Queen Trump

Why campness does not bother the Trump camp

Would one of you queens get the queen a tea?

-Supposedly said by Queen Elizabeth II to her servants

Trump is camp, so much that were it not for his various lusty exploits, I’d think he might be secretly gay. Trump’s supporters are, for the most part, not camp. Moreover, they do not usually seek out camp friends. If they have gay friends, they are thankful their friend not among the camp ones. Why do Trump’s supporters love this man who cannot stop playing the YMCA, dancing on stage and gossiping about Bette Midler, Kristen Stewart and Anna Wintour? Being gay myself, I am somewhat flabbergasted- can’t they see that he is capital C Camp? Of course they can, but they have their reasons for accepting it.

The simplest part of the explanation is that it’s entertaining.

But I think there is another mechanism deeper in the mind. Part of the attraction of aristocrats has always been that they are different. The true lover of aristocracy loves them because, while human, they are qualitatively different from oneself. They are a bridge between humanity and the divine. The true, in-their-bones conservative is not a temporarily embarrassed elite, they are someone who wants to be ruled by one qualitatively superior to themselves. The aristocrat is meant to have different habits, different virtues to cultivate and indeed, different vices to wrestle with (or discreetly indulge) than the hoi polloi. Consider the idea of royalty contained in the princess and the pea- for a princess, complaining about the slightest nuisance is supposed to be not irritating but charming and indeed qualifying.

And, for these reasons and probably others aristocracy has always been camp. Campness can be used to mark oneself out with a subtle air of alienness, while staying stylish and avoiding the uncanny valley. It is thus indispensable for aristocrats whose doom is close by if they are ever seen as too human. The colours, the fashions, the pomp and ceremony, the endless diversions, the gossipiness, the unloved spouses married for social reasons- all supremely camp and this is not even to mention the frequent gay sex that has always followed aristocracy. This sense of campness (and sometimes bona fide boning) coming from aristocracy was part of the reason early communists were often opposed to homosexuality. Today the closest thing to aristocrats in America is not, in the main, politicians, but Hollywood actors, and it’s hardly any secret that an unusually large portion of celebrities and their close associates are gay, bi or flexibly heterosexual.

Why do ordinary conservatives reject campness in the abstract, but accept it from those they see as their betters? Part of the conservative objection to campness among ordinary people has always been in part that it involves putting on airs- that it is queeny in a most literal sense. Perhaps then conservatives appreciate Trump’s campness for the exact same reason they would ill tolerate it from their family or acquaintances- it is the proper aspect of one who stands above them, not the proper aspect for the sort of person they interact with.

The contempt Trump feels towards his own supporters – at least of the sort that attends his rallies- is also part of the attraction to those very supporters. This is because the love of aristocracy is, in part, masochist love. It is a desire to be in a world where people are more fully human than you.

But It’s not just a fantasy of masochism - it’s also fantasy of exaltation- If there are people who are more fully human than you that means you can be vindicated and exalted by them- infinitely more meaningful than being vindicated by a mere peer. If they do not vindicate you individually, they might at least vindicate you collectively by speaking of the greatness of one’s country and of people like yourself.

There certainly are differences between Trumpian and classical Aristocratic campness. Trump plays up campness to an unusual (though not unprecedented) degree compared to other aristocrats and would be aristocrats. Additionally, he leans more on the jester and provocateur aspects of campness than is usual for aristocracy because it’s a rough attention economy and you’ve got to fight for each news slot.

The good news is that Trump’s campness makes succession planning difficult. No one he has bought into his inner circle has the same attributes, meaning any replacement for Trump would need to find their own aesthetic on which to build a cult of personality. Trump greatly fears being upstaged, and haven’t we all read that story before?

I find it all sad. A better kind of camp is possible. A kind of camp that dreams of liberating everyone. A kind of camp that makes a flamboyance of kindness. A camp that rebels against tyranny and for a community of humans. A camp that faces martyrdom. A camp that loves and would remake the world in the image of love. The campness contained in the famous scene of the martyrdom of St Sebastian. A campness of fiery and all-creating longing - political, ethical and romantic desire- rather than of contempt and superiority. A campness that doesn’t want to be part of any aristocracy except an aristocracy of all sapience. The ruling mood of a Blakean-transhuman commonwealth devoutly to be wished for.

I spend many hours a week on by blog, which I make available free for all. I do not have a lot of money and would appreciate if you shared my blog and/or became a paid subscriber.