Every person in the political punditry world has their own theory about why Donald Trump has defied all expectations and remained at the top of the race. My own belief is that Trump is the latest exponent of a political ideology I call “Daveism” — even if Trump himself doesn’t know it.
Daveism is a variation of one of the most popular and enduring themes in politics, which can be summed up in four words: “Throw the bums out!” It is a simple, powerful appeal to tribalism: Things are bad because bad people are in charge. If we could get good people — that is, people loyal to “us”, not “them” — then things would be better.
Daveism goes beyond that, though, by arguing that if we threw the bums out, things wouldn’t just get better, they could be fixed entirely. Daveism holds that our political problems are all actually simple, except that those in control refuse to fix them out of cowardice, self-interest or the malign influence of special interests, you name it. All we have to do to change this state of affairs is to elect the right person or persons — ideally someone rich with common sense and unpolluted by knowledge of Washington.
The ideology takes its name from the 1993 film “Dave,” a political comedy starring Kevin Kline. Though it has largely faded from memory today, it was a “feel-good” hit at the time and popular with critics as well.
Kline stars as a nice guy, ordinary Joe-type named Dave who happens to be a dead ringer for the president (also Kline in a dual role). He’s hired by the president’s devious chief of staff to double for the chief executive at a photo op event — unbeknownst to Dave he’s actually helping to cover for the president’s affair.
But then the real president suffers a stroke while with his mistress and slips into a coma. The chief of staff convinces Dave to continue to “be” the president. Dave then proceeds to fix the nation’s budget and end unemployment, all within a few days. With the country’s biggest problems resolved, he pulls a switcheroo with the real president’s body, allowing him to “die” and Dave to return to his regular life.
The film’s premise is that Dave can solve the nation’s biggest problems not because he is a political genius or especially persuasive but because he is a decent guy not beholden to anyone and with no apparent ideology of his own other than an earnest desire to do the right thing.
Though it is generally described as an upbeat, light-hearted satire, the message at the heart of the film is a deeply cynical one: The reason why things are messed up in Washington is because the politicians do not really care enough to fix them.
No one would confuse the proudly obnoxious Donald Trump with the sweet-natured protagonist in “Dave,” but Trump’s message hits those same general themes. Your leaders have let you down. They have promised to fix things and they have not. I will and I can because I am not afraid to do it and don’t have any allegiance to any organization that would prevent me, including my own political party or my fellow billionaires.
On immigration, Trump says we can build the wall and we can expel the immigrants here by simply ending birthright citizenship. That the latter was widely derided as an outrageously radical position only underscored how he was not beholden to any conventional notion of what is feasible.
On Iran, he says bluntly that the administration settled for too little because they were eager for a deal. He, a proven negotiator in the area of business, would do better. He makes the same argument on trade deals.
He can restore the economy because as a billionaire businessman he understands it better. How, he asks rhetorically, could he have gotten so rich if he didn’t?
When in the last debate he was confronted with the fact that several of his enterprises have gone through bankruptcy, Trump didn’t deny it. He owned it, making “no apology” for having used the nation’s bankruptcy laws for his own enrichment. He even argued he would be similarly clever as president.
Daveism explains how Trump can get away with his numerous apostasies from the party platform and conservative dogma: He’s a truly free agent, fighting the right-wing establishment as much as he is the Left. He appeals to the Republican rank and files’ frustrations with their own leadership and the lack of progress on the conservative agenda. The fact that the GOP establishment and conservative institutions like the National Review oppose him merely proves his outsider status.
In this, he is aided, albeit unintentionally, by the activist Right. Ever since the GOP revolution of the 1990s sputtered out, and especially since President Obama took office, conservative activists have been eager to turn on their own for betraying the movement. Talk radio and websites regularly claim the establishment is eager to sell the right out. People like Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, once conservative heroes, have been subject to attempts from the Right to oust them. In Cantor’s case, they succeeded.
What does Trump do but take this anti-establishment fervor to its logical conclusion by lumping in his conservative naysayers with the Republican establishment? If so many of the Right’s supposed allies are really quislings, why not the rest? Why not the ones standing in the way of the one guy, Trump, who can fix things?
There is a lot Daveism in Bernie Sanders too. His message is that the entirety of our politics is corrupted by the wealth of Wall Street. If Washington could be freed of them then everything could be fixed through things like setting a $15 minimum wage. This echoes a key plot point in the movie when Dave proposes a law guaranteeing employment to anyone who wants it. In both cases, whether such a policy would work as intended rather than wrecking the economy is blithely ignored.
The problem with Daveism is that it is fundamentally naive. Politics, especially little “d” democratic politics, are complicated and messy. Yes, there are special interests that pull the debate one way or the other, sometimes for rank, self-serving reasons. But one person’s rank, self-serving reason is another person’s enlightened self-interest. People will forever disagree over which is which.
Is a trade bill good or bad if it hurts one industry but helps another? Is a regulation that helps the environment but puts some businesses into bankruptcy worth it? What is the “correct” immigration policy and who gets to decide? Our political problems are difficult and divisive because they are. … well, difficult and divisive.
Of course, nobody wants to hear that. And candidates who convincingly say they can make things better win political campaigns, whether they can follow through on that promise or not.
Sean Higgins is a Senior Writer for the Washington Examiner. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
