The Highbrow and Lowbrow of the Trump Era

Summary

Matter of Opinion: The Highbrow and Lowbrow of the Trump Era
Release Date: December 6, 2024
Host/Authors: Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada

---

Introduction

In the December 6, 2024 episode of Matter of Opinion, hosts Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, and Carlos Lozada delve into the intricate relationship between politics and culture during the Trump era. Moving beyond their usual political discourse, the trio explores how Trump's resurgence has influenced various facets of American art, media, and societal narratives.

---

Cultural Artifacts Symbolizing the Trump Era

Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water

Ross Douthat initiates the discussion by highlighting Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (2017) as a quintessential cultural artifact of the early Trump era. He argues that the film embodies the "oppositional culture" that reacted against Trump's rise, portraying a coalition of marginalized identities standing against oppressive forces.

"This movie represents how Wokeness conceived of itself in the Trump era, as this kind of alliance of minority groups and identities united in defense against white male McCarthyite heteronormative patriarchy."
— Ross Douthat [05:09]

Carlos Lozada critiques the film's perceived didacticism, while Michelle Cottle interjects with practical frustrations, reflecting the podcast's dynamic interplay.

Yellowstone: A Red State Succession

Michelle Cottle counters Ross's highbrow example with the television series Yellowstone (2018), portraying it as a representation of traditional American values under threat from modernity and external forces. The show, centered on the Dutton family led by Kevin Costner, resonates with many for its themes of land, tradition, and resistance against change.

"It's a story of a ranching family whose traditions are besieged by progress, developers, and politicians. This resonates with many who feel left behind by modern America."
— Michelle Cottle [08:11]

Ross adds depth by discussing creator Taylor Sheridan's intentions to balance sympathetic portrayals of both cowboys and Native Americans, challenging simplistic interpretations of the show.

"Yellowstone contains complexities that help sustain and push Trumpism, balancing anti-establishment sentiments with nuanced characterizations."
— Ross Douthat [11:44]

---

Exploring White Fragility and Anti-Racism Narratives

Carlos Lozada shifts the conversation to literature, focusing on Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility (2018). He critiques the book for its "over simplicity" and self-defeating logic, suggesting it became a cultural touchstone of peak anti-racism discourse during the Trump era.

"Any dissent from white fragility as a concept is itself white fragility, creating a circular logic that sustains its dominance in cultural conversations."
— Carlos Lozada [15:01]

Michelle and Ross discuss the broader impact of such narratives, noting how they became status symbols and influenced various aspects of pop culture, including shifts in Disney's portrayal of villains and the nature of antagonistic forces in contemporary media.

---

Comparing Obama and Trump Era Cultures

The hosts examine the transition from Obama-era cultural optimism, exemplified by productions like Hamilton and Glee, to the more contentious Trump-era narratives. Ross points out the stark contrast between the inclusive representation in Hamilton and the divisive themes in Trump-era works.

"Hamilton represents a claim to American greatness by diverse actors, contrasting sharply with the reevaluated, often critical portrayals of American history during the Trump era."
— Ross Douthat [19:47]

Carlos adds that certain shows like Ozark reflect the era's complexity, though opinions on their alignment with Trumpism vary among the hosts.

---

Literature Reflecting Trump-Era Themes

Carlos Lozada highlights contemporary novels that encapsulate Trump-era sentiments without overt preaching. He mentions Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead and Percival Everett's Erasure, both of which explore themes of identity, race, and societal pressures in nuanced ways.

"These novels navigate the complexities of identity politics and societal expectations, mirroring the cultural tensions of the Trump era."
— Carlos Lozada [28:53]

Ross draws parallels to international authors like Michel Houellebecq, suggesting that while American literature grapples with Trumpism, it often lags in capturing its full essence compared to broader global perspectives.

---

Trump as the American Hustler Archetype

Ross introduces the concept of Trump embodying the quintessential American hustler, a shift from previous presidential archetypes like Reagan's more formal persona. This characterization aligns with a cultural fascination with celebrity and self-made personas.

"Trump is history, you know, in a golf cart. He embodies the spirit of the age, both a cause and an effect of cultural shifts."
— Ross Douthat [37:01]

Michelle concurs, emphasizing America's obsession with celebrity and how Trump's persona as a showman has reshaped perceptions of political leadership.

"He was a character before he was president. The reason he gets away with a lot is because people think of him first as a celebrity and a character."
— Michelle Cottle [36:36]

---

Culture Influencing Politics vs. Politics Influencing Culture

The discussion culminates in examining whether Trump is a cause or a reflection of cultural shifts. The hosts agree that Trump's persona is both a product and a driver of cultural changes, encapsulating the era's complexities.

"Trump is both a cause and effect at the same time. He is history, you know, in a golf cart."
— Ross Douthat [37:01]

Michelle beautifully summarizes this interplay, suggesting that Trump's existence and cultural embodiment are inseparable, influencing and being influenced by the prevailing societal ethos.

