0076 | June 17, 2019
Donald Trump: The Foucauldian President
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 broke the mold of the modern American President. Countless factors undoubtedly contributed to his election, but one that is seldom discussed is Trump’s compatibility with the critical intellectual fatalism common in continental philosophy.
| C.T. WEBB: 00:19 | [music] Good afternoon, good morning, or good evening, and welcome to The American Age podcast. This is C. Travis Webb, editor of the American Age and I am speaking to you from Southern California. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 00:27 | Hi. This is Steven G. Fullwood, and I am the co-founder of the Nomadic Archivists Project. And I am coming to you today from a very sunny and cool Harlem. |
| S. RODNEY: 00:37 | And I’m Seph Rodney. I’m a editor at Hyperallergic and an author of the recently published book The Personalization of the Museum Visit. And I’m speaking to you from the South Bronx today. |
| C.T. WEBB: 00:53 | This is to remind our listeners that we practice a form of what we like to call intellectual intimacy, which is giving each other the space and time to figure out things out loud and together– I actually wanted to put a little asterisk by that. I had a discussion about the podcast with someone and they had said, “Well, what about if you guys talked in smaller bites?” So we didn’t quite monologue with one another. And I listened to it and I said, “I fell like that’s kind of antithetical to what we’re doing.” Because when you’re having a conversation with someone, you give them the time to figure out exactly what they’re trying to say. And so, I just wanted to say that’s what that means. Right? So it requires some patience amongst the three of us and it requires some patience from the listeners. So and that’s something that– an approach I would defend [laughter]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 01:43 | Yeah. So take that listeners [laughter]. We’re going to mini-monologue all we want. |
| S. RODNEY: 01:43 | Yeah. Yeah. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 01:50 | No. We love you. Please still listen to us. |
| S. RODNEY: 01:52 | Yes. Indeed. |
| C.T. WEBB: 01:55 | So we’re continuing our discussion about the positive aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency, his election. And, I think, Seph, you had kind of some meat for us to chew on today. Yeah? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 02:08 | Yeah. And so this is what I was– these examples, what I’m about to explain, are examples that I found in recent tweets in my Twitter feed. And I’d meant to talk about that [for?] the last podcast, but I couldn’t find them because it turns out it was on my other computer, my laptop. So, Soledad O’Brien– took a screenshot of this. Soledad O’Brien responded to a New York Times piece headline. Times’ piece written by Maggie Haberman. And Soledad O’Brien says in her tweet, “This is a good example of bias in the New York Times.” In the @NewYorkTimes. So she shouts them out, “A picture of a person who’s considering not complying with a subpoena is basically a glamshot and is framed as thoughtful, perfectly equal choice.” Now, she’s included in that tweet the actual, original New York Times’ tweet, which is New York Times is politics @NYTPolitics. May 24. And this is the headline, “Hope Hicks, one of the best-known but least visible former members of President Trump’s White House staff, is facing an existential question: whether to comply with a congressional subpoena.” Which is ridiculous. And let me back that up by reading another example, another tweet. This one by Desiree Adaway, who responds to Soledad– oh, no. Responded to the same New York Times Politics tweet. She says, “The next time a Black man decides not to comply with a subpoena, I want @nytimes to do a fucking glamour shot piece on him that highlights his existential angst.” So, what this says to me is that– |
| C.T. WEBB: 03:50 | Sorry. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 03:51 | Yes? |
| C.T. WEBB: 03:51 | Verification. That’s definitely not existential angst, correct? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 03:54 | No. Right. Right. |
| C.T. WEBB: 03:55 | I mean, I know you’re not saying that. I’m saying whoever wrote that. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 03:58 | Yeah. Yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 03:59 | That’s not what existential angst is. |
| S. RODNEY: 04:01 | Yeah. That’s terrible. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 04:01 | Right. Right. Right. This has something to say about the degree to which people close to the media, associated with the media, or people who just consume it, have become sensitized to the kinds of things that media does – unconsciously or consciously – to frame a kind of story that is just blatantly unfair. And to a certain extent, just laughably ridiculous. Hope Hicks does not have an existential question, she has a congressional subpoena. By law, she needs to show up or she will face the consequences of not doing so. |
| C.T. WEBB: 04:42 | Yeah. So let me ask you a question around that, to cast the light. So I’m with you in all that stuff other than the correction about the existential– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 04:54 | Angst. |
