Americans spend a lot of their time on entertainment and on keeping up with entertainers. Along with sports stars and pop music royalty, TV and movie actors have, for many decades, been the public figures the average citizen cares about and follows most. And– in key ways– the public figures Americans emulate.
A much-admired trait of some of the most popular and influential cinema and television heroes is that they get away with saying and doing things that normal people do not get away with in real life. They are people who thumb their nose at authority and laugh about it. These characters appear constantly in American popular culture: The smart-aleck kid mocking teachers and other grown-ups, the smooth-talking charmer who has a handful of lovers at the same time, the sassy secretary who can openly talk back to her boss because he’s so clueless, the cop who is contemptuous of authority and plays by his own rules, the overburdened hero who explodes in the most dramatic way possible because she simply won’t take it anymore, or the loser who somehow ends up on top because of others’ overconfidence or vanity.
These are beloved fixtures of American entertainment. They are the furious colleagues who stand up in a meeting to tell off the boss and the unjust company he represents before striding off in righteous anger. They are the wives who instinctively know how to put down their meddling mothers in law with a well-nuanced barb. They are the cops who care about fighting crime more than they care about burdensome laws and regulations that might let the bad guys get away. They are the smooth kids who con bullies into getting beat up or humiliating themselves.
More than anything else, these well-known character types in American entertainment always seem to say exactly the right thing. They are not like the rest of us, who might be afraid of saying something factually wrong or stumbling or mumbling through the big delivery or—worse– getting in trouble for airing an opinion that many think but that nobody dares voice. How often do we anxiously run back the tape of an encounter and fret about what we should have said? How often do we kick ourselves for thinking of something clever that would have put that guy in his place if only we’d come up with it then? Why are we so slow and afraid to speak up when what we long to communicate seems so clear and reasonable when others say it?
After all, TV and movie characters routinely ace those encounters, and we’ve had enough practice repeating their famous lines, many of which have become part of the American vernacular. Yet when we ask ourselves, “Do I feel lucky? Well, do I?” we don’t. We feel like punks. We need our TV and movie stars to channel these emotions for us.
Much of Donald Trump’s appeal to those in the American electorate who support him is based on this dynamic. Trump is popular because, like our movie and TV characters, he gets away with saying and doing things that normal people do not get away with in life. Trump’s whole life is thumbing his nose at authority and laughing about it. Trump is the smart-aleck. Trump is the sassy secretary. Trump is the womanizer that women still love. Trump is the cop whose idea of efficient justice is a bullet shot true from his gun, followed by a shrug, snarl, or wry smile.
Trump is a sitcom/action hero, and his supporters are reacting to him in the same way Americans have reacted to so many before him. They admire him for getting away with saying and doing things they believe they cannot get away with. That’s the fact, Jack.