Donald Trump is a master of transactional relationships. For Trump, every relationship is based on, I have this to give and what do you have to give me in return. There is no real grounding for any of his relationships. Instead of a real grounding, there is this notion that Trump demands absolute loyalty from his followers in return for a vague, pseudo, mafia-flavored protection, and if a person does something that Trump perceives as a betrayal, he hammers down very hard on that person and his life situation. So, Trump perceives himself as, in effect, being a kind of surrogate grounding for all the people who participate in his cult.
In a modern technological world, where people are living in an experiential vacuum, where they don’t really bond with their surroundings but instead hover over them, Trump provides a surrogate grounding (surrogate, because one person can’t really be a substitute for a whole organic living environment and furthermore, trying to bond with Trump and trying to ground oneself along with his group of followers is like trying to ride a bucking bronco). The very same trait that allows him to be such an appealing pseudo-template for his followers – namely his ability to constantly shock with his ongoing changes in his attitudes and opinions and, at the same time, drawing people together to withstand the shock – is the one that constantly paradoxically pushes him away from some of his followers periodically and back into a vacuum. And this is because sometimes, when he decides to make a decision, it can be so shocking and abrasive that it pushes some of his followers off of his bucking backside, as it were, temporarily. Even some of his Maga followers in Congress have reservations about some of his picks for his cabinet. So, they will express their concerns to Trump and perhaps vote against his candidates when it comes up for a vote in Congress. But there is always the concern among House members and senators about how many times they can do this before the bucking bronco knocks them off his backside and metaphorically comes back over and tries to trample them to death. Namely, what happens when Trump decides to break himself out of his bond with the dissenter and primaries another candidate for the dissenter’s position, the next time the position is up for re-election. In this situation, unlike real bronco riders, who have other cowboys around to help save them from being physically harmed, these metaphorical bronco riders frequently have no one to get them safely out of the arena in order to be able to live and ride another day. Look at what happened to Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Or even, to a lesser extent, Senator Lisa Murkowski who ultimately won her most recent election as an independent.
So, what is it that’s missing from a purely transactional relationship? For one thing, an internalized sense of morality that exists apart from the rules of conduct. Rules do not cover all possible contingencies relating to a transaction. If a twist occurs in a given transaction that is not covered by the rules, one or more participants in the transaction can carry out an immoral aspect without feeling guilty. For people involved in a purely transactional relationship, unless something is spelled out within a purely transactional relationship as being immoral, all sorts of immoral twists can be added to the actions carried out within the relationship, and the person or persons who carry out these actions with immoral twists don’t have to feel immoral at all.
Even commercial relationships, which are highly transactional, have a much higher chance of lasting a long time if the participants share a similar morality. Now the problem with Trump’s attitude towards his transactions is that they entirely lack any moral grounding. Which may explain why they crumble apart so easily.
Trump provides a terrible social model for the way people should relate to one another. To the extent that people look to him for social modeling and a pseudo social bonding, they unconsciously start to imitate his coarse rude vulgar behavior. And as more and more people start to do this, relationships start to crumble apart within the whole society. Apart from buying groceries at the grocery store or gas at the gas station, purely transactional relationships are dangerous for a society. Which is why Trump is so dangerous for society.
© 2024 Laurence Mesirow
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