Donald Trump in a relief centre (Leftists would say “concentration camp”) following the Hurricane Harvey floods.

I’m currently reading Hamlet aloud with my girlfriend. Despite having read it at least a dozen times over the last two decades, the process of reading it aloud has sensitized me to the range of possibility in each character – I often have to think “should I read Claudius as slimy here? or genuinely caring?” We just read Hamlet’s first encounter with the Ghost; my feeling is that Hamlet has an innate mental instability (“some vicious mole of nature”) and the Ghost knocks him half over the edge; his later “But I’m MAD!!!” act is both a protective mask and an expression of his real & increasing instability – as is often the case with Shakespeare, the characters act some version of themselves, so Iago is genuinely concerned for Othello, at the same time as he wants to destroy him.

Trump is very Shakespearean, I feel; in that he learnt early on to hide his real self, to project an expedient persona. One need only compare his post-reality-tv appearances to this 1980 interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAgJAxkALyc

Many intelligent & perceptive people mistake his current, crafted persona for reality. They think of Trump as an 80-IQ buffoon who somehow ended up as a billionaire; and a billionaire not in a heavily aleatory field (Wall Street) but in a very down-to-earth and pragmatic matter: real estate development. But I think those who sneer at him as a “Clotus” (nice allusion from Patrick Kurp) are somewhat dazzled by their own intelligence & learning; for these fine folk, being obviously well-read and intellectual is a matter of societal caste; the Cloud People maintain what Michael Cassio calls “reputation” by sneering at anyone who hasn’t read Cynthia Ozick. In Kierkegaard’s terms, you could say they have become immured in the aesthetic domain, and so all their ethical verdicts are, ultimately, to do with aesthetics: “but he hasn’t even read Henry James!”

I’ve noticed that the genuine aristocracy and old money tend to be neutral on the Trump Question; it is the social climbers (e.g. those from Dirt People roots) who most vehemently despise Trump.

Our modern Gatsbies and Undine Spraggs loathe Trump because he early on decided it would be better to communicate with the 99% who hadn’t read Spinoza than those with soft hands and fine manners who make caste judgements based on grammar. That is, Trump decided to communicate with the horny-handed parents and grandparents of intellectuals who haven’t broken a fingernail in 40 years; and for this the Cloud People hate him.

These people despise Trump; they call him an oaf and a buffoon and every -ist, regardless of the facts; and yet this is a man who, on the admission of an illegal immigrant, in a MSM hit piece, demonstrates an unshowy, everyday kindness:

Ms. Morales said she will never forget the day Mr. Trump pulled up to the pro shop in his cart as she was washing its large, arched windows. Noticing that Ms. Morales, who is shy of five feet tall, could not reach the top, he said, “Excuse me,” grabbed her rag and wiped the upper portion of the glass.

The Cloud People despise Trump for being brash and loud, and in so doing demonstrate their inability to understand life as it is for those who don’t read Amos Oz and Spinoza. They cannot grasp a simple concept: Trump wears a mask; but then, it is not a mask designed to flatter the Cloud People (who desire, above all, to be praised).

As with all great performers, one must pay attention when the mask cracks. And so with the above photograph of Trump: what can one see here? He is old, he lacks the usual bravado & bullheaded confidence; he is content to sit half-obscured by childish clutter; he is content to be neglected, to be on the margins, to be a tolerated visitant. Note the baseball-capped woman reaching past him, the seated woman to his right talking to someone else, the negro child who probably doesn’t know or care who Trump is; and then note his smile: the smile of the God Emperor who is tired, old, and happy to have nothing important to do for a few hours, to just sit and let his photographers do their work, as he watches the relief workers and the homeless, his people whether they value him or not.