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Comment by anon84873628 | Hacker News Reader

Bingo. Michael Wolff illustrates nicely how Trump is the literal embodiment of the "greed is good" 80's culture.

Of course we also have Ronald Reagan to thank. And that administration spawned the career of John Roberts, which we can now see as a through line to the destruction of The Court.

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It's a bit reductive to pin this on Ronald Reagan.

The entire western world had been shifting towards neoliberalism as a direct response to the eastern world shifting towards communism since WW2.

Trump also isn't the embodiment of anything other than the guy who didn't take it seriously and suddenly ended up with the job because the voters in the country decided it couldn't be any worse under him than whatever the current situation they were living with was.

Or you could go all the way back to Reconstruction. The same way that an embittered Germany led to WWII, we are living with an embittered, mutant form of Confederate culture taking its revenge on the Union that put it down 160 years ago. The current culture war intermingles Southern Christian Conservative and Neoliberal interests. They're angry that the world has rapidly grown more progressive, as much as they're angry they lost their war. It might only take 5-10 years and eventually swing back, but it could also get worse, if their leaders become more extreme (strongman leaders often do get worse, as do religious extremists).

That's exactly how Professor Sean Wilentz put it on one of his podcast episodes. He referred to it as "the politics of the aggrieved" I believe, while tracing the literary and legal influences from then until now.

Trump is the embodiment of a culture that was willing to make that vote. Of the populace that was tricked by The Apprentice and The Art of the Deal. Of the media more concerned with engagement than information. He spent his lifetime curating the image that made him uniquely positioned for his role, even if he didn't expect to get it.

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