THE BULLSHITTER
Trump often talks shit, which is to say, he makes unflattering comments about a person.
He's a prolific and colorful insulter (e.g., "loser," "low energy" [said of poor Jeb Bush, incessantly], "little Marco" [who now may bear the epithet for life]).** No less important, and perhaps equally insulting, he also often talks shit, which is to say, his speech product is messy and unrefined. It isn't carefully crafted, with attentive (or any) concern for detail. It's the very opposite of speechcraft, as part of statecraft. In his words, Trump experiences a certain laxity.
Trump is a particular sort of ass-clown showman. He's a major bullshitter, in the philosopher Harry Frankfurt's definition: someone who speaks without regard for the truth.*8 What he says is sometimes true. When it isn't, he often cares not, since that wasn't the point of his speaking in the first place. He's not deliberately asserting what he knows to be false, hoping to get others to believe what he knows is not true. He often just doesn't care, per se, about what is true and what is not. For the showman, all is pretense for entertainment rather than for deception, and, in the case of Trump, for elevating himself as the entertainer-and eventual Entertainer in Chief.
Being a bullshitter, or one who produces much bullshit, is essentially tied, in a speaker, with a certain state of mind. As philosopher G. A. Cohen explains, "The bull, conceal tually speaking, wears the trousers: bullshit is bullshit because it was produced by a bullshitter, or, at any rate, by someone who was bullshitting at the time."*) So Frankfurt gives the example of a Fourth of July orator who goes on bombastically about "our great and blessed country, whose Founding Fathers under divine guidance created a new beginning for mankind." This is "humbug" and/or bullshit. But the orator isn't lying about what he thinks is true. As Frankfurt explains, "What makes the Fourth of July oration humbug is not fundamentally that the speaker regards his statement as false.
Rather...the orator intends these statements to convey a certain impression of himself.
He's not trying to deceive anyone concerning American history. '
Men in the white working class tend to practice the "bull session," a gathering at which one or more of them hold forth about politics, the old days, or the failings of the president. As Frankfurt explains, "The participants try out various thoughts and attitudes in order to see how it feels to hear themselves saying such things and in order to discover how others respond, without it being assumed that they are committed to what they say." Here there's no pretense of truth telling. "The main point is to make possible a high level of candor and an experimental or adventuresome approach to the subjects under discussion."*'' So each participant could walk away nodding, so as to compliment the performance, but needn't have agreed with all or any of it. Maybe they really did agree, or maybe not. The point was just to reassure everyone that the proper authority still has its voice.
This authority performance isn't completely different from the professor's impromptu mini-lecture. A professor (such as myself) holds forth on a topic for longer than the ordinary flow of conversation permits, which others (e.g., my loved ones) must then sit through ("Oh man, here he goes again"). The goal of speaking is some sort of authoritative pronouncement on whether Wittgenstein's so-called "private language argument" is, or is not, really an argument, or some such. This is irritating to those who did not sign up for a lecture. Yet the goal is truth telling and not bullshit. The professorial speaker is sincerely hoping to represent both the truth and what he or she really believes.
Which is not to say there aren't real standards for a good or bad bull session perfor-mance. Merely spouting "hot air" won't cut it; you've got to say something good and authoritative sounding about the president or the legislature or the old days. Trump is especially admirable in this respect (his fans proclaim, "I was just saying that same shit yesterday!"). He has an uncanny instinct for giving voice to the vox populi, or at least that of a sizable segment of the populus (at least leaving aside younger people). Indeed, the master bullshitter can be so good at bullshitting that, like the banker who invests in his own Ponzi scheme, he may well believe the shit he's saying, at least for the moment.
He's so good that he eats it, with gusto and conviction, for the sake of dramatic perfor-mance. Trump is a master ass-clown entertainer because he seems oblivious to the difference between talking shit and talking carefully, with steady regard for the truth.
As in the Jackass series, this is a courageous kind of performance, and, for many, it shows the kind of bravado we need in government. Those politicians, as some put it, they think their shit don't stink. But not Trump-he's right there in it, neck deep, but still rich, golden brown, and pink faced and therefore not too good for us. He's not a total bullshitter, because he really does think doing better "deals" would cure many of our problems. And if zero-sum bargaining mostly isn't the solution, because policy for the general good isn't much like real estate, he's at least sincerely mistaken. Sure, he also bullshits like crazy, but it is his bullshit, and we all know this and so don't feel we're being had. Ultimately, he's both courageous and relatable, and in his own way glam-orous, at center stage of his own carnival. And so he gets richer (it's his brand) while distinguishing himself as one of our great showmen.'
