Trump’s Appeal
Not being a historian or political analyst of any sort, I do have some ideas about Trump’s ascendancy in the political world. In previous writings, I have described masculine power vs. female power. The main tenets of my thinking are based on men’s protective role which induces short-term gains. Masculine power is dominated by protection of the family, which necessitates the advantage of short-term goals because of the constant external threats from competition and fear of being and/or continuing to be subservient. Female goals on the other hand are for long-term advantage, with the aim of providing security for their offspring to not only be happy, but also potent in the future. I have stated before that the bifurcation of roles leading to a balance of security and excitement, this idea from Harry Stacks Sullivan, deserves credit for pointing out the importance of having different individuals specialize in these most important pillars leading to the importance of their offspring. I do think security comes before excitement, so early life nurturing is necessary for sustainable excitement.
To get to the Trump Phenomenon: When longer periods of security become boring, especially to males (since their role becomes less and less important), people like Trump who are good at the masculine approach, which is the need for protection from outside forces, provide the excitement that the security/excitement paradigm requires. The masculine approach to excitement produces a fear of a longer-term feeling of security, and results in a renewed need for the feminine approach, which looks towards the near future and beyond. The talking heads in the media (radio and television) and on the internet lean much more towards details than the simplified view of a warning for the need for security, which is for long-term advantage. Trump is an example of the transition to excitement.
The biblical statement that the meek shall inherit the Earth, in my opinion, should be “the weak inherit the Earth”, which implies the importance of security for the masses. Examples are the U.S. 1776 and Israel in 1948, although Israel was at the behest of Britain. In a larger scale, those groups that are out of power for a long period of time have to come in with maximum masculine force, such as terrorism and uprisings. So at all times, the factions in the world are out of sync, and you have the masculine power in one part and the feminine power in a separate part.
At this point in time, Russia and China are in a masculine phase in opposition to the U.S. and Europe, who are in a feminine phase. Trump represents that fraction of people in the U.S. and Europe feeling the need to muster masculine power to protect from China and Russia, but especially China at this point, and Russia only at a slightly smaller degree. The natural resources seem to be a catalyst for the hostility between these two groups. Trump’s influence is in war with the liberal faction in this country to see which way the U.S. will be going. An idealized representation of this can be seen in the graph illustrated in a previous blog post about masculine vs. feminine power, with episodes of masculine power being short-lived and those of feminine power being longer lasting but not as intense. And lastly, the Trump era is hopefully the shortest of the masculine wave of domination.