"He embodies the spirit of the age."
— Ross Douthat [37:08]

---

Hot & Cold Segment: Celebrating and Critiquing "Last Christmas"

In the episode's lighter segment, Hot & Cold, Michelle and Carlos discuss Wham!'s "Last Christmas," celebrating its nostalgic value while acknowledging its enduring cheesiness. Ross humorously reflects on the song's deep cultural implantation despite generational gaps.

"It's a testament to the song's success that it's so implanted in American culture that it feels like it has always existed."
— Ross Douthat [40:41]

The segment underscores the podcast's ability to balance serious cultural analysis with playful commentary, wrapping up the episode on a festive note.

---

Conclusion

The episode of Matter of Opinion offers a comprehensive exploration of how the Trump era has shaped and been shaped by American culture. Through discussions on film, literature, television, and music, the hosts illuminate the multifaceted interplay between political climates and cultural expressions, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of this transformative period.

---

Notable Quotes:

• "This movie represents how Wokeness conceived of itself in the Trump era, as this kind of alliance of minority groups and identities united in defense against white male McCarthyite heteronormative patriarchy."
  — Ross Douthat [05:09]

• "It's a story of a ranching family whose traditions are besieged by progress, developers, and politicians. This resonates with many who feel left behind by modern America."
  — Michelle Cottle [08:11]

• "Any dissent from white fragility as a concept is itself white fragility, creating a circular logic that sustains its dominance in cultural conversations."
  — Carlos Lozada [15:01]

• "Trump is both a cause and effect at the same time. He is history, you know, in a golf cart."
  — Ross Douthat [37:01]

• "He was a character before he was president. The reason he gets away with a lot is because people think of him first as a celebrity and a character."
  — Michelle Cottle [36:36]

---

Note: This summary intentionally omits advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections to focus solely on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

[US Bank Sponsor]

This podcast is supported by US Bank. At US bank, when they say they're in it with you, they mean it. Not just for the good stuff, the grand openings and celebrations, although those are pretty great, but for all the hard work it took to get there. Because together, they're proving day in and day out that there is nothing as powerful as the power of us. Visit us bank.com to get started today. =housing lender member FDIC hello, Carlos.

[Carlos Lozada]

Hello.

[Ross Douthat]

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

[Michelle Cottle]

Ross is extremely perky.

[Carlos Lozada]

That's all right. Thanksgiving is over. Yeah. On to Christmas, or as I call it, latinexmas.

[Michelle Cottle]

My trees are up. My house looks like Santa threw up in it, but it's awesome Already. Already.

[Carlos Lozada]

From New York Times opinion, I'm Carlos Lozada.

[Michelle Cottle]

I'm Michelle Cottle.

[Ross Douthat]

And I'm Ross Douthat.

[Carlos Lozada]

And this is matter of op, where thoughts are allowed.

[Michelle Cottle]

That pause gets longer and longer.

[Carlos Lozada]

That dramatic pause. I know. That's what. That's what I'm here for. So we have talked a lot in our recent conversations about the 2024 election, what a new Trump administration might bring, how the Democrats need to rebrand themselves, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, a lot about politics and policies and parties. Today we're going to do something a little bit different, and that is we're going to think about the relationship between politics and culture, in particular, how the Trump era is felt in our art and our ideas, the things we read and watch and consume. So I'm hoping we can start by examining a few cultural artifacts of the Trump era so far, especially now that that Trump era has officially been renewed and extended for a new season.

[Michelle Cottle]

A new season.

[Ross Douthat]

I mean, it's multiple seasons.

[Carlos Lozada]

I think it depends what you call a season.

[Ross Douthat]

I think a Trump term contains to.

[Carlos Lozada]

Everything there is a season. Ross.

[Ross Douthat]

Fair enough.

[Carlos Lozada]

All right, to start off, let's just get, like, very specific here. Is there a book, a movie, an album, a show, an artwork, an exhibit, anything that tu feels sort of perfectly symbolic of the Trump era so far. Ross, kick us off.

[Ross Douthat]

So my general view is that the Trump era to date, and especially in Trump's first term, was defined by a kind of oppositional culture where culture making was done sort of sometimes consciously, sometimes less consciously in reaction to Trump, against Trump, in the shadow of Trump, as opposed to, say, you know, in celebration of whatever changes Trump was ushering into American life. And that is framing for my choice of a representative Trump era work of art, which is Guillermo del Toro's movie, the Shape of Water, which came out in 2017, conveniently the first year of the first Trump presidency. And then it won Best picture in early 2018. And the shape of Water, for those who haven't seen it.

[Carlos Lozada]

I haven't seen it. Sorry, I've never seen it. The only Gamer Del Toro movie I've seen is Hellboy, which I loved.

[Ross Douthat]

That's the. Oh, you haven't.

[Carlos Lozada]

I guess I'm guessing this is different.