Trump is a toxic blend of Barnum and bully. If you're a good mark, he's your best friend. But if you catch on to the con, then he starts to gaslight.
Ask him a question and he'll lie without batting an eye. Call him a liar and he'll declare himself "truthful to a fault." Confront him with contradictory evidence and he'll shrug and repeat the fib. Maybe he'll change the sub-ject. But he'll never change the lie.
She nails the asshole tactics, which work by inducing self-doubt. Call him out, and he'll double down on a false assertion or switch and deny he ever said differently, all with supreme confidence that weakens the cooperative person's sense of credibility. Did I perhaps not hear correctly? Could he have meant something different? Maybe he'll snap back quickly, upping the intensity, in order to intimidate with bluster. Yet the liar or con man knows what he's saying isn't true. Trump often isn't that careful. The bullshitter doesn't necessarily care about truth, about tracking it carefully.
Trump isn't necessarily good with facts (see: conspiracy theories, Obama's place of birth, "celebrating" Muslims in Jersey City). To Bill O'Reilly, when asked about plainly false figures concerning blacks and homicides, he replied, "Bill, am I going to check every statistic?" And he plainly stated to Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, "All I know is what's on the Internet." Yet even there he latches on to the bad information. For his driving concern is not responding to reality but winning, in a winning performance.
EXT NIGHT
It is raining hard. MUNNY is trying to mount his horse .
MUNNY
Whoa! Whoa, God damn! You no good pig fucking whore! Whoa!
(he finally gets on the horse)
Sorry old horse!
EXT NIGHT
It is still raining as MUNNY, NED, and KID ride towards Big Whiskey
NED
(holding up a bottle of whiskey)
I brung this along for when we have to kill them fellas.
Figure we could use some now.
MUNNY
Not me. I don't touch that stuff no more.
NED
Oh, come on, Will. It's raining
MUNNY
I know it's raining Give some to the kid, why don't you
NED
Do you think that kid really killed five men?
MUNNY
No.
NED
You know, when he was talking back there about the time
them deputies had the drop on you and Pete?
MUNNY
Yeah.
NED
Well, I remember it was three men you shot, Will, not two.
MUNNY
Well I ain't like that no more, Ned. I ain't no crazy killing fool?
NED
Still think it's going to be easy to kill them cowboys?
MUNNY
If we don't drown first.
EXT DAY
(LITTLE BILL is walking across the porch
of the sheriffs office towards a waiting wagon.)
LITTLE BILL
Give these keys to the conductor.
(hands keys to wagon driver)
Tell him he can loose old Bob's cuffs
as soon as he's outside The County.
DRIVER
Yep.
BOB
Got my pistols?
LITTLE BILL
(hands BOB a pistol with the barrel bent over)
I guess you know Bob that if I see you again I'm just going to
start shooting and figure it's self defense.
(BOB stares at LITTLE BILL as the wagon pulls away.
As it does so we see BEAUCHAMP standing in front
of the sheriffs office.)
LITTLE BILL
I didn't steal your biographer.
He's staying on his own account.
BOB
Well, he can go stuff himself as well, can't he.
(He begins to scream from the back of the wagon)
A plague on you! A plague on the whole stinking lot of you,
without morals or laws! You got no laws! You got no honor!
It's no wonder you all emigrated to America, because they wouldn't
have you in England! You're all a lot of savages, that's what you are.
A bunch of bloody savages! A plague on you. I'll be back!
(we see the women gathered on the porch watching BOB leave town)
ALICE
Nobody's gonna come.
Not after what Little Bill done to that Englishman.
SKINNY
Delilah, them tables ain't clean. Can't you get them clean?
Maybe if you'd cover up that face a little somebody might want to
hump with you and you wouldn't have to do all that cleaning.
(offhandedly)
What do you call them things you cover up your face with?
FAITH
A veil.
SKINNY
Yeah, a veil. Get a veil.
ALICE
Rains coming.
SKINNY
Thank God.
(The women file into the bar leaving ALICE on the porch.)
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