually? Often, it’s a group bonding experience, a sharing of what is considered tautological and the mark of their agreed-on virtue. I’m grandfathered into the group, as it were.
And that is why – as Graboyes describes – the critique of Trump is not really up for discussion on the merits. It’s an article of faith, and/or a thesis they believe has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt or perhaps beyond any doubt.
I wrote on a similar topic back in January of 2005, when I was rather new to the blogging game. It’s called “The fine art of insulting half your audience,” and can be found here. An excerpt:
It happens nearly every time. I’ll be reading a short story, let’s say, enjoying myself, lost in the experience—when suddenly, there it is: the gratuitous and mean-spirited and out-of-context slap at Bush, or at those who support him. It’s not as though the story is even tangentially about politics, either; it can be about anything at all, it doesn’t really matter.
The Bush-dissing will be thrown in when you least expect it, just to let the reader know—well, to let the reader know what, exactly? To let the reader know that the author is hip, kindly, intelligent, moral—oh, just about everything a person ought to be. And that the reader must of course be a member of the club, too—not one of those Others, the warmongers, the selfish and stupid and demonized people who happen to have voted for Bush.
Back when I was one of the gang, too, back when I was in with the in crowd (“if it’s square, we ain’t there”), did I notice when authors dragged in their political credentials from left field? Or perhaps it wasn’t quite as commonplace back then for them to do so?
At any rate, now it seems positively obligatory. I’m reading along, sunk deep within the story, bonding with the characters—and then, suddenly, it’s as though the author has reached a hand out of the pages of the magazine (OK, I’ll confess, sometimes it’s the New Yorker—yes, I still read it for the fiction, just as some people claim they read Playboy for the interviews) and slapped me across the face.
Authors, do you really want to do this? Because, with a single sentence, you’ve managed to alienate and offend (not to mention insult) up to half your audience.
More at the link.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
It’s not just in emails but in articles on topics that have nothing to do with Trump or only in the most tangential way where the author will drop in some non sequitor about the ‘felon in the White House’ or something.
A golf writer that I agree with quite a lot on the topics he writes on is absolutely pathological in this way and it always leaves me with a sour taste of him.
The in-group call-and-reponse has a very long history, predating Bush and Trump of course.
In my professional life anti-anything Republican or Trump is assumed, and the call-and-response gets dragged into anything and everything, related or not.
Oh my gosh, YES. I read a lot, and listen to audiobooks on my walk each morning. Almost all nonfiction. SO many books written since 2016 have some sort of reference to Trump, either overtly or somewhat, and very slightly, obscured. And they’re all negative, and assume everyone reading (or listening) agrees.
If not Trump, then it’s about climate change, racism or something-ophobia. I’ve been listening to The Self-Talk Workout this week, copyright 2022. It has nothing to do with politics or even current events, and darned if the author didn’t “sneak” in references to the 2020 election, climate change, racism, AND homophobia.
There were so many slams of Margaret Thatcher in the light novels and mysteries by British writers during the 70s and 80s — even if it had absolutely nothing to do with the plot! — that I began to think that it was required by the writer’s contract with their publisher.
There were so many slams of Margaret Thatcher in the light novels and mysteries by British writers during the 70s and 80s — even if it had absolutely nothing to do with the plot! — that I began to think that it was required by the writer’s contract with their publisher.
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Thatcher stood for virtues the chattering classes generally despise. The chatterati have skills, now and again, but no virtues beyond being able to earn a living producing words and images.
Mr. Graboyes is an academician and his experience is a manifestation of the decay of academe into a political monoculture.
I see this in books and magazines–often in a book or article that has nothing to do with politics but the anti-Trumpism is forced into it. I think it’s mainly signaling: powerful people, I’m on your side, please don’t hurt me.
The chattering classes aren’t worth much on average.
For me, this goes all the way back to McCain/Palin. We had a couple over, wife friend of my Wife through church. The Man started railing against Palin, and looked over at him and said we were Palin people. He shut up. If this had been in his house, I would not have said anything
I can honestly say I’ve never felt the need to insert a completely off topic, purile denigation of a political figure, celebrity, or any other high profile individual that I may dislike in the middle of an email or comment or conversation. I don’t understand it and can only dismiss it as evidence of some sort of mental disturbance or trama. I know it’s a tactic of blog and other social media trolls. But the psychology of trolls is a whole other topic that would need unpacking that I don’t have the energy for
Was in an organized discussion group, maybe eight of us. Introduced ourselves. Two said something–very brief, since when you say “Trump” no more need be said–about their political positions. Was unnecessary.
One said she’d voted for Trump in 2016 because she hadn’t been paying attention. Since then, though, paying attention, she’d voted against him twice. The presumption was that we’d understand that anybody who has been paying attention would know the dems do things better.
salman rushdie was one of these who was venomously anti Iron Lady, but after the Satanic Verses, (he apparently thought that the sort of Satire in Midnights Children, would land, he was mistaken) he gained a certain respect, he had Bush 2, derangement around 2000, like many litterati, perhaps not as pronounced as say
David Cornwell (who among many other things was less tolerant of Rushdies
plight,) as severe as Blair derangement that Robert Harris and David Hare have worked out to some degree, in the Ghost Writer and the Worricker series,