[Ross Douthat]

You haven't seen. Okay, well, we won't. We won't be. You're trying to sidetrack me into other game.

[Michelle Cottle]

Rabbit hole don't stay.

[Ross Douthat]

Let's stay with the Shape of Water, which is a movie about a mute woman played by Sally Hawkins, who works at a secret government laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland, in the early 1960s during the Cold War. Very significant time. And she is close friends with a closeted gay man who lives near her, a fellow cleaner at the laboratory who's African American, played by Octavia Spencer.

[Carlos Lozada]

What in the Sam Hill?

[US Bank Sponsor]

No.

[Michelle Cottle]

You boys mind putting the trash in the can? That's what it's there for.

[Ross Douthat]

And the plot of the movie is basically that the US military figure who runs the laboratory, who's played by Michael Shannon, who always plays either villains or people so tortured they might as well be villains. He brings home some exotic fish man creature taken from a South American river. And it's sort of a humanoid amphibian, intelligent, it can communicate in some ways. And our heroine, the mute janitorial worker, falls in love with it, with him. And then a sort of conflict ensues between her, we'll just say her intersectional coalition and the forces of white male McCarthyite heteronormative patriarchy embodied by Michael Shannon.

[Unknown Speaker]

What am I doing? Interviewing the fucking help the shit cleaners.

[Ross Douthat]

And so this is a movie about that, I think represents how Wokeness conceived of itself, how cultural progressivism conceived of itself in the Trump era, as this kind of alliance of minority groups and identities united in defense of a literal kidnapped South American. Like, I mean, it's a figure who represents the other with a capital O, right? And all pitted against the forces of white male reaction. And it's a Del Toro movie. It's very visually interesting. It is, I think, incredibly didactic and heavy handed and absurd in its kind of political statement making. But I think if you were going to pick a date certain where the kind of cultural reaction to Trumpism gets going in full on its way to becoming what we think of as Wokeness writ large, you could do worse than picking the Academy Award ceremony where the Shape of Water won Best Picture. There you have it.

[Carlos Lozada]

So this movie, to you embodies the kind of woke culture, anti white male slash resistance culture that embodied especially the early Trump first term.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah. And that this sense of sort of American history as itself a kind of nightmare story. Right. That was, you know, one of the many interpretations of Trump's original election was that this was sort of the return of the repressed racist darkness of the American past. Right. Sort of bursting into the open in the present. And so what was needed was a kind of reckoning with how we had lived with Trumpism all along. So this movie was the sort of Cold War version of that sort of primal American narrative that then also shows up obviously, sort of across lots and lots of other cultural projects and efforts in the subsequent years.

[Carlos Lozada]

I'm glad you got reckoning out of the way, Ross. That. That is an absolute must word for Trump era cultural products.

[Ross Douthat]

Yep. The idea that we're reckoning with the past, that got us to Trump.

[Carlos Lozada]

Michelle, how about you? Is it also a movie? What you got?

[Michelle Cottle]

So I totally take Ross point about a lot of the culture and a lot of the moments being a backlash or oppositional or whatever, but I'm disregarding all of that, and I'm gonna look in a totally different direction from Ross's fancy pants Fishman film, and we're gonna go with the good old Western macho Yellowstone TV series, of which. And Ross was a huge fan.

[Carlos Lozada]

I'm 0 for 2. I haven't seen this one either. Sorry.

[Michelle Cottle]

It aired in 2018, and it is basically the story of this Montana ranching family, and it stars Kevin Costner as the aging patriarch who owns a chunk of land in Montana. It's supposed to be about the size of Rhode island, and it's this kind of primal story of this family and their traditions being best beset by the forces of progress and rich developers and greedy politicians and just basically modernity. It's like all dogpiling on this cowboy culture in the middle of Montana.

[Ross Douthat]

You can't be here. It's private property.

[Carlos Lozada]

This is national park.

[Michelle Cottle]

That's national park.

[Ross Douthat]

This is the Dutton Ranch.

[Michelle Cottle]

So it's looking at kind of really basic American things like land and tradition and family and violence and bloodshed. So it's a little bit like a red state succession, which this is a comparison I like to make, because blue state America and especially journalists and media types love succession. And Yellowstone, almost nobody paid any attention to this, despite the fact that in the rest of America. Like, it's been one of the highest ranked shows. It has exponentially more viewers and people really, really kind of identify with a lot of these themes. And it seems very weird because it's this rich ranching family, but kind of beneath the surface you have this whole their lives and their values are under attack from outside and they feel like they're being left behind. And I think this resonates with a lot of folks in the kind of broader country, you know, even if the particulars are a little bit different. I mean, at one point, Costner's character runs for governor and he basically makes his announcement by saying, I'm the bore against progress.

[Carlos Lozada]

I am the opposite of progress. I'm the wall that it bashes against and I will not be the one who breaks.

