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The Crazy-Brave and the Phony-Tough
US Army M1A1 Abrams under the “Hands of Victory” during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Not Pictured: Donald J. Trump.
When I was a teenager in the late 1980s, my father handed me an old article from the Sept. 10, 1972 issue of Newsweek titled “Watergate: The Crazy-Brave and the Phony-Tough” by Stewart Alsop. My father was a banker. He was also a Marine Corps pilot who flew A-4s and F-5s, transitioned to the artillery, ran a USMCR battalion, and retired as a full Colonel.
My father’s particular pet peeve was tough talkers, especially in the corporate world. Every time a regional vice president would boast about the company being “in a war,” having a good “street fight,” or “taking it to them,” my dad would roll his eyes. “Guys,” he would say, “we’re talking about how we will adapt our sales pitch if the Fed cuts another ¼ point. Relax.” One day, after being told that the upcoming board meeting could be “bloody,” he wore his helmet and flak jacket over his Brooks Brothers shirt and tie. For some reason, nobody mentioned the upcoming “battle.”
Back to Alsop and his article on the “Crazy-Brave and the Phony-Tough.” He was writing in the midst of the Watergate hearings and asked a difficult question: “How could people who are clearly not morons have been such ___dam fools?” He suggested that the answer could be found by understanding two specific sub-species of the human race. The Crazy-Brave do things that ought to get them killed, but escape cleanly. In contrast the Phony-Tough aren’t brave but like the idea of it; their problem is that they can’t walk away from a challenge and are, thus, always getting into trouble.
I’ve seen this in my own life. The co-captain of my high school wrestling team became a Navy SEAL and did several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He really is a killer. But if you met him today — surrounded by his wife and four daughters in southern New Jersey — you’d most likely remark on the sheer number of Barbie outfits in the living room. Meet him at a soccer game, he’d talk about the weather. He doesn’t even yell at the ref.
You can spot a Phony-Tough a mile away. During the Watergate hearings, the world learned that Chuck Colson wrote a memo about how he would “walk over his grandmother” to get Nixon reelected, or that John Ehrlichman’s proposal for Pat Gray was to “let him hang there, let him twist slowly, slowly in the wind.” The Crazy-Brave in the Nixon White House was G. Gordon Liddy, who said he was ready to take a bullet for his mistakes, and meant it. Phony-Tough John Dean, however, was ready to squeal on all his friends to avoid jail.
Which brings us to today. There is no greater Phony-Tough than Donald Trump. I don’t think it’s a statement that needs supporting evidence, but just for fun, here are a few things that come to mind. Trump was a rich kid who stayed rich. He never worked with his hands, never worked outdoors, was utterly unaccomplished athletically, avoided the draft, and — despite his conviction that “I’m the most militaristic person there is” — never served in the military and merely wore a cute uniform in high school. He’s run from marriages, business commitments, shareholders, and customers. To my knowledge, he’s never been in a fist fight, which seems confirmed by his constant talk about suing people, the adult version of “I’m gonna tell my dad.” He’s been a Democrat, an Independent, and now a Republican; basically, whatever is least hard at the time.
Understand, this is not a slight against people who haven’t worked with their hands, haven’t been in the military, or aren’t super athletes (I’m 0-3). It’s a slight against people who haven’t done any of those things but talk as if they have.
Trump’s “toughness” is based on a public persona that he has carefully cultivated over the years. One element of this persona is his appearances on the professional wrestling circuit, which (spoiler alert) is not real. The other is his hosting of The Apprentice for 14 seasons, which (again, spoiler alert) is also not real.
The Trump Phenomenon is sadly possible because of the devaluation in our culture of traditional manly virtue, and the insidious rise of the silly concept of the Alpha Male. The devaluation of manly virtues I’ll leave for another day, but I’ve always found the Alpha Male concept comical, because it’s applied to politicians! At debates! By reporters! Talk about a race to the soft bottom.
Before we knew it was a lie, Brian Williams managed to make himself look tough by saying he’d been shot at in a helicopter. But even if that had been true, he was just a dopey passenger. He wasn’t the pilot. He wasn’t a soldier who was going to have to defend the crash site if they went down. But — journalists being who they are — the idea of having been near danger is enough to make him seem tough.
So, back to our politicians. I’m sorry, but the debate club is not a bunch of ass-kickers. They may be the right people to run the country, but the Benghazi compound was not praying that a platoon of senators, legislative aids, and policy analysts were dropped into their midst.
