How a New York Strip Club Explains Trump Supporters
If you can't get people to like or respect you, make them act like they do
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I was never a strip club guy. If that's what you're into — or where you work — do your thing. It's just not for me. But a strip club experience accidentally gave me insight into a certain type of Trump supporter: disaffected, very online, younger men.
My reason for disliking strip clubs may not be one you expect. It's not a moral objection (religious or otherwise). It's not the seediness (I like dive bars). And I find attractive naked women as appealing as the next straight guy.
My issue is that it's a con. Strippers are con artists, pretending to like you to get as much of your money as possible. I mean that descriptively, not negatively. It's a voluntary transaction, so no judgment. But as far as I'm concerned, a big part of the appeal of physical intimacy is knowing the other person is into me. Knowing the strippers aren't undermines the enjoyment. At least for me.
From this, I thought the appeal of strip clubs required suspending disbelief. Allow yourself to think, even for a moment, that she actually likes you, even though you know she probably doesn't. (In that way, it's like a lot of entertainment, adult or otherwise). I couldn't suspend disbelief, so I enjoyed it less.
But then I was hanging out with some Wall St. guys — all of us single, all in our 20s — who really wanted to go. I went. And seeing how they acted taught me something.
They weren't boorish, they didn't break any rules, that's not it. It's that they also saw through the con — and they liked it.
None of the Wall St. guys suspended disbelief. They knew the strippers were pretending to like them because they were spending money, and they got a rush from that. Instead of thinking "she doesn't really like me, it's not that much fun," they thought "she doesn't really like me, but look at what I can get her to do anyway."
For them the appeal wasn't just sex. It was power.
I was reminded of those Wall St. guys in February 2017 when reading an excellent article by Dale Beran called "4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump."
Most answers to "how did we get here?" in 2017 focused on rural voters, the white working class (especially in the Midwest), older white people experiencing what is politely called "cultural anxiety," and Republican partisans. Beran examined another part of the Trump coalition, a key component that wasn't getting enough attention: angry men, mostly (but not exclusively) white and young, who spend a lot of time online.
Many congregated on 4chan, especially the /pol/ ("politically incorrect") discussion board, and were among the most passionate Trump supporters, creating and sharing memes in exchange for no pay, and often no recognition. As Beran shows, this forum played a central role in incubating troll culture, which is now, in a way, mainstream.
To many outside observers, these are Trump superfans — young men who admire the president, even worship him, sometimes referring to him as a "God Emperor." But as anyone familiar with 4chan or troll culture knows, communication in these circles is rarely literal. It's all references and ironic detachment and joking references to previous references.
Beran's insight is that these young men don't actually think Trump is cool. They think he's a loser. That's why they support him, and why they connected him to a character called Pepe the Frog:
Pepe symbolizes embracing your loserdom, owning it. That is to say, it is what all the millions of forum-goers of 4chan met to commune about. It is, in other words, a value system, one reveling in deplorableness and being pridefully dispossessed. It is a culture of hopelessness, of knowing "the system is rigged". But instead of fight the response is flight, knowing you're trapped in your circumstances is cause to celebrate. For these young men, voting Trump is not a solution, but a new spiteful prank.
Many of the anonymous trolls think of themselves as losers — especially in the traditional "cool guy gets the girl" sense — and they're angry at the world for promising them something better. Since they don't think they can overcome their status, they embrace it, and try to bring others down to their level. They don't support Trump because they think he'll make their lives better, but because they get a kick out of seeing people who "won" the video game of life have to deal with this reckless buffoon.
Now those elites will have to listen to someone they don't want to listen to. Now they'll feel what the trolls feel.
Trump, writes Beran, "is both despair and cruel arrogant dismissal, the fantasy of winning and the pain of losing mingled into one potion. For this reason, the left should stop expecting Trump's supporters to be upset when he doesn't fulfill his promises. Support for Trump is an acknowledgement that the promise is empty."
The Wall St. guys didn't think of themselves as losers. But my mistake that they suspended disbelief in the strip club is similar to the mistake that those angry online Trump supporters think the president is smart, cool, competent, or otherwise impressive.
In both cases, they're aware of the artificiality of the situation. And what they're getting off on is power.
On Tuesday, I spotted this phenomenon in the wild.
Trump was in Europe for a NATO summit, and video surfaced of French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mocking the American president behind his back. Many Trump critics reacted with despair or mockery. Joe Biden released an ad about how "the world is laughing at President Trump." But Trump supporters reacted differently. Here's two:
Paul Joseph Watson is a conspiracy theorist who works with InfoWars. The man who goes by "Carpe Donktum" makes pro-Trump memes, some of which Trump shared on Twitter, making them go viral. In July, Donktum was among the guests invited to Trump's "social media summit" at the White House. Both fit the profile of very online white male Trump supporter, though neither is especially young.
Look at how they defended Trump from this embarrassing episode. Both acknowledge that foreign leaders don't respect the president, but counter by saying they show him respect in person. Like the 4chan trolls, Watson and Donktum don't care that Trump accomplished nothing for America, just that he made elites unhappy. Like the Wall St. guys, they get a rush from seeing people who don't like Trump pretend to like him when they want to get something. Like both, they're getting off on power.
This is different from nationalists thinking the Western alliance is bad for the United States, and that French, British, and Canadian leaders are "globalists" trying to take advantage of America. For that type of Trump supporter, respect in person doesn't matter. If anything, it's a negative, because it shows less discord in the international relationships they want to change.
But to the trolls, showing respect in person matters a great deal. However, while most people want to be worthy of others' respect, the troll mentality thinks they'll never be worthy — though deep down they wish they were — and therefore wants to force others to fake it.
Trump embodies this mindset. You can see it throughout his life, in his many failed attempts to get respect from New York's upper crust. You can see it now in his love-hate relationship with the New York Times, which he regularly denigrates. But when they publish something positive about him, he eagerly tweets it out.
This gushing came six weeks after Trump said he was canceling subscriptions and banning copies of the "failing" New York Times from the White House for publishing "fake" stories (with "fake" meaning factually accurate but bad for Trump's image).
The problem for the president is, unlike foreign leaders that want something from America, or strippers who want to part customers from their money, elite journalistic institutions — elite Americans more broadly — will never respect him, nor act like it.
They don't want something from him. Except, perhaps, to go away.
WRITTEN BY
Nicholas Grossman
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