Matt Thornton' | Writings from Martial Artist and Skeptic Matt Thornton

We inhabit our politics the way we inhabit our swim suits.

Is it comfortable? Is it attractive? Does it fit the the image we want to signal? Is it too tight? Is it too loose? Is it revealing too much of ourselves? Will we get burned?

As we age those measures and tastes change. Utopian day dreams give way to practical needs. Or they should – because the alternative is always unsightly. The signal we send begins to betray something different from what we believe it is displaying – something that grows in its lack of dignity the longer it’s worn, something arrested and sclerotic, something too obviously vain.

Success brings anxiety. Failure brings anger. Affluence brings guilt. Poverty brings blame. All of it feeling like the shove of ghosts, pushing us towards a time and place where everything seemed simpler, and answers were served up in neatly packaged, black and white lesson plans.

Some people lean into that push. Some brace themselves against the shove, resist the entropy, and refuse to be tossed down the path most traveled. The one that offers emphatic answers with little thought, and immovable conclusions with little evidence.

It’s true that the ammunition that is ready at hand, for anyone that is happy to accept any particular ideology, right or left, religious or political, absent the internal struggles and conflicts that come from independent thought – is numerous, convenient, and requires little skill to wield – but it is also true that ammunition is never really yours. We can trade in cliches, but we cannot avoid the consequences of those transactions in previously heard thinking – a mind less nimble, less alive, and less interesting. The decay of boredom.

A swimsuit not yours.

At times, in my past, I’d be fine with making fun of how people looked, or how awkward they were. To have a laugh at another’s expense, just because they’re out of earshot. I’m not proud of it. I can’t deny it. As a teenager I was on both ends of it. Through much of my 20’s I dished it. And to a degree, even in my 30’s, I occasionally descended to it.

Of course, at 47, I still see distinctions in how people look, and the insecurities we all sometimes betray. The difference now is that judging other humans based on superficial or awkward character traits, even within the privacy of my own skull, bores me. I’m ashamed my mind ever travels there.

I’m not alone. Most of us, most men, are dull and cruel (synonymous), at some point in their lives. The more self-aware among us, the more cultured among us, the smarter of us – let go of it sooner than I did. In fact, any man that could rightly be said to have ‘matured’, has by definition, already realized the shame inherent in measuring yourself, or your arguments, in such a superficial and banal way. So we mature, and it stops.

After reading those three paragraphs, you may be wondering why I’m trafficking in the obvious. I have bright friends. I spend time around great men. And I know all of you know this, from within, already. But here is my point – Trump, hasn’t figured this out yet. And he’s 70.

In fact, not only has he not figured this out yet, he is incapable of hiding the fact that he hasn’t figured this out yet. He lacks the tools.

Trump still believes that the sentence “look at her face“, or the clownish pantomiming of a disabled reporter – is funny. He doesn’t know better yet. He’s 70.

Think about that.