[Michelle Cottle]

And so like his daughters ask what's killing Kevin Costner's character? And she basically says, the 21st century. It's very soap opera Y in this show, if you're trying to take somebody down, you're not doing it with a hostile corporate takeover. You basically grab liter somebody grabs a cooler full of rattlesnakes and throws it on their enemy. Yeah, you know, Old Testament vengeance. And it is great tv.

[Ross Douthat]

But so here's. I mean, what's fascinating about Yellowstone is everything you just described, Michelle. But then the further wrinkle is that the maker of the show, Taylor Sheridan, Taylor Sheridan has very loudly protested against sort of right wing Trumpy interpretations of his show. And I have a quote here from him talking about these things. He said, look, the show's talking about the displacement of Native Americans and the way Native American women were treated and about corporate greed and the gentrification of the west and land grabbing. That's a red state show. And the answer is yes, it is a red state show for all the reasons you describe. But it is also basically sympathetic to both the cowboys and the native Americans as against all subsequent claimants on the West. And then at the same time, obviously it sets up Costner's character as an antihero. Not just not a simple hero, a really hot sexy, but a really hot sexy one.

[Michelle Cottle]

Antihero you're pulling for. He's not Tony Soprano on some level.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, Tony. I mean, many people found Tony Soprano kind of attractive. I have been informed. Reliable sources. Anyway, all I'm saying is that the show contains within itself some of the complexities that help sustain and push Trump.

[Michelle Cottle]

And push Trump in those ways.

[Ross Douthat]

Maybe if you watch Yellowstone, you'll have a sense of why that might Be.

[Carlos Lozada]

I'm fulfilling my sort of, I guess, coastal journalist stereotype. I watched Succession. I did not watch Yellowstone. I've begun watching Ozark. Does that count? Does that get me any points?

[Ross Douthat]

I didn't really like Yushi.

[Michelle Cottle]

I didn't really like Ozark.

[Ross Douthat]

I didn't really like Ozark.

[Michelle Cottle]

Although I've been told I have to try it again.

[Carlos Lozada]

I love Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. Like, they're both so great.

[Ross Douthat]

They're very cool.

[Carlos Lozada]

I've watched the first two episodes of it so far.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay, all right, well, we'll talk about it later.

[Michelle Cottle]

Yeah, we'll go there. But just for cultural understanding purposes, Carlos, give Yellowstone a shot. It's totally soapy, but I love it.

[Carlos Lozada]

All right. No, no, no. Trust me. I grew up on soap operas. That is no problem for me. All right, I will play true to type again and choose a book as my pick.

[Ross Douthat]

A great American novel.

[Carlos Lozada]

No, not at all. The exact opposite. Terrible American nonfiction.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay.

[Carlos Lozada]

But anyway, there was a cluster of books that came out during the first Trump administration that became kind of a canon of contemporary explorations of race in America. And you had, like, between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates came out a little bit earlier. White Rage by Carol Anderson. The New York Times, a 1619 project, you know, first as a magazine, then as a book. How to Be an Anti Racist by Ibram Kendi. And I think I wrote about all of these myself when I was a book critic. But there was one book in this canon that sort of stood out for me for its just astonishing kind of over simplicity. And it's one that came out in 2018 and was a bestseller then, but became a real sensation two years later during the summer of 2020. And that is White Fragility by Robin Diangelo. And the premise of the book is that, first of all, white people are not individuals. They are sort of an undifferentiated racist collective right that is socialized to hate blackness and to institutionalize that prejudice in politics and culture and in business. Non white people are almost entirely powerless. They rarely exist except to give white Americans opportunities to kind of explore racial reality, to help them know when they're doing poorly or when they're doing better. Ross, I'll see your reckoning and raise you a do better, which was another sort of standard refrain of Trump era progressivism. What white fragility means is that once you reveal these realities to white people, they can't deal with it. They recoil and disgust. They can't cope with the Truth bombs you've just unleashed and their responses of anger and guilt and tears just kind of recenters their experience and thus reinstates kind of white hierarchy and control. Now, what I love is this why.

[Michelle Cottle]

There was that whole thing about what white women crying was like, a thing.

[Ross Douthat]

Yes.

[Carlos Lozada]

Well, this was part of it. This was absolutely part of it.

[Ross Douthat]

White women's tears and also the kind of the.

[Carlos Lozada]

Karen. But what's amazing to me about white fragility, if you actually read the book, I don't think a lot of people actually read it because it's very hard to read. But the logic of white fragility is irrefutable. Like any alternative perspective or counterargument is defeated by the concept itself. So, like, either white people admit their inherent and unending racism and vow to work on their white fragility, in which case D'Angelo was correct, or they resist those categorizations and question the interpretations, in which case they're engaging white fragility and only proving the point. Right. So any dissent from white fragility as a concept is itself white fragility. So that kind of circular logic, undisprovable, is how you get. How you get thought leaders and bestsellers. So I pick this book because to me, this was kind of peak anti racism peak, moral preening peak kind of reductive thinking in the Trump era. I don't want to, you know, use a broad brush on all these books that I mentioned. Like, I've, as I said, I've written about them. I find a lot to appreciate in many of them. But this one, to me just was astounding that it could achieve such success for the author, given the quality of the argumentation. And that is something that happened between 2018 and 2020 for this book.

