An Alternative Explanation for "Sanewashing"
Iâve identified a certain fallacy endemic among journalists covering Donald Trump that Iâm calling the Arbogast Fallacy, after a character in Alfred Hitchcockâs Psycho.
Iâm always fascinated to read or hear political commentators discussing Trumpâs contradictory statements and erratic behavior; thereâs always something left conspicuously unsaid in their analyses. Officially, they treat as an insoluble mystery the question of why he acts in ways that seem self-defeatingâforfeiting the political center, alienating his electorate, undermining his own partyâs agenda and their chances in the midterms. Why wonât he just stick to his talking points and focus on âaffordabilityâ? Why did he abruptly cancel a photo-op that would give his party a desperately needed boost? Why would he attack Iran for no clear reason, with no clear plan? They affect to be stumped by this perverse, stubborn, self-sabotaging behavior, or else leave the question of his motives and intentions eloquently blank.
In Psycho [and if you havenât seen Psycho, you should see Psycho] [and if you donât know the plot of Psycho, you should stop reading this right now], the characters all act as though they think theyâre in a film noir (and Psycho is considered the end of the noir cycle by some film scholars)âtrying to suss out one anotherâs motives, unravel their schemes, solve the mystery. When Janet Leighâs character, Marion Crane, disappears, her sister hires a detective named Arbogast (Martin Balsam), who assumes sheâs absconded with the cash she embezzled to elope with her fiancee; later he starts to suspect that this squirrelly kid Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is in cahoots with her, or maybe even offed her to take the money himself; after Arbogast goes missing, too, the sister figures he mustâve found her and blackmailed her for a cut of the loot.
None of them can comprehend or begin to imagine whatâs actually happening, because they have no way of knowing that theyâre not in a noir at all; theyâre in the first modern horror film, whose villain kills for no rational reason at all. A psychologist gives a convoluted and dodgy psychosexual explanation in the movieâs denouement thatâs belied by the filmâs last shot, of the murdererâs grinning face dissolving into the rictus of a deathâs head. He wasnât some venal schemer, or tortured by repressed Oedipal urges; heâs what horror fans now call a slasherâa monster, an incarnation of Death.
This same sort of twist is the basic engine of most jokes and riddles: the setup (âWhat looks like half a piece of cheese?â) challenges you to solve a puzzle; the solution (âThe other half!â) is so obvious and stupid that it makes you feel stupid for having tried to overthink some clever answer. And this, essentially, is the fallacy that so many editorialists, pundits, and talking heads fall prey to in discussing the monster whoâs now President.
If youâre writing an op-ed or political analysis, or appearing as a guest on a podcast or discussion panel, you feel a professional obligation to try to come up with a novel insight, a âhot takeââideally, something smarter than whatever all the other smart writers and speakers are saying that day. Something other than the obvious.
The problem is, the object of so much of that labored ideation, Donald Trump, is obvious. He is not a complex figure of Nixonian contradictions. There are no depths to plumb; his biographers are going to have to pad out their books with a lot of background information and photo sections. He does not engage in subtle Machiavellian maneuvering; the only moves he knows are the playground rudiments: brag. Deny. Bully. Bribe. Thereâs nothing there for a smart person to figure out; theyâre writing think pieces about a guy who doesnât. His operating principles, the only rules you need to remember to understand absolutely everything he does, are simple:
1. He is a very stupid person who has never read or learned or ever been really interested in anything that didnât directly benefit him, and (not unrelated)
2. he genuinely doesnât give a shit about anything other than himselfânot his voters or his party or his allies in congress or his âfriendsâ/business associates or his own family. I have no doubt he would sell his daughter to a Saudi prince if he could negotiate a good price.
He also does not have what you could call a hidden agenda. His goals are as crude and basic as a flatwormâs. He wants:
a.) to make as much money as possible in any way he can
b.) have everyone pay attention to him all the time
andâincreasingly a priority the last few yearsâ
c.) stay out of prison.š
(His conspicuous cognitive decline complicates all of the above, but it doesnât alter the fundamental principles at work.)
The fallacyâs derivation notwithstanding, Iâm not arguing that Donald Trump is psychotic; heâs not that interesting. He has the conscience of a toddler and the ethics of a tick but he isnât mentally ill. Heâs just a soft, spoiled, weak, mean rich kid who no oneâs ever said no to and no oneâs ever loved. He inhabits a sterile inner landscape of panicky, fragile vanity and unappeasable, suppurating resentment.
Every day we see people who got advanced degrees in poly sci or economics from Ivy League universities or made names for themselves as political analysts or consultants for previous Presidential administrations struggling to explain his erratic actions and the conflicting signals emerging from the White House, talking around the insoluble mystery of his motives. But the whole mystery evaporates once youâve accepted the above principles.
https://open.substack.com/pub/timkreider/p/the-arbogast-fallacy?r=2j4ob&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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