| C.T. WEBB: 04:54 | –crisis for that reporter or the person on Twitter that claimed that. Or I guess, actually, the original reporting. Right? Is we’ve all traveled in theses circles around the, sort of, the essential injustice of the United States and its system and the lie that is it’s system of laws, etc., etc. That should be a paraphrase, right, that’s not my position. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 05:19 | Right. Gotcha. |
| C.T. WEBB: 05:20 | How is flouting a congressional subpoena, ignoring established protocols of the society, not entirely consistent with that worldview? So how is this not a– how does this not slide very easily into the kind of deep, trenchant criticisms of the United States and its project? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 05:47 | Because the deep, trenchant criticisms of the Untied States and its projects have always come from the precincts of academic thought. Now they’re coming – to an extent, in an attenuated way, right, in a kind of soundbitey way – from people on Twitter, from people on Facebook, from people commenting on Washington Post articles, on AOL articles, on USA Today articles. They’re coming, I think, from the sort of hoi polloi. All right? The common people. And I think that’s important because when we’re talking– if we’re going to talk about anything coming out of this presidency that we can sort of wrap our arms around as good or as defined as a silver lining, it that it has become more commonplace to call out– not just to recognize, but to call out these moves by mass media to essentially support and buttress that project that you’re talking about Travis. |
| S. RODNEY: 06:47 | Also, I think both of you hit on something, but I want to add to that. I don’t know if it’s more prevalent, and that’s not the word you use, but I just feel like it’s access. People have always been critical. People have always been thoughtful and engaged, and now we can see these things a little bit more often. We’re talking about, basically, the responses to articles on the editorial page. That we see them more. But, no, people are critical of these things. And also, I think, the impatience and the platforms have both increased. With the Democrats in terms of they should be doing something even though they are doing something, but depends on who you are about which speed they’re supposed to be going with it. But people are coming– I don’t know, I walk in circles where people aren’t academics necessarily and they are shrewd critics of the media. |
| C.T. WEBB: 07:40 | Fair enough. |
| S. RODNEY: 07:40 | And will send you stuff. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 07:41 | Yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 07:42 | I think I asked my question badly. Because since you both heard– you both responded to the same thing so, clearly, I had asked it in a poor way. What I was trying to ask is, so I personally am offended that there is a person that can so willfully and, seemingly at this stage, without consequence – we don’t know what it’s going to look like in a year – ignore a congressional subpoena. And I find that problematic and what I was trying to say is that, but we have cut our teeth for 20 or 30 years on the radical academic critiques and what comes out of those radical academic critics, whether you’re read Foucault or not. To question the United States as a system, as an idea, at its very core, right, as if the idea of the country itself is offensive or is an error, right? Now, bracketing for a second the historical lie that was equality, right? I mean, we know that the [bill is?]– amongst the three of us, we understand that that was a lie. There were a number of people who were not enfranchised or protected by its laws. But that historical failure became an ideological failure amongst a certain circle of critics. And so, we now have someone in the White House that basically listened to that and believed it. I mean, Donald Trump says, “Well, we murder people.” |
| S. FULLWOOD: 09:33 | Right. |
| C.T. WEBB: 09:34 | Donald Trump says, “We bomb people.” Donald Trump says, “How are we any better?” How is Donald Trump not the politician of Foucault [laughter]? How is Donald Trump not the ultimate postcolonial politician [laughter]? How is he not the mouthpiece of that critique? |
| S. RODNEY: 09:59 | Because I think that critique always came from a position of we are essentially throwing stones against the Great Church, right, the great sort of collective edifice, in order to break it open so that– in order to break it down. So that it falls apart. Whereas I think Trump is taking the position, well, really it doesn’t matter whether you throw stones against the thing, it doesn’t matter whether you break it down, just make use of it, just profit from it. His thing is, “I’m just going to profit from it.” |
| S. FULLWOOD: 10:36 | I was going to ask you, does it really matter what position it comes from? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well said. Well said, Seph. |
| C.T. WEBB: 10:43 | Okay. So I’m going to push back on that for a couple of reasons. One, so those aren’t just stones, those are boulders. The whole world is made up. The world’s made up. It’s all made up. You carry around these pieces of paper that tell you these pieces of paper are the equivalent of food or that these pieces of paper can be exchanged for travel all around the world on flying machines, right? The whole world is made up of ideas and ideology. And so, we weren’t just throwing stones at an edifice that was impenetrable, we were launching precision-guided missiles at its foundations. And not one, I mean, not not none, but of that ilk, no one had a shovel or a hammer or a box of nails to put it back together or to propose something in its process. It was just always rotten to the core. And I would say that Donald Trump as– I think, Seph, you’re correct in the intention is different, right? The intention is different. But if that intention is not articulated, what occurs in its vacuum is tribal self-interest. And it’s true that Trump reads to me as a narcissist, but he’s also pretty loyal to his family, right? So, I mean, he’s essentially like a little– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 12:09 | Well. |