[Michelle Cottle]

So that kind of perfectly speaks to Ross's kind of resistance culture thing.

[Carlos Lozada]

Yeah, it became kind of a status symbol the way politics people, like, have the power broker in their zoom background.

[Michelle Cottle]

Yeah.

[Carlos Lozada]

You know, like having white fragility on your coffee table was. Was kind of a sign that you were with it.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah. And this was obviously a part of Trump era culture that we as people who write about politics or review books about politics confronted sort of constantly in the second half of Trump's first term. I do think it is interesting how it does and doesn't sort of bleed out into movies, TV and so on. I'm interested in things like, you know, what happened to Disney movies, for instance, in the last five or 10 years where there was a shift from having actual villains like embodied villains like Scar or Ursula, the sea witch or the wicked queen in Snow White, to facing kind of miasmic entities that you were supposed to overcome. Like if you watch one of the Disney movies that came out during the pandemic, Raya and the Last Dragon, right. Which is set in sort of an alternate.

[Michelle Cottle]

See, my household has aged out of.

[Ross Douthat]

That, so I miss that Southeast Asia. Well, my household has not. And, you know, it's in a way, a classic Disney movie, but. Except the villain is literally this kind of mist that never sort of condenses into an active adversary. Or in the original Moana, there's a villain who's really just, you know, a good deity, a good island deity who's had her heart removed or even. I mean, Frozen 2. I almost picked Frozen 2 instead of the shape of water in Frozen 2. It's a Disney movie where the villain is the dead grandfather of Anna and Elsa who has dispossessed the native peoples of their lands. He's not even an active character. And again, there's sort of miasms and mists and these. These. Like, there really was a shift structural views of villainy in Disney movies in this period. So I find that really interesting, like how you can have these sort of theories of politics and social life and so on that manifest themselves in Robin D'Angelo or Ibram Kendi, but I think they end up influencing a pretty wide range of pop culture.

[Michelle Cottle]

Fascinating.

[Carlos Lozada]

So all the things that we've seized on here are sort of early to mid Trump first term, right? Except maybe the wider angle look at Disney films by Ross. But eras, whether in politics or in culture, are not always so neatly defined and cordoned off. For instance, what do you see as kind of the main differences or confluences between Obama era culture and Trump era culture? There was plenty of sort of identitarianism in Obama era culture, right? Think, Think Hamilton. Think Glee. Right. These were like enthusiastic visions of representation and identity. You know, how much is sort of a natural evolution and how much is a heartbreak.

[Ross Douthat]

I mean, I think there's a pretty jarring cut from the world of Hamilton to the world of Robin Diangelo or Abram Kendi. Right. And I think very clearly, Hamilton. Hamilton is about representation in which the represented groups, the, you know, black and Latino actors playing these parts, are laying claim to the greatness of the American tradition. And the idea is that, you know, the white founding fathers are actually universal figures. And very clearly that's not at all what you're getting in the interpretations of American history that are offered in the Trump.

[Carlos Lozada]

In fact, there was a Hamilton backlash afterwards. Right. Where sort of people looked back on it with a certain disdain.

[Ross Douthat]

Yes, people were, you know, this. Well, like the West Wing, which we discussed in a recent bonus episode. Hint, hint, listeners. Yeah. There was a kind of left wing critique of Hamilton as a neoliberal text. Right. Which it was in a way. You know, it's about the first treasury secretary, you know, the Wall street multiculturalism. Right. I think with some of the other things you mentioned, there's a little more of sort of a gradual transition. Like Glee, for instance, anticipates the shape of water in certain ways. Right. It's sort of like the cast of misfits and outsiders representing a sort of proto intersectional vision of high school coming together. But it in the end is a more. I think I have not watched Glee all the way to the end, but I believe it's a more fundamentally optimistic view of what intersectionality means than the later view where it's like you really have to crush the patriarchy. You really gotta do it.

[Michelle Cottle]

You know, I do think it's hard to parse out sometimes what is a reaction to versus kind of a harbinger of or something that goes hand in hand. Like Trump didn't bring about Yellowstone. I mean, like the themes in Yellowstone are themes that were playing out politically as well. So another thing that has struck me in recent years, which is kind of the merging of rap stars with country music like Post Malone and Chabuzzi and some of these other folks have joined forces or just moved over and done country music, which, you know, has always been in its own way kind of ultimate American music, but yet also increasingly has this very defiant, you know, middle finger to government and, and elites. And country music's been having a moment in the last few years anyway in terms of like its cultural influence. So I don't think that's because of Trump, but I do think that it is a little bit of like the dissatisfaction of very disparate groups with this kind of system and the way things are and they've come together in these really unusual ways.

