Hey friends— There are just 65 days left until this election but we plan to be here long after—contributing to the American experience in our small way. Come ride with us. This 20% off deal is ending Sunday and likely won’t be back around this year. We’d love to have you with us. And as always, if you want to join but can’t afford to, just email me and we’ll work something out. There’s no such thing as a family that excludes people because of money and our members understand that going in. On the Secret show today, Sarah and I talked about the Harris-Walz interview, more Conservatism Inc. stuff. And also about this Arlington Cemetery business. It’s a banger.
1. Thumbs UpWe go to cemeteries for all sorts of reasons. To pray. To honor the dead. To commune with the souls of the departed. Cemeteries are solemn places. We instinctively whisper when we visit them. You do not often see people smiling in cemeteries, though that does happen from time to time. But I have never seen someone give a thumbs-up over a grave. Until now.
My first thought was that this man is a ghoul. Because this wasn’t a one-off slip. He did it twice.
The fellow on the far right with the tight-lipped half-smile and his arms behind his back? That’s Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. Whatever you want to say about his participation in this stunt, at least he’s comporting himself like a normal human being. He’s not grinning like a salesman while giving a thumbs up over a grave. Who does that? I really want you to think about this for a minute. Do you know anyone in your life who would pose for a photo in a cemetery giving the thumbs-up? I do not. So the question is: What’s going on inside Trump’s mind here? What makes him do this? I think I have an answer. What strikes me about these pictures is how banal Trump’s pose and expression are. This is a man who has eagerly put himself forward to be photographed for more than 50 years and long ago settled on a standard move. That’s one trick famous people use. Another trick is pose-branding. Famous people sometimes adopt a specific pose to reinforce their personal brand. You may remember Miley Cyrus doing this with her tongue out. Well, Trump adopted skank-photographer/abuser Terry Richardson’s thumbs up as his go-to pose.¹ Things only get weird because Trump is pathologically oblivious to context. Let’s walk through a progression of photos. Here we have Trump thumbs-upping with Andy Gipson, a low-level pol in Mississippi. Which is a normal thing to do.
And here he is with Boris Johnson, a slightly more important pol.
It’s a little strange to do with a former head of state, but whatever. So far, so good. Now here Trump is doing the exact same thing with Kyle Rittenhouse. This gets sketchy because Rittenhouse’s celebrity derives entirely from the fact that he killed two people. And in the photo, Rittenhouse seems to know that he’s supposed to do something with his thumb, but he’s not sure what. It’s sad and a little pathetic.
You’ll note that Trump’s pose and facial expression in those three photos are identical. Now here’s another photo of Trump with the same grin and thumbs up.
Trump is the same even though the context is different. You may remember this picture (👆) because it was taken in August of 2019 following a mass shooting in El Paso. Trump was visiting victims of the shooting at the hospital. In this photo, his wife is holding a child who was orphaned by the killer. Trump is with an orphaned infant, but his pose is the same as when he’s with the wannabe Mississippi politician or the slack-jawed shooter. And it’s the same pose he pulled this week at Arlington National Cemetery.
Normal people are context-dependent. They behave differently depending on the situation. That’s because they feel differently in different contexts. Just as a for instance: A normal person would feel differently holding a baby who’d just lost his parents than he would when meeting a celebrity. But even when a person doesn’t experience feelings that are influenced by context, we understand that society has norms which require us to act differently in different contexts. So, for instance, you might not know anyone who is buried in a given cemetery, but when you walk into the cemetery, you intuitively understand that you should not act like you’re at a ballpark. For Trump, he is the context. In Donald Trump’s mind, he is the frame of reference that everything else enters. Trump isn’t meeting a kid who killed people, that kid is meeting him. Trump isn’t with an orphan. That baby is part of his photo op. Trump isn’t standing over a grave. The tombstone is a piece of his campaign for president. And that’s why, in every one of these pictures, Trump is wearing the exact same smile and giving the exact same thumbs-up. Because to Trump, there is no context but Trump. 2. You GuysUSA Today has a long piece about Ahmadullah Karimi. You guys saved his life. Ahmadullah was an Afghan interpreter who helped American soldiers during the war. He worked with—and became friends with—our buddy Will Selber . After the fall of Afghanistan, Ahmadullah and his family were on the run. Selber was doing everything he could to get them to America, and when he put the call out right here in this newsletter, you guys responded. You gave enough money to keep the Karimi family hidden and safe until their visas came through. Today, the rest of America is hearing Ahmadullah’s story:
Read the whole thing. That GoFundMe was you guys. You made this story possible. If we never do anything else at The Bulwark I’ll view this thing of ours as a success. Because it brought together this community and together you saved these four lives. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. And thank you, Will. For everything you’ve done and everything you will do in the coming years. You, sir, are a great American. 3. A Bad DayMy friend Matt Labash is also a great American. This essay of his will give you a lot of feelings.
Read the whole thing. Matt’s the best. 1 I’ll go the full Zoolander here and give Trump credit for originality. Terry Richardson’s thumbs-up pose is ironic and campy. Trump’s thumbs-up pose is post-camp: Yes, it’s fake. But Trump is pretending that it’s sincere. Look at photos of Trump with his normie fans and you often see the difference between his expression and the expression of people who are imitating him with utter sincerity because they’re not in on the joke. Those are some of the saddest pictures. You’re a free subscriber to Bulwark+. For unfettered access to all our newsletters and ad-free and member-only podcasts, become a paying subscriber. Did you know? You can update your newsletter preferences as often as you like. To update the list of newsletter or alerts you received from The Bulwark, click here.
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