| C.T. WEBB: 12:10 | Well, I mean, his daughter and his sort of immediate family. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 12:14 | I was, one daughter. I think the rest of them are [borderline?] [crosstalk] [laughter]. |
| S. RODNEY: 12:18 | And I’m not sure how he feels about his sons. I mean, he’s such a narcissist that I’m not even– yeah, the family thing, maybe, asterisk. Asterisk. Yeah. |
| C.T. WEBB: 12:28 | Yeah. Yeah. This is fair. Yeah. Yeah. This is fair. Yeah. That’s very fair. Okay. So, but what I’m saying is, in many ways, I see Donald Trump as the apotheosis of 40 years of intellectual infighting and, sort of, the kind of prison mentality of shivving our forebearers. Where has been the ambitious expansiveness of the humanistic imagination amongst intellectuals? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 13:04 | Oh, wow. Yeah. You’re right. Well, well said. Uh-huh. |
| S. RODNEY: 13:06 | Okay. Well– |
| C.T. WEBB: 13:06 | Where is that? I mean, we have examples but you have to kind of reach into the intersection of politics and intellectual works. Like King and, obviously, other– Stokely Carmichael. There’s going to be other people there that, yes, they were trying to tear down and destroy an iniquitous system, but they were also doing positive things in their community to try and establish these networks of optimism. I’m sorry, please. Steven, [inaudible]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 13:39 | I was going to say those voices, though, have been drowned out by the din of the noise that we’re hearing right now everyday about Trump. And so, that lack of imagination? When people say it’s either impeach or not impeach or go to jail, it’s there’s so many– it feels like you join a team and then, whether or not that team is actually what you wanted to do– going in the right direction, you stay with that team. It’s exhausting because it doesn’t allow for other kinds of voices. I mean, even Bernie turns people off because of what he’s trying to do and what he’s saying he wants to do out here and there. But I’m a victim of that lack of imagination, essentially, and not thinking past these [constrictures?] of what’s possible. And so, I mean, that’s definitely something I take on and that I’m not proud of because I’m just getting lost in the noise sometimes. And having to sort of pull yourself away from it means that you reject it and you are looking for something better, a structure. |
| C.T. WEBB: 14:41 | In– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 14:42 | Go ahead. |
| C.T. WEBB: 14:42 | In your defense, I don’t know that that’s a fair self-assessment because you actually were the one that suggested the topic of the podcast, which is looking at the positive aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency. So– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 14:51 | Well, I’m a trickster. I’m a trickster. |
| C.T. WEBB: 14:52 | So, clearly, you– yeah. So, clearly, you’re doing the work to try and– not to make it a love fest, but I actually just don’t think that’s a fair summary of you being lost in that. I mean, I see you making those moves in conversation on the podcast and off the podcast. I don’t know [crosstalk]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 15:09 | Well, I appreciate that. I’m just am a lot harder on myself. |
| S. RODNEY: 15:13 | So let’s see whether we’ve answered this question so far. So the question was what good things are possibly coming out of this presidency? And the claim was made that it has something to do with an increased insightfulness to the larger public with regards to how the media reports in biased and silly, in some cases– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 15:43 | Shitty ways. |
| S. RODNEY: 15:44 | –and maybe even destructive ways. Right? How the media prepares the narrative that it disseminates to us. So, are we agreeing that that is the case or no? Is that a silver lining? |
| C.T. WEBB: 16:00 | Yeah. I think I’m with you on that. I just, I don’t think it goes far enough. The example that you gave, I think it’s an absolutely emblematic one. It’s a great one, because I think it also reveals the shallowness with which the response has been. And I would add a correction, so imagine a black man ignoring a congressional subpoena and what kind of shock that would be. What they are not understanding is that, now, in the 21st century, anyone can be white with enough money– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 16:34 | Oh, no. Absolutely. Absolutely. |
| C.T. WEBB: 16:34 | –and enough access. With enough money and access. But that is what they are being, right? We have not broken open the imagination in this country enough so that you don’t have to be white to matter. That’s what we should be moving towards, not– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 16:51 | And I think that different groups of people are moving in those directions, they’re just not getting the broadcast. |