[Carlos Lozada]

Michelle, I'm glad you brought that up because we're going to take a little break here. But when we come back, let's follow up on that and think about how culture in the Trump era might evolve.

[Unknown Speaker]

With over 1.5 million nonprofits in the US alone, it's hard to know which will make the biggest impact. GiveWell helps donors by analyzing independent studies and data to guide donations towards evidence backed life saving organizations worldwide. Over 100,000 donors have used GiveWell's research, collectively saving 200,000 lives and improving millions more. Make a tax deductible [e-mail] first time donors can have their donations matched up to $100 as long as matching funds last. Select Podcast and New York Times at checkout.

Think you've got customer loyalty locked down? What about the one in eight customers who will ditch your brand after just one bad experience? It happens even to the best brands. But here's the good news. Medallia has done the research so you can regain that customer and maybe even their loyalty. See the research and a treasure trove of other loyalty building [e-mail] NYT.

[Carlos Lozada]

Well, Michelle, you've moved us right along into starting to imagine what a sort of deeper Trump era culture might look like. As Ross said, so much of the early Trump era culture was oppositional. Certainly the example that I brought up of white fragility and that genre is in that vein. Now that Trump is here to stay, right? Now that there's really no such thing as a Biden era, right, do you expect to see popular culture that is friendlier to whether to him doing a goofy end zone dance or to kind of Trumpism more broadly?

[Ross Douthat]

Just to pick up on what Michelle was talking about before the break, I think you could make some kind of argument, right, that there is a kind of lower middle brow fusionist antiestablishment culture that without being sort of pro Trump in any kind of formal way, does represent something very different from the kind of oppositional culture we were talking about, which tended to be much more high middle brow, would be Oscar bait movies and so on. You've got, I think a lot of professional athletes are always somewhat right wing. That tended to be muted a bit when Trump was president and super unpopular. If Trump is more popular, I think professional athlete sympathies for Trump will become less muted. So that that I feel like that kind of range of pop music and sports and so on becoming a little less pious and a little more sort of Trump friendly is something that we're likely to see for a little while at least. I don't know if you get to a point where you can talk about something that is Trump culture the way we talk about Reagan era culture. Looking back, right, when you look back at the Reagan era, obviously there were lots of artists and intellectuals who hated Reagan and who made him a villain and treated him as a fascist. But there also was just this huge boom of patriotic action movies that we think of as sort of Reagan ish culture. And, I mean, we did have Top Maverick, which was a huge hit and maybe was, in a way, sort of itself a kind of foretaste of Trump's return. But I don't know how far that goes. I mean, part of the issue here, too, is that Hollywood is so uncreative right now, generally, that it's hard to even know what a big shift in the Hollywood zeitgeist would look like, because all they're doing is making sequels and reboots.

[Michelle Cottle]

Yeah. This year's Glicked is basically Gladiator 2 and a ripoff of a Broadway musical, so.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, at least nobody had filmed Wicked before. But I'm curious. I mean, Carlos, if I can ask you, like, what do you. You read more novels, I think, than either of us do right now combined. Even though I guess I'm allegedly publishing a novel, which I'm reading. But Carlos is not allegedly allegedly, in fact. And truth, Carlos, are there sort of highbrow sources of culture in America right now? Not even highbrow, just like literary sources of culture in America right now that really matter. Like, were there novels of Trumpism, of the Trump era?

[Carlos Lozada]

You know, I'll mention a couple. One that I actually just read, like, during Thanksgiving weekend. First, you know Barbara Kingsolver's demon Copperhead, which was fantastic. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I thought it was great. It's a retelling of David Copperfield by Mr. Charles Dickens, but it was set in sort of opioid crisis Appalachia. And that, to me, feels like a novel of the Trump era in its substance without being overly preachy. And I say that in every sense of preachy. It sort of, like, skips over religion, and its politics are not as overt as. At least I didn't think they were as overt as some might say. The one that I think is very telling, it's a novel that came out in 2001, but the movie just came out last year. The novel was Erasure by Percival Everett, and the movie was American fiction. I strongly recommend.

[Michelle Cottle]

That's a great movie.

[Carlos Lozada]

Both versions of this story. And the premise is you have a black novelist approaching middle age, you know, fixated on writing stories on, like, you know, American retellings of Greek dramas. Right. And they are respectfully reviewed but don't sell. And in the meantime, he sees a quote, unquote black novel wheeze lives in da ghetto that just completely overdoes every trope of, like, a black underclass life and becomes a raging success. And he's so resentful of this. He's so pissed off that he writes his own version of a quote unquote black novel, right? His agent kept telling him, like, hey, you know, they kind of want a blacker novel than the stuff you write. So he wrote the like ultimate cliched, stereotypical black novel. It's called My Pathology with an F.

[Michelle Cottle]

Mr. Lee, is this, is this based on your actual life?

[Carlos Lozada]

Yeah. You think some bitch ass college boy can come up with that shit?

