D is for Donald
The class clown is an unfortunate type. His problems tend to surface in High School, when he becomes old enough that his pranks can have serious consequences. And yes, the type is almost always male.
He is the class entertainer, but not because he has anything witty or intelligent to offer. He finds a niche in which he can gain attention by taking risks, both social and physical. He is always the one to accept the dare. He will say anything, do anything, to get the applause of his peers. With no thought about the consequences.
The problem with this behaviour is that it doesn’t offer anything creative, so the audience soon comes to accept it as the norm. Then the performer has to find something more outré, more dangerous, to re-attract attention. Unfortunately, as he gets older, elements such as automobiles, alcohol, and the dangerous activities we see lauded on YouTube add a more deadly slant to his stunts. So he continues his drive for more attention until his luck or skill runs out and reality slaps him in the face. Sometimes physically.
If he survives, this young man will end up a criminal, paraplegic or drug addict. He might even grow out of it and turn into a decent citizen. But many of these people survive without serious consequences and never grow up. These cases of arrested development provide the macho, gun-toting, misogynistic he-men that cause so much trouble for the rest of society.
And the worst case of all is the one who turns his risk-taking in the social direction, because he becomes the class bully. Just as the physical risk-taker can, with good luck and agility, continue his demonstrations for a long time before luck or error strike him down, in the nasty experimental social world of teenagers a social risk-taker can develop a lot of power, doing cruel things that others wouldn’t, and get away with it. And some of these, with a great deal of luck and parental money, can grow up to be business leaders. And politicians.
What about Hillary?
One poignant story that came out of the “Build Hillary the Human” campaign from the Democratic Convention was the vision of little Hillary rushing home in tears after confronting the neighborhood bullies, and her mother sending her right back out to face them.
It didn’t work. It never does. The only thing a child like that can do is go on being herself. If possible, develop the social skills to make friends and form groups for protection.
For a person like the “nerdy, workaholic hippie chick” that one CNN commentator picked up from Bill Clinton’s speech, the only way to deal with bullies is to ignore them, put your head down and succeed. This method creates some of the best behind-the-scenes workers in our society, but it only has limited success. The bullies grow up with the rest of us, and the most successful ones modify their behaviour, modify society’s mores, and keep right on bullying. The nasty tricks of the Grade Three class become gossip in the neighbourhood, “office politics” in the business world, and if you dare to step into politics, well, it’s open season again, with the media playing enthusiastic toadies.
The running campaign over the past 20 years by Clinton’s adversaries to paint her as untrustworthy is a good example. The bare truth, if ever such a thing should exist, is that in order to do her job so well, Clinton has played the game just as any other successful politician has. As far as anyone has been able to prove, she has never done anything illegal, and (remember the “put your head down and succeed?”) she has certainly come up with a lot of success. Yet still the media count her number one problem (that they have helped to create) as “lack of trust.”
Inasmuch as we don’t really trust the polling institutions much, either, her for-against Gallup numbers at 38-57 don’t look great. However, compared to Trump’s 32-62, and the whole Federal Government’s meagre 45-56, and the media themselves with only a 40% trustworthiness rating, I think we have a case of people in glass houses, here.
And we need to remember that the present numbers are based on a concerted effort by the Republican Party over 20 years, plus the less foresighted Sanders supporters in her own party recently. Trump’s image so far has been pretty much the result of his own efforts. Now that the Democratic Party is united and rolling, and Trump is running out of even marginally acceptable quips to entertain his audience, it will be interesting to watch the numbers in the next few weeks.