As much as I absolutely despise Trump—and I really fucking hate that dude—there’s one thing about him that I think liberals have never understood about him and his iron-clad supporters: he’s an authentic asshole. I know that sounds crazy because of how much we value authenticity as an important American cultural value, but authenticity is actually a neutral value. You can be an authentic scumbag, you can be an authentic saint. Hell, you can be an authentically boring person. We’ve all been told that we should be ourselves. But what if your true self is the asshole in the room? Then is it better to be yourself or to strive to do better or to become someone else? In a strange and terrible way, I think we have our answer with Trump. He’s a rich, entitled scumbag who acts like a rich, entitled scumbag and surely that’s the root of the problem here. He’s never wavered from his Apprentice script because he doesn’t know how to. And while we all know that he has said and done racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, & ableist shit consistently, his fans just eat it up. How can that be?
The obvious reason is that Trump makes conservatives feel like they’re not crazy for not understanding the world they live in anymore or for being afraid of it or for longing for a past where they were the center of the universe again (Americans, in particular, love being the center of the universe since the cultural narrative of American exceptionalism is predicated on it). Another obvious reason is that Trump doesn’t make white people feel bad about being white and I think progressives underestimate how powerful shame can be in the political landscape and as a psychological force. So much of what we do (and avoid doing) comes down to shame and the fear of shame, which crosses all political, cultural, historical, & identarian lines. Shame is a deeply powerful motivating force in the human psyche and to ignore, downplay, or misunderstand shame is to ignore, downplay, or misunderstand human beings. Full stop.
Still another reason that Americans give Trump a pass is because they too aspire to be billionaires (if only inside their heads) but they also despise billionaires at the same time, especially billionaires who pretend to be good. Trump doesn’t have that problem obviously. He admits that he plays the system but he’s also too lazy, smug, arrogant, & narcissistic to be anyone but himself because he thinks he is superior even though he was literally born two inches from home plate (daddy gave him a head start of millions of dollars). In other words, Trump acts like the asshole he is and his supporters find that refreshing.
But we should never forget that Trump acts like their asshole and if your worldview involves Manichaean notions of good and evil, light and darkness, strength and weakness, you will always support the asshole fighting in your corner.
Remember, old school conservatives, white supremacists, & bible thumpers are the most likely to believe that humans are evil at their core and that this human-made world, therefore, is also evil. That’s why they’re so forgiving of Trump’s conspicuous shittiness because they already believe that humans are shit. Unlike other politicians, Trump admits he’s a rich asshole. He boasts about it. And it’s that refusal to pretend he’s a decent human being and his refusal to play by the rules in politics, that not only gives Trump a shield from criticism for all the terrible things he does, but that also makes him appear honest about his dishonesty. Just rewatch a video of him boasting about how smart he is for cheating the tax code and you’ll see exactly what I mean even though his accountant did all the work. It’s counterintuitive, I realize, but by showing the world what a dick he is to his fans, Trump comes off as a self-aware dick at worst and as not a dick at best. But either way, he becomes an authentic anti-political actor. His supporters believe that everything he does he does because of who he is. And they’re right: he’s a dick and he acts like one and everything he does he does for himself. That’s why when Trump didn’t read his own presidential briefs or listen to his advisers or when he got angry when the DOJ didn’t jail his political enemies or when he said that he was smarter than his joint chiefs of staff, his fans didn’t flinch. Trump’s stake on his own authenticity makes his mistakes irrelevant to his base. By his own framing of himself as the rich asshole who is going to blow shit up, even if he screws up along the way, he pre-empts criticism of his own incompetence, which is extensive and well documented.
At the end of the day, if you think this world is evil, then you welcome the person who launches a cultural nuke on it. Just as the journalistic aphorism goes, Trump’s admirers take him seriously but not literally whereas his critics take him literally but not seriously. So, the nuke is metaphorical. But deep down inside, his followers wouldn’t be upset if the nuke was literal either. And of course that’s terrifying as hell.
So why do I spend so much time analyzing the orange baby balloon anyway? Because I think that Americans have difficulty navigating (and certainly actualizing) their true authentic selves even though they believe in the doctrine of authenticity without being conscious of it. While we love and crave authenticity as Americans, now more than ever, most of us also don’t wanna offend people, hurt their feelings, get ratioed (in Twitter parlance), make a tragic mistake that endangers our life or our livelihood, and/or get canceled by the torch bearers. And while sure, all of those points of reference are important to keep in mind as we evaluate our own behavior, they can and do also force us to act in ways that are more evolved and refined and less authentic unless we just happen to be perfect or we were born in the woke/evangelical petri dish. It must be incredibly liberating to just say, “fuck it” and not even try anymore like every senior citizen I’ve talked to. The taste of freedom must be so sweet. I think back to old Chinese people at Badaling who would literally just push me out of their way like OGs while I looked back in astonishment. It must feel like that to not give two fucks. But this isn’t an endorsement, it’s a critique.
I want people to try and be kind to others even if they aren’t kind people, which, you could argue, means, I’m asking some people to be inauthentic. I don’t disagree with that. OTOH, every one of us has a shadow self. We all have traits that come from primordial hard drive and our dysfunctional upbringing and our trauma that we want to hide from others. We all have our shame and self-disfiguration that we repress from ourselves. Whether it’s anger or shame or greed or selfishness or inappropriate thoughts/desires or violence or cruelty or stubbornness or pettiness or vindictiveness or callousness to the suffering of others or something else we do that hurts others, we all have traits that we don’t know how to accept about ourselves (and others). Our shadow self is an intrinsic part of our humanity, take it or leave it.