[Michelle Cottle]

No, no, no, I don't.

[Carlos Lozada]

And of course, you know, the problem is it becomes a huge hit and, you know, he has to decide whether he's going to kind of live with that success or try to step away from it. So it's, you know, it's winking at you. But I think it's a really good movie and novel for right now because it gets to this question that the left, the Democrats are facing, which is like, how deep do you go into identity politics as a kind of raison d'etre of what your party is about that seems to have been a failure in this last election. And this novel creates a caricature of kind of the deepest version of that. So I would point to Erasure, even though it was published 20 plus years ago. And I would point to Demon Copperhead as kind of novels of the era, but I think it's way too early. I think the best novels about a period, especially a political period, take years or decades to actually come to fruition.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, or, or to your point about the, about erasure being 20 years old or they're written as prophecies, right? I mean, I think the key novelist of populism as a broad phenomenon or populism and like late liberal exhaustion in the Western world is the French novelist Michel Welbeck, right. Who starts writing his books 20 odd years ago, long ago. And he's anticipating, you know, male, female alienation, the rise of incels, the Internet and pornography as sort of these deranging influences. And he sort of works his way around to doing a novel about, you know, an Islamic takeover of France. But ultimately, like the core of his work is about the kind of social relations in the age of the Internet and the sexual revolution that gave us this moment. But he starts writing about it long before Trump or anyone else sort of comes on the scene.

[Carlos Lozada]

Even the American novels that people turned to early on in the Trump era were things like Philip Roth's plot against America and Sinclair Lewis. It can't happen here. Which was not necessarily the Best work of either of the two or the Handmaid's Tale.

[Ross Douthat]

But these were sort of, don't forget Margaret Atwood.

[Michelle Cottle]

Speaking of subtle.

[Carlos Lozada]

I can't forget. I can't forget. Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Here's another question for you guys. I feel like one way to look at the shift that has, if we can use the term, normalized Trump, and that certainly made it possible for a lot of people who didn't vote for him in 2016 to vote for him in 2024, has in part maybe been a shift from the Trump archetype being sort of dictator to the Trump archetype being hustler. I feel like a lot of the stuff, again, what you were talking about before Michelle, with rap and country music and these kind of things, like, I mean, Trump contains multitudes, Right. But one thing he is, is a kind of all American hustler. And I don't mean that as a pejorative. Right. Like that, that is a powerful archetype in American life that has a tremendous appeal across racial lines, American hust. And that I wonder if, you know, and it's different from the Reagan era. Reagan, whatever he was, was not a hustler. That wasn't his vibe. So it made sense that sort of the Reagan era in its peak, produced movies about, you know, muscled up American he men defeating communists. Right. But I feel like we'll know that the, that we're in a sort of Trump friendly pop cultural era. If we get a bunch of movies about hustlers maybe or a bunch of novels or TV shows or something that are sort of mildly celebratory in the, you know, in the way of like the Sting or, you know, movies of that vintage. I don't know. That's just a thought.

[Michelle Cottle]

If Trump had not been born wildly wealthy and entitled, he would have been like the Leonardo DiCaprio figure in Wolf of Wall street selling penny stock out of a strip mall at the beginning of the show, he would have just been hustling his way along those lines. So I can see that.

[Carlos Lozada]

You know, I was at the Miami Book Fair last month and I did an event with Max Boot, who has just published a big biography of Ronald Reagan, which the Times just named one of its 10 best books of the year. And he said something that really stuck with me. He said that one time Reagan was asked, you know, how an actor could be president, and that Reagan responded with something like, how could you be president if you aren't an actor? Right. That so much of the role is, in fact, a role that you make Yourself a character in popular culture. And Trump absolutely did that with the Apprentice. I mean, I'm hardly the first to ever say this, right. But there's, you know, I am in the camp that believes that there is no Trump presidency without the Apprentice and without the role that Trump played as that character. And when you talk about the hustle, Ross, I think the big moment, not Apprentice Trump, but real life Trump, that captures to me a lot of that is the debate he was having with Hillary Clinton when she accused him of not paying taxes. And what did he say? He said, that makes me smart. And that to me captures a lot of the kind of meaning of Trump as hustler in American life. Let me ask you one last question quickly here. It's been said and disputed that politics is downstream of culture. Right. The culture shifts first, and it seeps into our politics. How do you see that in terms of the Trump era? Is Trump more a cause or a consequence of our cultural shifts?

[Michelle Cottle]

Oh, I think he's a reflection of it. I mean, what does America worship? America worships celebrity. America worships money. He was a character before he was president. And the reason he gets away with a lot of things that he does that politicians, normal politicians can't get away with is because people think of him first as a celebrity and a character. And so he gets judged by very different standards. He's a showman above all else. And I do, like, Let me be clear. I'm one of these people who thinks that the showmanship aspects of the presidency are often downplayed by pointy head folks like us. I mean, I do think that Reagan was right to some degree. You can't do the job unless you have a kind of presence and are able to telegraph presidentialness, so to speak. So, yeah, I mean, all about that.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah. I mean, I've already written this, but I think that Hegel was right and that some. Some.

