Trump as avatar -- art as antidote

Trump is the avatar of resentment. His genius is composed of it and it’s his power. Hillary and her clan seemed to think everyone who counts would see things her way. Well this is a wake up call for the woke. The general population has grown confused and moody on an empty-calorie cultural diet of escapist entertainment and endless sporting events created only to con them into buying things they don’t need for a promised life that doesn’t exist. Someone better start pumping value back into daily existence like quality universal education, affordable decent housing for everyone, and something to believe in and hold on to or we’re going to have a mess on our hands.

This isn’t about politics, it’s about life with no meaning, no attainment beyond the envy of strangers, and the meager and fleeting joy in buying a bigger pickup or getting a new tattoo. Humans as animals can only be abused so long and then they begin to agitate, to deviate, and to express their repressed aspirations. The machinery of state long before Trump arrived has been manipulating institutions and incentives to loot the value created by the economic system and move it to the top, and what we have here is a predictable reaction. Devotion to Trump is not about his policies, blind and ignorant vandalism mostly, but in his robust ‘fuck you’ to all that benign ‘we’ve got your back’ bullshit from a government devoted to marketing lives and selling its citizens cheap to large corporations.

As an emergency measure, I’d suggest an IV of original art, organic and locally produced, at least until the fever subsides, anxieties abate, and people begin to find enough satisfaction and fulfillment in their own lives to stop finding fault with each other. Art is the distillation of a culture’s perceptions, its needs and desires, and all systems of control seek to manipulate and neuter it. In totalitarian states artists are imprisoned and art is destroyed but in a capitalist democracy a tax-driven institutional obscurity is used to muffle honest expression and to deny independent artists access to their own communities. At some point artists and the public will begin to find each other through alternative venues, outdoor painting events and organized studio tours, and psychic healing will begin. After that honorable work for a reasonable wage with enough free time and societal support to pursue whatever the hell anyone wants would be nice, finally a healthy place to live and no Trumps nowhere.