I.
America is devolving into a country without a common agreed upon past, one whose customs and institutions no longer provide the internal political or cultural coherence that is essential for it to properly function in the manner that we have grown accustomed to since the end of the Second World War. It cannot be otherwise; what one portion of a populace accepts as self-evident cannot be contradicted by another without producing a disastrous collective cognitive dissonance. Americans have replaced those insubstantial things that form the marrow of culture–mores, habits of the heart, social capital–with something they flatter themselves to believe is more real: figureheads. People are no longer moved or inspired by policies; ideas are simply accessories to the empty vessel or blank canvas onto which we project our hopes.
That a C-list celebrity mountebank, oblivious to the existence of political philosophy, recognized that shift in thinking before anyone beholden to traditional American political thinking is, simultaneously, the secret of Donald Trump’s success, the least surprising aspect of his ascendancy, and his greatest vulnerability. American politics, in this moment, and for at probably the next generation, is about one thing: celebrity.
Aspirants for the White House have long parlayed their auras or acting abilities into electoral success, but Americans have never had a president who was a celebrity in the truest sense of the word – someone who offers no value, one who is famous simply for being famous.
Perhaps the single biggest element of Trump’s success in hijacking the GOP in 2015 and 2016 is attributable to his 40-year presence in our collective cultural consciousness. One may not have known much about Donald Trump – a New Yorker, his casinos, his wives, or The Apprentice, but they knew of him. To varying degrees, we granted him entrance to our homes via the television, and the kind of familiarity that that breeds amongst a populace glued to screens.
Recognizing that the rules have changed, perhaps irreversibly, means adapting oneself to the new political reality. And that reality is that politics is no longer about policy as a rational set of ideas. It is about crafting your own reality and forcing everyone else to inhabit it. Standard politicians are not capable of such a feat. They are too hidebound by convention, too canned, too steeped in systemic beliefs, and too locked into corporate interests to operate in the manner that is necessary. In an age without rules, you just have to make it up as you go.
However, Trump’s act is now 10 years old (with 3 and 1/2 more years to follow!) – ten years of chaos, scandals and the carpet-bombing saturation of his image and voice. I suspect this means that people will hunger for a return to dignity and propriety. They will want a return to moral rectitude … but the hunger for charisma will remain, for the media-dazzling leader on whom they can fasten their hopes.
II.
The first rule of politics is ‘just win,’ and the second and the seventy bazzilionith. Just win. Maybe you’re thrilled by the prospect of voting for Gavin Newsome in 2028 and his Bill Clinton-Triangulation-Sleazy-Tennis Pro vibe. Or perhaps you yearn for a rerun of Kamala Harris or another woman instead – Whitmer, AOC, Klobuchar, Gillibrand – who will never be elected because 50% of the electorate has made it clear, for now at least, that it is deeply misogynist, and that includes, often, women voters too. Pete Buttigieg, the master of South Bend, is smart enough but he is gay and that makes him more unelectable than a woman. Not Booker nor any other supporter of Charles Kushner and Wall Street money. Maybe Shapiro, maybe Pritzker, but neither has yet been tested by Trump, although their time is coming as Trump’s ICE-Gestapo prepares for an all-out assault on Philly and Chicago. Mark Cuban seems like a decent enough man but another billionaire businessman …., we think not. Andy Beshear, Tim Waltz – the political equivalent of tofu, utterly tasteless.
I do not see how any of the names bandied about as a Democratic Presidential candidate will be able to stand up to the Trump-MAGA surge of lies and hatred with careful, focus group consultant-speak pap. Trump has thoroughly wrecked the idea of traditional politics and traditional discourse. His version of a 24-hour, 365-day Maniac Presidency has smashed the staid persona of the Office. For now, the time of bland, appeal to the center politicians is over.
The Democrats need someone who can create excitement, who can rally a large cross section of the voting public, whose name recognition is immediate and who has been successful outside of politics. They need someone who can jolt them out of a 27% approval rating, shake the young from their apathy and have the potential to realign the Democratic Presidential coalition to include States that are moving right – Iowa and North Carolina and perhaps even reclaim States like Florida and Ohio that once seemed lost. Conversely, the Democrats need someone not beholden to machine politics and whose personal wealth and name recognition insulate him in a campaign, but also when governing. Coteries of experts (a word that does not apply to Trump’s team of fanatics, hollow men and dopes) can be assembled to provide structure and advice.
They need a figure of strength and one whose willingness to engage with adversaries on the most consequential battlefield of 21st century American politics, the internet. In an era of the language and semiotics of social media, it is time to stop thinking primarily about swing states and ground games and start working on your meme game.
They need someone who is cool, vital, untainted by the stench of partisanship and the necessity of compromise. They need a presence. They need a Force. The Democrats need a showman, their own kind of performer. They need a version of Showtime. It’s time for Lebron.
Lebron James is smart, world famous, a family man, a successful businessman, a philanthropist, a 4 time NBA Champion (unlike Trump, someone who has actually earned his success), a 6’9” 41-year-old proud black man untainted by Democratic in-fighting. His appeal may be truly post-racial in the sense that he comes out of the world of basketball, a sport beloved by every race and ethnic group in the country and in other countries as well – China, Africa and most of Europe.
We live in an age where, paradoxically, a world-class athlete is more relatable (whether this relatability is genuine is beside the point) to a majority of the Democratic voters than its elected officials.
Black men and women form the core of the Democratic Party’s constituency because of its traditional support of voting rights and racial justice, but they also understand, in the most visceral way, the abiding racial animus behind Trumpism and its long list of American progenitors, from slavery to Jim Crow to the terrible costs of the Drug War and the Carceral State and to the present day attempts to erase them from positions of leadership in the military and in the Federal workforce. Nominate Lebron and this constituency’s energy will explode into organizing in every State.
Lebron James has the potential to unite black, white, brown and red, urban and rural, the poor and middle class and the well-to-do with any sense of justice in them at all. He has the potential to build a multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition. More than anyone else we can think of, Lebron may well be Trumpisms’ Kryptonite, the stake and garlic that brings an end to MAGA.
BRON IN ‘28 VOTE FOR THE GOAT
*My friend and I took a long drive. We began talking about movies, history, and work. Then the nightmare of the present day in America slipped into its place in the conversation as we knew it would, and somehow, my friend tapped into the zeitgeist. Before we stepped into that car, neither of us knew that others had also been considering Lebron for President. My friend caught some tremor in the air. Both of us wrote this Post, but he had the idea and many of these paragraphs are his. I know no one else with such a deep knowledge of how history, philosophy and media cohere and create new worlds.
A favor — if any of you reading or listening to this know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Lebron, please send this to him.
