The last Boat People to arrive in America, after Europeans and the slaves, were the Cubans. Their political history, and the political history of most Latin Americans rests on the foundation of the Big Man. If Trump is going to get beat, he needs to be beat bad in the states he won in 2016. Florida, the home of a very large and powerful Cuban community along with other Latin American populations, has to be convinced that Biden is their man. For Florida’s Cubans et al., the organizing principle of politics has long been top down, regardless of political philosophy. History weighs heavy and populations remember when financial opportunity was directly linked to your proximity to the Big Man. Wealth was generated by the extraction of raw materials and the exploitation of labor. The middle class was nascent and aspirational, however there were no incentives or opportunities to enable it to grow. The middle class was dependent on the Big Man. After generations of Big Man politics, middle class Cubans and Latin Americans have been acclimated to the Big Man and the attendant mindset.
When the revolutions finally came, their foot soldiers were drawn from the masses of laborers whose livelihoods were dependent on the ebb and flow of commodity and labor value. In Cuba, under communism, or Mexico under populism, the nascent middle class was threatened with the appropriation of their businesses and the nationalization of infrastructure industries. It was time to leave, to get out.
Within a couple of years the entrepreneurial heart of Cuban society made its way to southern Florida, a mere 90 miles away. These people were natural Republicans. GOP candidates became touchstones for Hispanic communities whose experience of government consisted of bureaucratic dominance, over-regulation, and miles of that proverbial “Red Tape.”
Immigrants from Latin America left their home countries for similar reasons. A common thread binding these immigrants together, beyond their common aspirations, is their language and their religious beliefs. In their home countries hope was supported by faith. In most cases this was Catholicism, and of late Evangelicalism. Both spearheaded by Big Men.
The Working Class base in Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania– second and third generation immigrants–gained their power through organizing but lost it in the post-industrial age as manpower began to be replaced by machine-power and their political patrons were replaced by Republicans, who have now come back to bullshit them. The last of their kind, the Farmworkers, under Cesar Chavez, suffered the same fate. Human labor has almost become superfluous in the twenty-first century. The mass class today is made up of Service workers who have not been unionized in sufficient numbers to have a political voice.
As Leslie Lopez so clearly and eloquently described in her piece, “How Trump Won Indo-Hispanic Working Class Voters,” (posted here in the March, 2018) the voiceless have turned to the old standbys of religion and celebrity to represent them. For Preacher Trump every day is a Sunday, an opportunity to spread his gospel of propaganda supported by a steady stream of lies. Lopez nailed things like a master carpenter. She noted that things began to change during the eighties and how traditional Hispanic Catholics began to abandon the old religion for the new Pentecostal Protestantism. She also noted that this move coincided with the weakening of labor unions and the social movements that spawned them.
The early 1980s witnessed the most severe recession since the end of WW2. Banks collapsed and thousands of homes were lost to foreclosure. Unemployment rates averaged nearly 10%. Under such economic conditions the first to feel the pain are the poorest and the core of the middle class. The post-war American Dream, and the faith it inspired, became the American nightmare. Hope might die last but Faith fails first… Faith, unlike Hope, can be replaced. The turn from Catholicism to Pentecostal Protestantism and other fringe religious movements reflects this. What happened as a result of this move has historical roots. When the Spanish invaded and conquered Central and South America the Catholic Church came with them. Conversion from Indigenous beliefs to Catholicism was the order of the day. If the conquistadors could subdue the indigenous then their religion must be more powerful. This is what is happening now. Leaders of these new faiths flash cash. They sport black SUVs, have entourages, drive Ferraris, and live large. This becomes aspirational for the new converts. A new groupthink emerges not unlike fanship for sports teams, where the base demandds bigger stadiums, more expensive players, bumper stickers and HATS.
With this in mind Reverend Trump begins to look like a natural. Maybe the best thing that has happened to him is the pandemic. It has given him so much license it is truly frightening. As the Big Man he delegated responsibility for handling the pandemic to the States and then made sure that ones where he had the most support did the least to protect their citizens. When those citizens began to die in droves it was God’s will. A Pentecostal match-up made for TV. I could go on but it’s just too depressing.