[Michelle Cottle]

That's not pointy headed.

[Ross Douthat]

It's not pointy headed at all. Everyone loves Hegel. Some. There are some eras in history where a figure, you know, is just embodies the spirit of the age. So I don't think you can separate Trump. It's. It's both. He's cause and effect at the same time. He is history, you know, in a golf cart. Right.

[Michelle Cottle]

That is beautiful, Ross. That is so beautiful.

[Ross Douthat]

I'm pretty sure I'm stealing that from someone on Twitter. So I apologize for the plagiarism.

[Michelle Cottle]

They go at you, they'll at you.

[Carlos Lozada]

All right. The douthat phenomenology that's great. We'll end that discussion there. When we come back, we're gonna get hot and cold.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's another wild weeknight, so you pick an easy New York Times cooking sheet pan recipe. But when you open the pantry, no onions. And as usual, somehow you're low on olive oil. With Instacart. There's another way where quality ingredients don't require a road trip, where the contents of your pantry don't define your meal, where you can click shop ingredients on Instacart on New York Times cooking recipes for delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Learn more at nytcooking.com Instacart that's nytcooking.com.

[US Bank Sponsor]

InstaCart this podcast is supported by Carvana. With Carvana Value Tracker, you can track your car's value anytime, anywhere. If you want to know what your car is worth, Carvana Value Tracker analyzes your car's make, model, condition, market, and more to give you the value for your vehicle. Carvana will even let you know when your car's value changes with update emails, so you're always up to date. However you value your car, know its worth with Carvana Value Tracker.

[Carlos Lozada]

All right, it is time for hot, cold, and you all know what that is, so go ahead. Who's got it today?

[Michelle Cottle]

I got it. I got it. Tis the holiday season, so I'm gonna be both hot and cold, which is not the same thing as Warren on the enduring holiday phenomenon that is wham's last Christmas.

[Carlos Lozada]

What?

[Michelle Cottle]

This year it happens to be celebrating its 40th anniversary. New releases, a lot of publicity. Well, first, I'm cold on it because for those of you of my generation, you know that it is like the ultimate cheesy 80s pop song. And here I want to just play a little snippet for those. For those who want to remember it.

[Carlos Lozada]

Oh, my God.

[Michelle Cottle]

Walk with me.

[Carlos Lozada]

Last Christmas I gave you my heart first the very next day you gave away.

[Michelle Cottle]

So I think we can all agree that musically, it's a little bit cheesy, but as a true Gen Xer, I am red hot on the nostalgia value. And I'm always fascinated by what pieces of my kind of youth wind up enduring. And very few have done as well as this one. I think there's like something like 5 billion downloads. And, you know, on social media, there was something called Whamageddon where the kids were like, whoever goes the longest during the season without hearing the song one. And so, like, you know, you'd be in a department store and it would come on and the kids would freak out, and then they would all be out of the game. They have movies named after it. I just.

[Ross Douthat]

It's magic, I will say, you know, as a very late Gen Xer, so I was, you know, like three years. Three years old. I'm always trying to horn in. But it's a testament to the song's success that it's sort of implantation in American culture that for a long time, I couldn't have even told you that Wham. You know, created it. It just seemed like it had always existed as an artifact.

[Michelle Cottle]

In the beginning, there was Wham.

[Ross Douthat]

In the beginning, there was George Michael. But I. You know, it's just. To me, it just is.

[Michelle Cottle]

Carlos, do you even know the song? You seem confused.

[Carlos Lozada]

I know the song. I know the song. I kind of fell asleep while you were playing it.

[Michelle Cottle]

Oh, my God.

[Carlos Lozada]

I'm kidding. Yeah. No, no. Just so I can say, you have to wake me up before you go. Go.

[Michelle Cottle]

No.

[Carlos Lozada]

Yeah. I knew Wham. I knew it. I remember it. I was alive in the 80s.

[Ross Douthat]

Congratulations.

[Carlos Lozada]

In your honor, I will play it. I will hear the whole damn thing. Lovely to see you guys. And hey, Merry Christmas, happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate. Amen to you, Holly, jolly.

[Ross Douthat]

Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls. Merry Christmas, guys.

[Carlos Lozada]

Thanks as always for joining our conversation. Give Matter of Opinion a follow on your favorite podcast app and leave us a nice review while you're there to let other folks know why they should be listening along. You can always reach us by [e-mail] or voicemail by calling 212-556-7440. Matter of opinion is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Andrea Betanzos. It's edited by Jordana Hochman. Our fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carol Sabaro, Amin Sahota and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Pat McCusker and Carol Savarow. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie Rose Strasser.

[US Cellular Sponsor]

Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cellular. Your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month US Cellular built for us.