Last night President Trump gave his State of the Union address, the night before his expected acquittal in a sham impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. To paraphrase Dylan, you gotta belong to somebody, and I at least would like it to be someone better than a walking avatar of nihilism.
I’m not kidding. Nihilism in its most common philosophical sense means that nothing really matters in the end, and certainly Trump has given us no reason to think that he thinks anything beyond his own whims and appetites have any kind of meaning or value. Burnt steak with ketchup, golf, getting even with enemies, self-enrichment, sexualizing his daughter and ignoring his wife—these are the things that make Trump’s world go around, not any sense of history, purpose, or calling.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Republican enablers practice a kind of Randian political nihilism, in which nothing matters more than the constant struggle of all-vs.-all for dominance and self-realization. Alex Pareene pointed to one form of this nihilism last year in the transactionalist politics perfected by Mitch McConnell, who would set your dog on fire or enact Medicare for All, depending on the highest bidder. But of course, McConnell has plenty of help in the Senate from people like Lisa Murkowski, who boldly proclaimed that she would vote against witnesses in Trump’s impeachment because she was convinced a fair trial couldn’t be held.