So what’s the answer here? Well, the answer is complicated.
I’m not arguing that in order to be authentic we need to be assholes because let’s be honest, there are many ways to be authentic and authenticity is a neutral quality and also a positive cultural value. What I am arguing is that people should strive to become more patient, kinder, more empathetic, more supportive, less judgmental, more considerate, harder working, more collaborative, calmer, more thoughtful, more open-minded, less entitled, more active, more disciplined, more self-reliant, & more grateful to others even if those aren’t authentic qualities of theirs because those things are worth fighting for and striving for. Even if they’re not always authentic expressions of our own selfhood. But this leaves me in a very strange predicament. From a strictly utilitarian psychocultural perspective, authenticity is a cultural value worth striving towards in our pluralistic society (and in every liberal democracy) but it has to be weighed against the common good even when goodness feels neither common nor good. And this is where I’d argue that being yourself might not always be the best answer, especially if you only care too much about yourself and/or you like to be a dick to others because you’ll damage society more than you’ll heal society. At the same time, we can’t all be nice and we can’t all have the same cultural values or aspirations either. I recognize that as well. And this is where I think as a culture we can incentivize altruism and disincentivize selfishness and cruelty in the public space regardless of what people do in their private space.
As I get older and as I understand the Asian part of my mixed-race identity more and more, one thing I’ve grown to understand is that Americans don’t give a fuck about group harmony at all and this is to our detriment. We are possibly the least considerate people on earth. We will do whatever we want without considering how our behavior affects others: we’ll throw a tantrum at a family outing, destroy a multi-faith wedding, poison a holiday, ruin a friendship, talk shit about friends, send back an order that was properly prepared, take selfies at a funeral, travel to Cabo and not speak a word of Spanish, blast music at 2 am, drive down a wet repaved road, use three weight machines at a gym at once, use the parking lane as a passing lane, steel copper from a bridge, race down a residential street with kids playing nearby, drag our children to an adults-only party, take up multiple parking spots, buy all the toilet paper during a pandemic, bomb and occupy countries forever, pollute our own lakes, destroy our children’s forests, force pregnant teenagers to become moms, & commodify free natural resources. We still look down at the rest of the world despite records levels of obesity, heart disease, & the lowest quality of life in most of the industrialized world. Americans are the perfect case study in the limitations of rugged individualism and the cultural value of authenticity in a country of low media literacy. While the global south can’t even imagine a society based on the notion of personal freedom at all costs, America can’t imagine a world where the self doesn’t come first in every scenario, even if that means the complete destruction of families, communities, or even democratic institutions. We are drunk on the idea of doing whatever the hell we want because hell yes, freedom!
As a country and as a cultural idea, we need to think a lot more about the common good, group harmony, pluralism, secularism, empathy, volunteerism, mutual respect, a thriving market place of ideas, the Hippocratic oath, & resource collaboration. We need to vote for policies that help the most people (both domestically and internationally) and that simultaneously hurt the least amount of people.
Sometimes, this won’t be possible but many times it is. We need to think a lot less about our own individuality because individuality as an individual right is already granted to Americans a priori as part of our culture. And while I encourage non-Americans to embrace and develop their authentic selves precisely because they’re more likely to grow up in countries that are more collectivistic in nature, in our case, I encourage Americans see the group first precisely because we seldom do. We need to see the big picture again and think more about the ways we as a society can support and encourage altruism, patience, collaboration, kindness, basic human decency, open-mindedness, civic and political participation, cross-cultural dialogue, local investment, honesty, fair play, & yes tolerance, a hated term I realize. But this kind of cultural paradigm shift can only happen if we stop treating cruelty, violence, greed, and selfishness as authentically human qualities. It can only happen if we, as a society, stop calling all human behavior that’s group oriented or altruistic or utilitarian “socialism.”
Being authentically selfish is not a cultural value I want to incentivize, but since I don’t have a right to dictate the way that other people live their private lives, even if I vehemently disagree with it, I think it makes sense to focus our attention on the public space and the public discourse at large. We should incentivize the common good but support the altruistic private self. We should discourage selfishness and egocentricism but support our own complexities and differences as people who see and live the world differently. We should nurture a cultural discourse where people make individual decisions about their own bodies but also where laws encourage us to cooperate and support each other, even if we don’t always see eye to eye or understand each other. And to that end, I’d argue that authenticity can be a great thing, but goodness is always going to be more valuable to society, even if it’s not authentic behavior for certain people. We can create incentives to make people strive for goodness while discouraging (but not humiliating) antisocial behavior. It’s incredibly satisfying to see people we disagree with be publicly shamed, but in the end, I don’t think it’s useful to the larger needs of the world.
Authenticity isn’t an absolute value but a relative one that should be considered among but also weighed against other important values like the common good, class, racial, & gender equity in our pluralistic society, sustainability and social governance, mutual respect, the empathetic imagination, accessibility and inclusion, & the conditions of our social ecology. OTOH, if your community cannot or will not accept who you are or if they argue that who you are damages them—whether that’s actually true or not—in that case, you deserve to find your own community where you can be who you are and where you will be loved, protected, & supported both personally and culturally. As long as you don’t hurt other people, there should be room for all of us in the world to lead our authentically complicated lives. But our authenticity is just one of many things to consider. In the long run, I’d argue that it’s not the most important thing to aspire to if you’re absolutely miserable or if people run for the hills every time they see you. There are other things to worry about. There are other things to strive for.