The Big Man theory of politics is party neutral. This was proven out when Fidel Castro governed Cuba, or with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico. These were just Big Men in Populist clothes. Donald Trump, as the only Big Man running for President, may be a natural choice for certain Latin Americans, particularly Cuban Americans and Puerto Ricans, and the newly insecure middle class. It isn’t about policy, or even facts…it is identity politics plain and simple.
So, who’s who? Joe Biden is the grandfather most people wish they had. Someone with deep and vast experience. Humbled by tragedy, wizened by life. A person who understands the mechanism of healing and repair, who is in touch with an authentic inner self. He is a political journeyman. A trench fighter from the old school of politics. A back room strategist, if not a back room brawler. Someone you could introduce to your mother. Just right for the majority of the eligible voters, the “Gens” and the Millennials. If he is going to win, though, he must put on the Uncle Sam persona to close the deal with undecideds.
Trump is exactly the opposite. A barroom big mouth full of braggadocio and bullshit. A swaggerer leading with his lips. Painting the American landscape like a scene from Bruegel. A work framed by hard borders. Pure fantasy that sells like reality. Revivalist rhetoric designed to lure in the innocent, the vulnerable, the insecure and the weak. He casts himself like a Zorro who disguises his elite origins and rides into the crowds as an avenger, disemboweling his fellow elites and their supporters. Once you are on his team there is no climbing down. You see what he does to those who stray from his false path. He has become the biblical Goliath.
Marshall McLuhan’s theory, that the medium is the message, is proven out. The medium, Trump, is what is driving things. Trump is a cipher. This has been made plain with the emergence of Barr in the role of Rasputin. Trump has become the bumbling Czar, all puff and froth. Barr is using the Trump/Roy Cohn playbook to flummox the opposition. Sprinkling lawsuits and investigations like confetti to distract the opposition. Barr’s version of Muhammad Ali’s Rope-a-dope style. Biden must come out like Joltin’ Joe Frazier when he beat Muhammad Ali in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. I don’t know if Joe’s got it in him. I’ve been saying this all along. Trump’s President, it’s his game, his rules. If he’s gonna get beat it’s gonna be in his gutter. If this were the UFC then Trump would own the Octagon. The notion of “clean politics” is as quaint as a crumpet.
So how does the Democratic Party ween Americans away from the Thug-led Republican Party? We are in a political war. There is no other way to describe this election. The Democrats need a Big Man of their own. The most consistent complaint against Biden is that he is too low-key. Big Men are big-voiced. Their self-regard puffed up like the air sack of a bullfrog in full croak. Since politics has become entertainment maybe Biden needs an acting coach. As Mark Shields pointed out the other day on PBS’s News Hour, “Biden needs more populism and less aviator glasses.” How does Trump get taken down? How might this happen?
To understand Trump’s vulnerability you got to study his style. The best place to start, I think, is the debate with HRC. When he came out from behind his podium and began to stalk Hillary, and she failed to challenge him…she threw in the towel, like Sonny Liston who wouldn’t get up after Ali knocked him down although Liston was bigger and stronger. In the upcoming debate between Joltin’ Joe Biden (I hope) and Doofus Donald, Biden ought to stalk Trump. He ought to come out from behind his podium after Trump utters one of his trademark lies, stick his finger, Uncle Sam style, in Trump’s face and call him, real loud, a liar…and then stand there up close, face to face with Doofus, and stay silent. Ghetto style…Well, that’s my dream.
When Trump finally goes, the cleanup will be left to the Democrats and the Progressives. Someone has got to pay the piper. Trump’s payroll tax put off, the moratorium on evictions, the bank’s forbearance on mortgage payments…Can you hear the cans being kicked down the road? Think Sam Cooke: “That’s the sound of the men (and women*) working on the chain gang.” And it isn’t gonna make a difference what color or ethnicity you are. That Taxman gotta be paid. If swing voters, the Hispanics, the Working Class and the Post-Viet Nam babies get a better life it’ll be because the very rich will finally be paying their fair share.