Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is a case of life following art. The art in this case is the 1998 movie Bulworth. The film is an over-the-top political comedy starring Warren Beatty as Jay Billington Bulworth, a liberal Democratic U.S. Senator from California who long ago sold out to special interests generally and the insurance industry in particular, and whose career, marriage and re-election campaign are falling apart. Bulworth decides to end his life, but he wants to leave a legacy for his daughter. So he buys a $10 million insurance policy naming her as beneficiary. And realizing that if he commits suicide the insurance company won’t pay off, he arranges with gangsters to assassinate him.
The arrangement leaves Bulworth with nothing to lose politically and free to say anything he wants — which he does. He starts “telling it like it is,” denouncing special interests including the insurance industry, careening from one outrageous outburst after another, delivering a speech in rap in a Black church while drunk, offending the political establishment in both parties — and resurrecting his re-election campaign and political career.
It’s a ludicrous, rollicking comedy, but in the end it leaves you wondering: What would happen if a presidential candidate actually ran a Bulworth-style campaign?
What if a candidate fired his handlers and speech writers, told his special interest contributors to bugger off and spoke truth as he saw it — red in tooth and claw?
What indeed.Â
Trump is no Bulworth. His political career isn’t falling apart, because he’s never had one. He doesn’t need no stinking insurance policy, because he’s stinking rich — rich enough that he can pay for a presidential campaign out of petty cash.
But he is running a Bulworth campaign.
Why? Because if he ran a conventional campaign he would never break out of the pack, and he’s smart enough to know it.
Like Bulworth, Trump has nothing to lose politically. The Republican establishment and the chattering classes have already written him off, and if he ran a conventional campaign they would blow him off.
But a Bulworth campaign is another matter.
In the course of announcing his presidential candidacy on June 16, Trump shot off his mouth on illegal immigration, asserting that illegal immigrants from Mexico were bringing drugs, crime and rape along with them.
The shit hit the fan at high velocity and low trajectory. Rival Republican candidates howled with outrage. Demands for apologies and boycotts flew like shrapnel. Univision and Macy’s severed business ties with Trump.
The national press corps published Trump’s political obituary alongside the story announcing his candidacy. Within a week he was number two in polls for the Republican nomination. The national press corps turned rude, personally insulting and increasingly hysterical. Conservative and liberal pundits alike churned out column after column explaining why Trump could NOT! NOT EVER! win the Republican nomination.
Criticism rolls off Trump’s back, but when critics attack him he’ll rip their hides off — as happened when Arizona Senator John McCain, asked to comment on a big Trump rally in Arizona, accused Trump of “firing up the crazies.” Trump shot back that McCain wasn’t a war hero because he got captured — which he quickly modified to McCain was a war hero only because he got captured.
A lot of political reporters dutifully set about writing Trump’s political obituary again.
A week later Trump was in first place in a lot of polls. Just like Bulworth.
Trump’s campaign isn’t resonating with voters just because he’s out there saying rude things about immigration. It’s resonating because he is telling America’s politically correct grievance hustlers who think they are entitled to tell you what you cannot (and must) say and think, to go fuck themselves — along with the press, which functions as their chief enablers and enforcers. Anyone who has had to bite his tongue or issue a groveling apology due to political correctness is a potential Trump voter. It isn’t the crazies Trump is rousing; it’s the national id.
So is Trump crazy as the March Hare or crazy like a fox? A bit of both probably. The decision to run a Bulworth campaign (and I’m convinced it was a conscious decision on Trump’s part) was a stroke of genius insofar as it was a way to vault him into the first tier of Republican candidates. And just as important, to allow him to define the terms of the on-going debate among the candidates.
But there’s a real danger in saying whatever pops out of your mouth when your brain is hopping around like a little bunny. Chances are sooner or later you are going to say something that really does break the spell.
Trump may be running a Bulworth campaign, but Trump is also the Honey Badger. The press and the political establishment can throw all the opposition research it can dig up at him, it can mock him, deride him, demean him and call for him to apologize or drop out all it wants. The Honey Badger don’t care. He don’t give a shit what they think. He’ll just keep coming. He’ll bite the head off a cobra and the balls off a reporter.
Voters admire that in a candidate.Â
This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
