I suddenly get it now.  I do.  I finally understand what has been so captivating about the self-styled entrepreneur/entertainer we know as Donald J. Trump running for President, then getting elected President and now acting as President (even though he doesn’t act like a President).  It’s not because Donald Trump is a NASCAR crash waiting to happen.  And it’s not because Trump is the non-fiction version of the compellingly callous King Geoffrey of Game of Thrones.  Even though both comparisons ring true, this is what dawned on me: a substantial number of your neighbors and mine see Trump as the President they would imagine themselves to be if only they had the opportunity.  For those tens of millions, Donald Trump offers them a vicarious presidency.

Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Dave the Dispatcher don’t really want responsibility for the nuclear button, or our soldiers’ lives, or our national security, but otherwise they would love to be in Trump’s shoes, to make the rules, to even the score!  How different things would be around here if only I were the President, thinks Dave.  And how different it would be if Dave were the President, thinks Mrs. Dave.  (Mrs. Dave is a traditionalist.)

A pity that Mr. and Mrs. Dave lacked the hundreds of power brokers, the thousands of rich connections, and the billion dollars they would need for Dave himself to run for President.  They did not have those kind of resources, but they did have Donald Trump and his kind of resources.  And when Trump essentially promised that he would be their co-president, the deal was done: a vote for Trump was a vote for themselves.

This is why criticizing Trump or anything he says or does is equivalent to criticizing tens of millions of Americans.  This is why Trump’s voters are immune to his impulsiveness, his sexism, his irrationality, his narcissism, his paranoia, his I-hate-them-now-I-love-them relationship with Wall Street.  Because Trump’s voters not only cast their lot but their very identities with him.  In terms of The Walking Dead, they are Trump in the same sense that The Saviors are Negan.

• • • •

My friends have probably heard me say this before: people who want to be supervisors are often the least qualified for that role.  They think that management is about telling other people what to do, and they think they are good at that.  But these would-be bosses have it backwards.  Good managers listen.  The best managers get out of the way and let talented people do what they are best at doing, while offering guidance and providing resources.

Trump is not a good manager.  Instead, he is the president of every self-styled supervisor in America: the person who wants to be in control, the person who wants to run things his or her own way.  Trump is their vicarious president.   He is certainly not mine.