So, how do we really know Trump is a Phony-Tough? Because when people in his audience start actually punching people, roughing up reporters, etc., he runs. Cancels the rally. A real tough guy would say “Yeah, that’s right, we’re mad and we’re taking the fight to the streets. Bring me a Molotov cocktail.” It’d be absolutely wrong for our civic discourse, but it would be authentic. Instead, Trump says he doesn’t know, or he’s not sure, or some other obfuscation. A tough guy would own it; Trump — as he has done so many times in his life — weasels out.
And that is what he will do when it comes to anything his supporters are counting on him to do. The wall will not get built, trade with China will not be modified, Iran will not be dealt with. Not because these things don’t need to happen. It’s just that Trump doesn’t actually have the stones to do it.
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Big smile, Doug. I’ll add you to my list.
That’s because Trump gives her so much low hanging fruit. She will know to stay away from her most vulnerable areas. But Trump is a target rich environment. For every target Trump takes away, he hands her four more.
What is so amazing is that Trump tells these ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd lies – lies that can be debunked in 15 seconds by anyone who knows how to operate a mouse or the remote on a TV – and his supporters just go out and repeat the lies like they were handed down from Mt. Sinai carved in stone tablets. “He stopped Hillary in her tracks.” “The polls say he will beat Hillary.”
How can you not laugh at this man? Oh, yeah, because he could get his hands on the launch codes. I forgot for a moment there.
Look, we’ve got a lot of codes in business. We have codes, as I’ve said many times, we have a lot of codes in my hotels and in my casinos. I’ve know about codes for 30 years, I have a lot of experience with them, and when I’m elected, they’ll be great. I’ll use those codes like no one has used them before. It’ll be fantastic. We’ve got a lot of people, look, really great people, some of the best people, working on these codes, and we’ll knock them out of the park. It’ll be fantastic, you’re gonna love how the codes are.
If Trump is Moses, well… You guys go on ahead. I’ll uh, hang here in the desert.
Trump is a junky, the media his dealer. He promises to quit after his next hit. Yeah, he’s gonna’ kick tomorrow…
Spin,
Keep it up.
I could go somewhere with this, but I won’t.
I know a lot about handcuffs. I’ve used them before, on many occasions I’ve had the need to use them. On my second wife, and she loved it, trust me, I’m telling you she loved it. Because I’ve got a lot of experience with handcuffs. I’ve got a company, trust me on this, because you won’t read about this in the news, but I’ve got a wonderful company that makes handcuffs for many people. A great many, very important people buy my handcuffs, they are the best in the world, trust me.
That’s a pity.
Also not pictured under “The Hands of Victory:” Marco Rubio.
Anyway, I feel old. I remember when “chickenhawk” was a slur leftists used against supporters of the Iraq War who weren’t actually ridin’ the tanks to Baghdad, not 70 year old presidential candidates who don’t seem especially enthusiastic about sending Americans of Rubio’s age and younger off to die foreign on foreign adventures.
But like so many leftists insults, it has now been repurposed by the GOP as a defense against the terrible bete noire Donald Trump.
Sad and utterly typical of the GOP. But kindly allow me to point out that Trump has actually paid a financial price for what he has said on the campaign trail, unlike folks such as Eric Cantor and Marco Rubio. Both of those luminaries can expect lengthy and lucrative tenures on Wall Street, thanks to their willingness to destroy their political careers on behalf of the establishment’s witless globalism.
I’ll pick Trump over their sort, despite Trump’s flaws.
You’ve at least a half-point there, but I think you’re mistaking it for a full point.
If no one has done it before, then someone really should ask Rubio why — given his interventionism — he’s never served himself. Rubio coud have joined the military at any time and would would have been 29 on 9/11, and certainly could have joined, as many others did. Why didn’t he? By the way, if you or anyone else wants to write a post to that effect, I’d be interested to read it.
However, Rubio has not to my knowledge ever taken it upon himself to denigrate the service of someone who did serve (John McCain), does not include calls for Bowe Berghdal’s execution in his stump speeches, and did not claim a medical deferment at the age of 22 and then claim — at the age of 70 — he’d be the fittest person ever to be president.
Like!
Spin, those are excellent! They remind me of Rob’s great “The Long View” articles in NR.
I have to say, in defense of Rubio, that I intended no attack on him in this case. It just seems to me that if someone is going to attack Trump as a chickenhawk they should explain why they aren’t also attacking Rubio.
That isn’t how I took the Trump comments. Shrug.
I heartily endorse the call for the execution of Bergdahl, and I further suggest that the execution be made into a pay per view event with the proceeds given to the families of the men who died trying to “rescue” him.
Dick Cheney had six deferments, if I recall. If that was not relevant to his service as Vice President I see no reason why I should hold it against Trump that he also had a deferment, long ago.
Perhaps you should go after the doctor who gave Trump a medical deferment which you plainly believe to be baseless. Shrug.
I just read this and thought of this thread.