To
start with, we have Mr Trump’s part in this analogy:
Unlikely as it may sound, Mr Trump is like an
effective teacher whose lessons are memorable. Such a teacher got into a
red-brick university through clearing, and only scraped a 2:2, because he was
too busy dicking about. However, he knows enough to teach the curriculum and understands
the average child. An effective teacher knows that the average child can only
take in so much information in one lesson; he knows that an overloaded
curriculum is an impediment to a good education; and he teaches his lessons
accordingly. This means sticking to one or two points which he will elaborate
upon a little, return to again and again and again, and intersperse with
digressions in the form of eccentric red herrings – which may be true, a pack
of lies, improvised, well-rehearsed, funny, etc., and which make the lesson
compelling. And memorable.
In this analogy, the purpose of teacher (politician)
Trump’s lesson (campaign) is to teach his class (the undecided American voters)
two main points (1. His slogan: Make
America great again; 2. How he would like them to see his adversary: Crooked Hillary). He returns to these
two points again and again and again and again, so that his pupils remember them.
All the other stuff which teacher Trump says and does (build a wall, ban
Muslims, climate change is man-made because the Chinese invented it) belongs in
the realm of the red herring: these may be true, a pack of lies, improvised,
well-rehearsed, funny, surreal, etc., but they make the lesson (campaign)
compelling. And memorable.
Some of the other pupils in the school (in this
case, the Americans who have decided to vote for Mrs Clinton), have heard about
both his lesson and his red herrings, which they all agree are in very poor
taste and have bugger all to do with education (politics). They also really,
really hate the way that he takes the piss out of some of the pupils. These other
pupils often talk about teacher Trump as they play in the playground (post
videos about Trump on Facebook and Twitter, etc). While they may talk about his
dreadful red herrings with disapproval (click on angry face, etc.), they are
also, weirdly, able to articulate his lesson’s two main points at the drop of a
hat (Make America Great Again and Crooked Hillary).
So,
on to Mrs Clinton and her part in the analogy:
Mrs. Clinton is like a super-clever teacher, a
super-duper clever teacher, who knows
absolutely everything there is to know about her subject – apart from how to
teach it. Mrs Clinton went to a top university, got a First, and enjoyed her time there: she was so
clever that she could do both. By the way, her husband used to be the
Headteacher (the President of the USA), but the less said about that, the
better.
As alluded to above, super-duper clever teacher (politician)
does not always equal effective teacher, and teacher Clinton, while being a
super-duper clever teacher, with
experience as a Head of Department (Secretary of State) is also an ineffective,
or useless, teacher. Teacher Clinton wildly overestimates her own abilities as
a teacher, and likewise, she overestimates the interest levels and attention
spans of the pupils in her class (the undecided American voters we met earlier;
they are, after all, being courted by both Trump and Clinton, and you take more
than one class in school, as we all know). Thus, she overloads her lesson
(campaign) with a Gradgrind-esque nightmare of facts, facts, and more facts,
some further facts, additional facts, extra facts, new facts, a handful of
supplementary facts, a few more important-sounding facts, lots of relevant-looking
facty facts, and yet... more... fucking... facts (which are her slogans,
plural: 1. Hillary for America; 2. Fighting for Us; 3. I’m with Her; 4. Stronger
Together; and... How she would like these voters to see her adversary, which
is not encapsulated in one, overarching memorable image, but is, instead, a
total shower of shit: Mr Trump is dangerous;
he’s unprepared; he’s thin-skinned; he has no ideas; he’s a climate-change
denier; he’s a racist; he’s inexperienced; he’s temperamentally unfit.)
Her lessons go from one fact (slogan) to another (thing
about Trump) to another (slogan) to another (thing about Trump) to another (slogan)
before her pupils have had a chance to digest the last fact (about Trump) which
has just fallen out of her mouth, leaving them confused, uncertain and switched
off before she’s even walked into the classroom (their house, via TV and the
internet). In addition to this, some of the boys have become really pissed off
with teacher Clinton’s perceived favouritism of the girls. Not all of them, of
course (hmmm...).
Some of the other pupils in the school (in this
case, the Americans who have decided to vote for Mr Trump), have listened at
the door to teacher Clinton’s lesson. Although some of them can follow what
she’s saying, none of them can be bothered to do so and many of them furiously
join in with the conversations about teacher Trump as they lark about in the
playground (post videos about Trump on Facebook and Twitter, etc). They ignore
his red herrings and instead remind everyone about teacher Clinton’s time as
Head of Department (Benghazi, emails) and her husband’s time as Headteacher,
when he didn’t have an affair with someone who wasn’t his secretary. They are,
unsurprisingly, able to articulate his lesson’s two main points at the drop of
a hat (Make America Great Again and Crooked Hillary).
Now, there’s going to be a Student Council (the American
General Election) on November the 8th which will ask all of the
pupils in the school to decide who they think would make the better Headteacher
(President of the USA): Teacher Trump or Teacher Clinton? However, it is mainly
the pupils who sat in on Teacher Trump and Teacher Clinton’s classes (the
undecided American voters) who get to swing the decision one way or the other.
It is highly likely that almost all of these pupils will base their decision,
not on who was the smartest teacher, but on whose lesson was most memorable: teacher
Trump’s two-point lesson, or teacher Clinton’s Factful Encyclopaedia Trumpiana?
The School Council’s decision is very important because
it will determine who The School Governors appoint as their new Headteacher.
You can work out what last line means all by
yourself.
Happy
campaign following!
Background/context
to the analogy:
I recently had a conversation my father, who’s a
retired Deputy High Court Judge and therefore no slouch, about the current
American election campaign. “Trump’s talking about make America great again,” he said, which I took as my cue to
interrupt him.
“You know his campaign slogan, then?”
I had derailed His Honour’s train of thought.
“What? Oh... yes.”
“What about Mrs Clinton’s campaign slogan?”
“Errrrrm...” His
Hon. never normally says “Errrrrm...” and I knew he was a bit nonplussed. He
knew Trump’s campaign slogan but not Clinton’s? How was this possible?
I changed tack while Monsieur le Judge considered this.
“It’s interesting how
the Trump campaign has characterised Clinton, though, isn’t it?” I asked.
“What? As Crooked Hillary?” came the reply.
“That’s the one,” I
said. “With Clinton’s equivalent characterisation of Trump being.....?”
“Errrrrm...” He instantly
knew how Trump had been characterising Clinton but was not immediately certain
about how Clinton had been characterising Trump? Yet he had, to a certain
extent and albeit from a distance, been following the American election
campaign? What was going on?
While he sat there pondering his response, I jumped
in and started talking about the analogy which I had been constructing (this
had been my intention all along, devious bastard who loves the sound of his own
voice that I am). I hoped that my analogy might go some way to explaining his
respective knowledge/lack of
regarding the Trump/Clinton race - which I had assumed he would demonstrate (gotcha! Dad). It’s a flawed analogy, but I hope you
agree that it has its good points. Thanks for reading.
