Trump Explained by Captain Jack Sparrow
How I Came to Understand the 2024 Election Dressed as a Pirate
“Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.”
-Captain Jack Sparrow, protagonist of the Pirates of the Caribbean Film
I dressed up as the fictional pirate Jack Sparrow for a Halloween party. It was dressed in this garb, tipsy and muttering inanities to anyone who would listen, that I came to better understand Donald Trump.
Trump is, more than anything else, a vibe rather than a flesh-and-blood human politician. He is the “heel” in pro wrestling parlance, the archetypal villain who is what he always is, on brand and damn entertaining. His carefully crafted persona is that of a high society troll who wants to blow up the system that he claims to exist outside of.
In other words, he is a modern-day pirate of politics.
That dishonest man that you can always trust to be dishonest. If you fear him he is a conman of the highest order. If you love him, you likely deploy euphemistic catchphrases to defend his nonsense. “It’s not lies, it’s bullshit.” “Take him seriously, not literally.” “That’s just Trump being Trump.”
We’ve heard it all.
So when Trump repeatedly says that he won the 2020 election even though scores of trials have proven that he lost it fair and square, this is pirate code that he is always a winner no matter what, and if he doesn’t win it’s not his fault, its the fault of the system. In reality, he’s a sore loser who is willing to go to any length to deny his loss. He will do the same thing in 2024 if he loses. If he wins, the election will be the greatest, fairest election in history. If he loses, it will be the greatest fraud in history.
The evidence for such fraud is irrelevant to either claim. The story always comes first. If evidence follows, then great. But the story always comes first.
Or as Jack Sparrow said, “Close your eyes and pretend it’s all a bad dream; that’s how I get by.”
So when Trump says matter of factly in a Presidential debate that Haitian immigrants are eating the dogs, cats, and pets of the residents of Springfield, this is pirate code for his supporters or would-be supporters who might be fed up that an illegal immigrant took their job or made them feel inadequate or threatened in some way. For them, it’s a lie that services a greater perceived truth.
But for the rest of society and the world, it’s an unforgivable, unforgettable, xenophobic, racist slur.
And this perhaps explains Trump’s divisiveness. The pirate code invites you into his cult of personality, into this MAGA land wormhole where you either get the twang or you don’t. Those outside it cannot comprehend how anyone inside can be fooled by this bologna. Those inside are under the illusion that he is an imperfect messenger of the (capital T) Truth and that the actual fools are the ones taking him literally.
For a younger generation of (mostly) men looking for ways to levy blame or escape the mundane, politics now resembles the fiction of Pirates of the Caribbean, a gripping tale of one man fighting the entire system by himself. That lone fighter may sling a thousand lies, but the code that is embedded in the lies, in their minds, triangulates to a few fundamental truths that connect with their very real feelings about America.
And this is the marketing genius of Trump, a politico made for this post-truth era. Thanks to social media and AI, fiction can be produced in milliseconds by a robot with a prompt, whereas a truth must be excavated slowly and meticulously from the rubble of history. Learning the truth takes years we can’t wait for and dollars we don’t have. The result is that we live in a society that has become increasingly subjective and polarized. I fear that the information that needs to come to light for us to make better decisions is constantly getting shoved into a proverbial treasure chest, locked up, and tossed into the ocean, only to be discovered too late, by accident, or not at all.
Case in point: Did Trump subvert the 2020 Election? Shouldn’t we have known this answer, or seen the evidence of this criminal case BEFORE the 2024 election? Well, it may be too late now. If Trump wins this election, Jack Smith will not get to prosecute this criminal case. And if the pirate gets his way, Jack Smith will be marooned on a desert island. If Trump loses, we may get to see the full evidence in this case. But of course, Trump will claim that the whole thing is rigged against him by his political; opponents.
But don’t despair my sea-weary friends.
Alas, could it be true that we live in a binary political world where maybe, just maybe, Trump, with all his warts, is still better than Kamala Harris? Could the devil we know better than the devil we don’t know? Or perhaps both options are trap doors leading to crocodile pits?
To go back to Sparrow-speak, are these the “honest ones you want to watch out for”? Well, maybe. We’ve certainly witnessed the Biden administration and the Democrats do some very stupid things these last 4 years.
We watched them let chaos rein on our Southern border until it became a hot-button political liability for Kamala.
We watched them help Iran launder their dinosaur sludge for billions of dollars at the expense of the Middle East’s only semi-liberal democracy, Israel, and at the expense of humanity as they put more carbon into our atmosphere with no plan to get it out.
We caught them covering up the fact that President Biden had mentally declined behind closed doors.
We saw how they played politics instead of meeting with the Jewish communities in America who have been facing an anti-semitic wave like no other time in American history.
We witnessed them coronate Kamala to the top of the ticket to preserve their campaign coffers rather than test her out against potentially better candidates.
All of these moves are dumb and despicable, and the worst part is that nobody has been able to ask Kamala the hard questions about these issues. Has she and the Dems have even learned any lessons from these clear but follies?
We don’t know. But what we do know is that Kamala is more likely to steward the ship to it’s next port of call - rather than towards the Bermuda Triangle of American democracy
Dumb and despicable? yes. But that’s par for the course for any political actor given enough time to bungle things.