| C.T. WEBB: 16:55 | I’m sure you’re right. Yeah. I’m sure you’re– but, yeah. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 16:57 | Earlier on, when you guys were talking about the newspaper, the newspaper’s there to sell you an image and to sell you a story. And so, to conflate the idea that they’re there to tell you anything other than what they feel like they should tell you so that you’ll buy it, it’s on us. And the fact that, like you said, it’s some sort of glamour shot of her kind of wistfully looking to the side– I’m sure they didn’t take that picture recently. I’m sure that that’s an older picture, but somebody was looking for a picture and, “You know what? This will be good. This will be good right here.” Rather than her looking disheveled coming out of court. I mean, these were deliberate choices to sell this paper, to get those clicks. And I have to acknowledge someone, Azealia Banks – who’s a rapper, who’s often a controversial figure to people – she was on– |
| S. RODNEY: 17:41 | A controversial? She often craps the bed, but go ahead [laughter]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 17:46 | So what she did– that’s a whole new podcast. But I’ll say this for her, she was sitting– I think she was on a radio show and they were talking to her and one guy was trying to tell her, “Well, put your politics into your music.” And she goes, “I put them wherever I want.” It’s, “Be clear about what your role is.” She goes, “You want the clicks. Well, get your clicks and be honest about that. But don’t act as if you’re doing me a favor by telling me how to act.” And for that, I’m with her, so. |
| S. RODNEY: 18:15 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that she– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 18:16 | But they’re just trying to get their clicks. |
| S. RODNEY: 18:18 | Azealia Banks is occasionally really insightful. So, I want to follow up on that and say that– two more example of that same, sort of, twee thread. With regards to the New York Times, Jamil Smith wrote in response to Soledad O’Brien, “There is nothing for Hope Hicks to ‘decide.'” And this follows on what you were saying, Travis. “There’s nothing for Hope Hicks to ‘decide.’ She got a subpoena from Congress. Were she not white, wealthy, and connected, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. She would appear, or she would face the threat of prison like the rest of us. As she should.” |
| S. FULLWOOD: 18:59 | Damn. |
| S. RODNEY: 18:59 | So, yes. Yes. It absolutely is about taking on a kind of whiteness, right, that is seemingly being portrayed as– |
| S. FULLWOOD: 19:09 | An exceptionalism. |
| S. RODNEY: 19:10 | Yeah. Right. Above the fray. So Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ response to Soledad, “What gets me is news brakes that this woman is committing a crime before Congress and it’s getting framed by the New York Times as some Lifetime drama called ‘Hope’s Choice.’ This is a former administration official considering participating in a cover-up led by the president. Treat her equally.” So, there’s a way in which you’re right, Travis. But also, some of these voices– I mean, especially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I think comes directly out. She’s produced by this presidency. I don’t think that she would’ve come along in the same way had we made the damn right choice of Hilary Rodham Clinton. She comes out of this, and I think that’s a kind of silver lining too. Because she’s one of the leaders of this public kind of consciousness, to say, “No. This is the right way to go about this. These should be our priorities. This is what we’re going to work on legislatively. And I will show you, I will take you via camera into my private life as I’m making pasta and whatever for Friday night dinner, and talk about how Congress works.” That, for me, is super useful because it moves past this sort of, “I get to take advantage of the system just by being white and wealthy or having the sort of resources in my life to make me seem that way.” And it moves towards a kind of honest and adult public dialogue. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 20:48 | Yeah. Absolutely. |
| C.T. WEBB: 20:51 | Yeah. I am with that. And Ocasio-Cortez’ response is much, sort of, closer to a position that I would defend. I mean, Steven put his finger on it too. I mean, clearly this was– I shouldn’t say clearly. It seems to me that this was an attempt to get recognition and you get kind of the stylized shot of her and this sort of– and also importing a kind of intelligence and deep thought to what may not be a well-considered position at all. Right? We don’t know how much thought is going into this situation, other than kind of just baseline anxiety that might be there for ignoring something that has serious consequences. But to turn her into some sort of pensive, thoughtful, considered person? That’s a big assist on the New York Times, as far. For sure. That’s an alley-oop with a ladder, right? |
| S. RODNEY: 22:02 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steven just rolled his eyes like dice. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 22:06 | Yeah. They’re going to roll out of my damn head. Yeah. So she was– |
| S. RODNEY: 22:12 | So, I– Oh, no. No. No. Please. No. No. Steven. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 22:14 | Oh, I was just going to say that, so, I believe she was– according to this article, it was May 23rd that they subpoenaed her. I think. And then by June 4th, rather, the White House had instructed Hope Hicks and Ann Donaldson not to turn over any documents and not to testify and so forth. But as far as I now and I can’t find the article, she is complying with Democrats. She is actually complying. So it’s interesting. |
