I’m having a strong emotional response to the upcoming HRC/DJT debate, the kind of emotion that lives in the stomach. The kind of emotion I used to feel in school, when the mean boys would see me coming and size up the room to decide what to do. Should they maybe do that thing where they swing their arm out as if to strike me, but change the gesture at the last second to smooth their hair? And I would flinch, every time, every single time.
Or would they simply say something mocking and mean?
Or, most disconcertingly, would they say nothing at all, or perhaps be perfectly nice? It was the unpredictability that gave them their power.
That’s how I feel when I see DJT.
Maybe it wouldn’t be the mean boys. Maybe it would be the smart girls. I was a little jealous about how they were always on top of their lessons. Always, always, always. They knew everything. There were maybe three or four of them – one of them was brilliant at languages, she took Greek, Latin, and Italian, in addition to the French and English we all took; one was simply top of the class in everything; and another was maybe not quite as brilliant, but certainly better than me.
They were pretty and kind, and I felt no anxiety about them at all, more a kind of wonder at their omnicompetence. If they were in charge of something, it would get done, and done well.
The genius of the mean boys were their ability to read the room in an instant – they knew the hierarchy. They knew when teachers or staff or older kids were present. They had an org chart in their head of their older brothers’ friends, who were the popular kids, who were the teachers who cared, and who were the teachers who were just there to avoid the draft.
They could see weakness and strike perfectly to exploit it. Their heart was corrupt and they reveled in others’ pain and their ability to get away with it, to find an angle. I just wanted to be out of their way – they couldn’t be stopped, they couldn’t be placated, and nothing good ever came out of them… not for anyone else, anyway.
Maybe that’s why DJT fills me with bilious dread and I really like HRC.