"By the Middle Ages the people created carnivals: a chance to escape from ones social category — male or female, rich or poor; the people could insult the king & bishops, drunkenness & ribaldry was prized over sober propriety. We’re living with exactly the kinds of injustices that lead to carnival culture, and we’ve crowned a fool king. Trump exists on two levels: the presidential level and the fool level. His tweets are classic fool behavior. They are raw, ridiculous and frequently self-destructive, to symbolically upend hierarchy, to be oppositional. The sad part is that so many people treat Trump’s tweets as if they are arguments when in fact they are carnival. With their conniption fits,his responders contribute to carnival culture. It doesn’t really address the inequalities that give rise to it. It’s just combative display with an ocean of sadism lurking just below the surface."
At www.nytimes.com