| C.T. WEBB: 22:43 | Hope Hicks is? |
| S. FULLWOOD: 22:44 | Yes. But I don’t know [into?] what extent. |
| C.T. WEBB: 22:46 | Yeah. I haven’t read anything about her– yeah. Yeah. I also have not read anything that she’s ignored the request. That’s the same thing I’ve read. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 22:56 | Okay. I was curious. Okay. |
| S. RODNEY: 22:57 | So, I want to sum this up because I want to make sure I have a grasp of this conversation. So we’re saying that, yes, partly there is a kind of greater access to a public dialogue around the problems of the US, historically, right? And that we’re more willing to say this stuff out loud, the quiet part out loud. But part of the problem with that and what Travis is arguing is that, essentially, that’s always been a kind of irresponsible critique in that what people have been doing is they’ve been trying to burn the house to the ground. Not just lob stones to break down the edifice, but raze it. And, I mean, maybe this is another podcast that we could talk about. I kind of agree with that because I remember feeling that way throughout undergrad and grad school. I went to undergrad at Long Island University Brooklyn campus, was part of the Honors program, and the politics in the– not so much in the classes I took, but I mean the conversation around school, it felt like people were– I mean, essentially it was saying, “Yeah. It’s all this shit. It’s all shit.” And I always thought, “No. It can’t all be. Because we’re here and we’re doing what we’re doing.” |
| S. RODNEY: 24:12 | And then, in grad school, I got a more sophisticated version of that, a kind of post-colonial version of, “Well, the United States is essentially a purveyor of terror, of terror around the world. It is essentially a bedrock classist– it supports and disseminates a model of a system that at its bedrock, exploits and disadvantages a certain class of people and then blames them for being exploited and disadvantaged.” Right? So, full stop. So that’s America. That’s the USA. And I always kind of felt uncomfortable with that because my thing is, “It cannot be all bad because we’re here and we’re doing the work of studying this and thinking about what this system’s perditions are and how we can fight them.” Right? So if we’re in a position to do that, it cannot be all bad. And then I got to where I am– got to school in London, the PhD program in the London Consortium, and the conversation really shifted because the UK doesn’t have the– at least in my experience of the UK, it doesn’t have quite the same sort of nihilist conception of US history or the place of the United States in world history. |
| C.T. WEBB: 25:32 | I was going to say historical indifference. |
| S. RODNEY: 25:36 | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| C.T. WEBB: 25:37 | [crosstalk] to it. But, yeah. |
| S. RODNEY: 25:39 | So let me just quickly sum it up in this way. I mean, I was afraid of this becoming a little bit too theoretical so the sort of concrete example I can think of is two or three years ago, I conducted an interview with one of the winners of the Vilcek Prize, an artist named Carlos Motta. Carlos’ work, he took me through it, really talks about sort of deconstructing history. So he’s creating other sort of notions or histories regarding, I think, invented characters. It has something to do with gay and lesbian identity. He identifies as gay. And part of the problem I had with his work was that in constructing these alternate histories, right, he said himself – and I’m sure he still believes this – that he was trying to pull the supports out from under the sort of collective canonized history that we recognize as sharing, right? And I always wanted to ask, “Well, what happens when you do that?” If we don’t all agree that the Jamestown Massacre happened, then how do we come to the table to get– what brings us to a common table? If we can’t agree that– I mean, let’s take it the other direction, that the civil rights movement was the most important movement in terms of transforming our social relations in the US, right, that the US really wasn’t the US before the civil rights movement. If we cannot agree on that, then what brings us to the table? I mean, I don’t believe in this movement. I don’t think it’s useful to just deconstruct history, because what happens is, you don’t have anything to take its place. Nothing to say that we can– that says, “We at least share this. This is our premise. We can start here.” |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:41 | Okay. Because of time, I’m going to say. If we just deconstruct history, what takes its place? This is a very positive conversation that’s come out of Donald Trump’s election [laughter]. |
| S. RODNEY: 27:51 | Yes. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 27:53 | Yes. |
| C.T. WEBB: 27:53 | I’m going to put a button on that because I know Steven looks like he wants to respond and has something to say, so. And we will, as close as possible, pick this up in the next podcast. If that sounds good to [everyone?]. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 28:03 | Sounds good. |
| S. RODNEY: 28:03 | Okay. That sounds great. Okay. Thank you. |
| S. FULLWOOD: 28:05 | Okay. |
| C.T. WEBB: 28:05 | Okay. All right. Thanks so much. [music] |
References
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