Damning or disqualifying? These are adjectives that can only be reserved for the actions of Captain Orange.
Before I make my case, I want to point out an obvious exception. Sometimes having a pirate at the helm is a virtue in foreign relations, in which unpredictability makes both rational and irrational actors uneasy. The Abraham Accords and the wrecking of the Iranian terror regime’s economy were bold tacks and the correct course for one day resolving the Middle East conflict. So yes, I have no problem giving the pirate some credit where credit is due.
However, while necessary, this outside-in approach is insufficient for getting the Middle East to the promised land of peace. It must be coupled with an inside-out approach that brings the non-jihadist and nonviolent Palestinian leadership into the process. This should be a clear and obvious 10/7 learning for whoever leads the US next. It is doubtful that Capt. Bibi will capitulate.
So why should our favorite pirate politician be disqualified?
It’s not that the pirate could care less about school shootings, the climate crisis, and the liberties of the fairer sex to choose what to do with their own bodies. It’s not that he skyrocketed our debt with his corporate tax cuts and irresponsible spending. It’s not that he denied, covered up, and lied about Covid until he couldn’t do it any longer, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Remember, Trump 1.0 was so bad that he lost to Biden. He was fired from his job for cause.
But it’s not any of this that disqualifies him. What disqualifies him is that when he lost the 2020 election, he incited a mob and manufactured a constitutional crisis in which he tried to make his own VP walk the plank. This is it.
His biggest fib is the one that spouts out more than any other, that he cares for others, the American people, or anyone but himself.
The vast majority of his non-pirate crew members, 4-star generals, chiefs of staff, and the most patriotic Republicans that have ever lived, have provided us the damning character reference that any former President has ever received. This is not a character reference about him as a man, about his lifelong pursuit of hanky panky, belching of conspiracies, and mismanagement of businesses.
I don’t care that he’s known to crack Jenny’s Tea Cup or brag about grabbing them by the feline. That’s the character we’ve come to expect from a president, Republicans and Democrats alike.
This is not what Kelly, McMaasters, Milly, Mattis, Esper, Mcrystal, Bolton, and Mullen, are referring to.
No, this is about his Presidential character. It’s about how fit he is to be captain of our national proverbial boat. And what they are saying is that they have never in their days seen a scallywag of this order. They are saying that this is a unique situation. They are firing a warning shot that is not personally helpful to them in any way. They are true patriots, putting their country first.
The deeper capital (T) Truth they are communicating is that they saw the real Trump behind closed doors and came independently to the conclusion that he is a pirate so full of himself and so uninterested in history or facts or morality that foreign leaders can turn him into a pawn.
They are saying that this is not the honorable captain who fights alongside his men and women and goes down with this ship. No, this is a pirate willing to sink the whole ship to save himself. And this is exactly what Trump proved with his own words and inactions after the 2020 elections.
I’m not sure that Trump 2.0 will become a fascist regime, but I’ve been to enough fascist/communist countries to know the recipe for fomenting one. An egomaniacal wannabe tyrant swimming in a broth of lies, a worn out, fractured populace on the decks, control over all the branches of government, and a sprinkle of sycophants should do the trick.
This election for me is about presidential character. How can we trust Trump in a crisis if he has so clearly failed in a Covid crisis already, not to mention manufacturing a self-serving, anti-constitutional crisis of his own making?
But there’s something else for me that makes this election so critical. Perhaps the worst part of having this pirate dominating marketing and media budgets for all television, digital print, and audio these last 6 months is that it’s sucked all the oxygen out of the room and pillaged our collective brains. Who do we end up talking about and writing about instead of issues that matter? The legend of Donald Trump. The best part about his loss would be that we might get to talk about the issues again. The climate crisis, for example, was not even a topic in the Presidential debate. This may end up being the most important moral issue of this century. In its role as the largest emitter of carbon in world history, the US is responsible for leading on this issue. Our leadership, or lack thereof, will shape the future of humanity and the natural world. Instead, we’re talking about the Access Hollywood tapes.
We need a re-framing of the discourse back towards substance. And yes, I’m old enough to remember that we once had a meaningful and civil discourse on the issues that mattered based on a shared understanding of reality.
How can we navigate back there? The truth is I’m not sure we can. But certainly not by electing the pirate who most reaps the spoils of the split-screen reality he seems to effortlessly prop up. Certainly not by giving this pirate, who loots the attention economy every time his lips move, back the bully pulpit.
I view this election as a choice between a boring politician who will certainly make some stupid policy decisions, or a pirate, who will make a different set of stupid policy decisions and is more likely to continue to divide our society or capsize our democracy in shark-infested waters.
So vote wisely.
And Ahoy Mate!
Regardless of which plank you choose to walk down, the most important thing to remember is that we will all end up in Davy Jones's locker one day. If humanity is so fortunate to last another 10,000 years, the great United States of America could one day be a forgotten empire. Even Captain Orange himself could one day be wiped from the history books. Everything about our existence is ephemeral, especially these wretched elections. So here’s some parting, pirate wisdom for you my dear reader from none other than Captain Sparrow, “Mate, if you chose to lock your heart away, you’ll lose her for certain.” Politics is a bad facsimile of life. Don’t obsess over it. Don’t judge people because of it. Resist tribalism. Open Mind. Open Heart. Open Seas. Argh!