Midterms: US Goes To Vote with Trump’s Butt Front and Center

“J.D. is kissing my ass, he wants my support so bad.” So proclaimed Donald Trump during a rally held last Sunday* in Youngstown, Ohio, a particularly Trumpian statement given the vulgarity of its language and self-congratulatory style. It is impossible — impossible without altering the accuracy of the report — to translate this sentence into Italian and avoid using one of those terms that are normally shunned in the interest of protecting those famous “public sensibilities.” I swear. I tried every possible euphemistic variation: “buttocks,” “bottom,” “behind,” “rear end,” “derrière.” I was pushed to the most complicated and poetic extremes (“where the sun doesn’t shine”), passing through all the sweet little diminutives first learned in childhood (“fanny,” “tushie”). But nothing worked. Because “culo” [asshole, ass] is the only term that, in both a literal and philosophical sense, truly corresponds to the English word “ass.” And because any other translation in this context would be laughable (though in Italian, the verb “to lick” is used much more frequently in circumstances such as these — but I digress). “J.D. mi sta baciando il culo; J.D. vuole il mio sostegno.” (“J.D. is kissing my ass; he wants my support.”)

Someone might properly wonder at this point what this story is about for more than one reason. With all the scandals, all the lies and ruthlessness, all the brutality and exhibitionism that, between outrage and ridicule, the 45th president has bestowed on both America and the world so far, what difference can a little profanity make, an “ass” here and there during a Midwest rally? Excellent question. Excellent, but although technically more than justified, it is also intrinsically wrong. This is because, by its fashion and its timing, and even more by the context in which “ass” was tossed out, this particular representation of Trump’s, let’s say “butt” from here on, first called into question and then exposed to the oral adoration of those who plead for his help, is in effect the most perfect instance, is one of those magical moments of truth that sometimes only a photo can successfully immortalize of the state of American democracy in the runup to the midterms, where all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and roughly one-third of the seats in the Senate are up for election.

We’re coming to the point. “J.D.,” the character who is kissing, has kissed, and will continue to kiss the former president’s butt, is James David Vance, freshly victorious — with Trump’s blessing — in the Republican primary ahead of the Nov. 8 race for one of Ohio’s two Senate seats. And he’s not just any candidate. Nor can he be described in any way as just another Trumpist. J.D. Vance is, in fact, the author of an excellent family memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” published in 2016 and then made into a film in 2020 by Ron Howard, a movie that, thanks particularly to Glenn Close, earned a hefty number of Oscar nominations. The book itself was also hailed by critics and readers alike for what it was. Namely, the very vivid and, in places, poetic portrayal of a peripheral, forgotten and despairing America (precisely that “hillbilly” wilderness) which, with didactic clarity and in entirely un-Trumpian terms, showed the “liberal elite” the miserably human reasons for what was then an incomplete, incomprehensible and populist rise of a folkloric and inarticulate character with inappropriate hair and an even more inappropriate political agenda.

Republican and conservative, born and raised in this reality, but able to escape and attend the most prestigious universities in the U.S., Vance was, at that time, the antithesis of Trumpism. He was at the point of comparing Trump — whom Vance defined as a “fool,” “a racist,” and a kind of stars-and-stripes Adolf Hitler — to the heroin that had long wreaked havoc with lives and minds in those “left behind” wastelands — left behind like useless scraps by the march of globalization’s “magnificent destiny and progress.”

Another 300-page biographical essay — written with the help of a talented psychoanalyst — would be required to explain how, in the space of four years, that Vance turned into the J.D. at the Youngstown rally. Perhaps what matters is this: Having entered politics, Vance decided to run in Ohio’s Republican primary. Badly behind in the polls, he thus courted at length — and finally won — the endorsement of the above-mentioned “fool” and “racist,” in essence choosing to become Trump’s “dealer” in trafficking his political-ideological drug (if Trump’s ramshackle personality cult can even be called an ideology). A winning choice — that, in terms of personal dignity, came at a very high price, however. Amid the shouts and applause of onlookers and his team during the Ohio rally, with glinting eyes and a leering expression, Trump showed Vance precisely how high a price with humiliating accuracy and sadistic precision.

It is true, the former president recalled, that in the past, Vance said terrible things about him. “But then he got to know me and — how could it have been otherwise — he learned to love me. And because of that, he has kissed, and will continue to kiss, my butt.”** That this message was really directed at the entire Republican Party (at the entire United States, in many respects) was clear. Vance kissed his butt, Trump implied, because today, in the Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln, this is the medieval and unconditional rite of submission, the cost of a supreme leader’s love and favor.

Thus, with Trump’s butt front and center, the United States of America now moves toward the midterm elections. And the great thing is that, right now, it is actually the Democrats, President Joe Biden in particular, who are metaphorically shining a light on the former president’s rear end, shamelessly attesting that it is proof of an impending “semi-fascist” menace. While awaiting the response from the ballot box, Trump’s butt has become the Democrats’ most important propaganda weapon. But I will return to that essential point in more detail in a future post.

*Translator’s Note: The rally in question was held on Saturday, Sept. 17.

**Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, the precise wording of this remark could not be independently verified.