David Graeber once postulated that the reason conservatives hate Hollywood is not just because of the film industry’s sanctimonious liberalism but because this liberalism is disseminated by an industry that is profoundly nepotistic. From the Coppolas to the Barrymores to the Fondas to the Gyllenhaals to Gwyneth Paltrow, Matthew Broderick, Daniel Radcliffe, and Jaden Smith, Hollywood has notoriously and shamelessly granted opportunity, irrespective of merit, to those with the right connections at the expense of everyone else. Conservatives, Graeber argues, reject Hollywood because, in contrast to supposedly meritocratic (at least in the conservative imagination) industries such as business, Hollywood is unfair. That Hollywood is also bent on socially engineering the masses with the liberal fads of the day, while simultaneously trading in unending sex and violence, merely adds insult to injury.
Graeber’s recognition of conservatives’ overriding concern with fairness helps explain conservatives’ steadfast support for Donald Trump. Trump of course began his presidential run as an ostensibly unbeholden political outsider who took down the Bush and Clinton dynasties by asserting that he would halt all manner of global cheating and “put America first.” Promising to “drain the swamp,” the incoming Trump administration was characterized by an unusual and sometimes surreal openness as celebrities, eccentrics, and hangers-on dropped by to share their views with the president-elect. 1 A 21st-century version of Andrew Jackson’s inaugural ball, this spectacle conveyed an administration freed from technocratic elites, micromanagers, and other unaccountable insiders (which is one reason why Trump’s incompetence rarely concerns his supporters, since it is merely more evidence of his overarching authenticity). Indeed, it would be interesting to examine the public’s letters to the president during those first months to determine whether there was an unusually high number of offers of assistance and auditions for employment given the perception, at least among his supporters, that the Trump White House was uncharacteristically accessible to those on the margins of the establishment. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/08/trump-the-american-dream-and-the-frontier/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#5323): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/5323 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/79548249/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
