Duty, Privilege, and Trump's Popularity

Is Trump a Gentleman?

As most of you probably know, a tweet I sent this week went quite viral, at least for me, garnering 17 million views and thousands of comments, likes, and so on. You can read it here. Its central claim is that Trump’s dress and general mode of acting, particularly in relation to how he interacts with people, indicate that he is a gentleman of the old school, and that is why people like him so much.

In short, rather than being fake, demeaning, and condescending in how he deals with people far below him on the socio-economic ladder, Trump both remains himself while wearing business attire and puts those with whom he is interacting at ease while showing he cares about them.

That could be seen in stark relief when he visited McDonald's and cooked fries in suit pants and French cuffs, all while having a jolly time with the workers and showing he respected them. What’s more, he obviously has a sense of duty, something Stormy Waters and I discussed on this week’s podcast,¹ or a sense of noblesse oblige towards America; he understands that because he is wealthy and privileged, he ought to use that wealth to aid his countrymen.

Listen to the audio version of this article here:

[AUDIO] Duty, Privilege, and Trump's Popularity

Trump Is Different

In all of that, Trump is quite different than pretty much the entirety of America’s political establishment. Who else would have worn a dark blue business suit to McDonald’s when learning what it is like to work there for a few hours? Absolutely none of them. All the rest would have shown up in jeans and a polo or jeans and a t-shirt so that they could look like a “common person” and show that they’re “one of us” despite very obviously not being anything of the sort.²

Billionaires do this as well: the curated costume³ of dark t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers that all the tech oligarchs from Elon Musk and Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey wear isn’t worn because they want to “save time” or “be comfortable.” Rather, their PR teams put them in the “average Joe” costume so that we might forget they are wealthy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and, with a few exceptions, merely use that wealth to acquire more wealth rather than spend it on anything worthwhile and helpful to Americans.⁴

In that respect, then, Trump is very different from America’s “ruling elite,” a collection of plutocrats and oligarchs who aim only to get ever wealthier, whatever the cost to the country. Nancy Pelosi is a great example. She and her husband are worth hundreds of millions of dollars,⁵ far more than they could ever spend. But instead of actually serving the country by standing up to the tech monopolies and military-industrial complex and for the average American, she just uses her office to trade stocks and get wealthier. It’s the worst sort of unscrupulous and unprincipled behavior, but they all do it; Pelosi, Crenshaw, and most of the rest of Congress routinely outperform even the best hedge funds, year after year.⁶

To such types, the liquidation of America’s social, political, and economic capital in the name of a quick buck is a good thing so long as at least some of that buck ends up in their pocket, much like the Roman elite of Tiberius Gracchus’ day.⁷ All the while, unlike the “elite” of all eras other than the communist period, they clothe their immense wealth in the guise of happenstance and being an “average Joe” at heart. Hence why they wear obviously new and unworn flannel shirts to gatherings with ordinary people,⁸ speak like they’re dimwits in grammar school, and otherwise pretend to be what they imagine the “normal person” to be. It’s all very demeaning and condescending, showing they neither respect nor care for America’s citizenry. Instead, they just want to hide their ill-gotten gains behind a veneer of being “normal.”

Trump is quite the opposite. He is wealthy, but unlike our “elites” he doesn’t hide it by wearing sweatpants and t-shirts in the hope that his astounding net worth will be forgotten and he’ll be seen as “one of us.” Instead, he wears a business suit with French cuffed shirts and shined leather shoes, making it clear with his dress that he thinks that is the appropriate clothing to wear given his wealth and position. Melania acts in the same manner; so, generally, do his children. Similarly, instead of hiding away off the road somewhere, hoping his wealth and home go unnoticed,⁹ he lives in Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago. What that signals is that he is unashamed of his wealth and position, viewing it as a good thing that enables him to do more good rather than as something shameful that must be hidden.

Nor does he act like the only purpose of his wealth is to accumulate ever more of it. Rather, he has spent a great deal of his wealth trying to make the country better off. Not only did his net worth drop significantly during his first term, costing him well over a billion dollars,¹⁰ but he risks losing everything if he loses.¹¹ That risk, only present because we have an evil regime with a predisposition for humiliation, is shown by Letitia James going after him to the tune of half a billion dollars for a loan he paid back in full and on time.¹² In fact, it desires nothing less than to strip him of everything in the name of making a point about the impotence of anyone who dares stand up to the regime. Despite those threats and legal actions, he’s spending his fortune on doing what he correctly sees as his duty, helping his countrymen and standing up to a regime that is as grotesque as it is abominable.

To Whom Is Trump Similar

In acting in such a manner, being proud of his wealth and using it for just and desirous ends, Trump is acting unlike our modern “elites” and much more like the gentlemen of days past. He, despite his relatively new wealth and Queens-style attitude, is acting like an Old World country squire or aristocrat on a grand scale rather than a money-grubbing plutocrat of modernity.¹³

Glimpses of this attitude can still be seen. While most of the British aristocracy, including the current Duke of Westminster,¹⁴ hides its wealth and complains of leaky roofs in an attempt to look more “normal” and avoid public scrutiny and attacks, the royals don’t. Instead, they still live in a palace, still have footmen and attendants, and still dress the part. While there is much to condemn about King Charles III, namely his recent refusal to side with the anti-Muslim rioters,¹⁵ there is also a good bit for which he deserves praise, as Johann Kurtz noted on my podcast.¹⁶ For example, he has long championed regenerative agriculture as a way of making farming more profitable for the farmers, as they can avoid highly expensive fertilizer, and better for the soil.¹⁷ Similarly, he even built a functional and inhabited village, Poundbury, to show that classical architecture is still practical and creates a desirable place to live that residents enjoy much more than the omnipresent brutalism.¹⁸ King Charles also travels across what is left of the empire and its former dominions to maintain relationships with the nobles. He does all that while dressed, like Trump, as he ought to be and with the proper air of dignity. They dress somewhat differently, of course, with King Charles dressing in a less business-like manner. But, still, neither hides their wealth, and both live according to duty, as does the royal family generally.¹⁹

Other remnants of the old world act in a similar manner. The Duke of Rutland, for example, a member of one of the oldest Anglo-Norman families, has spent a great deal of money funding UKIP,²⁰ which is one of the farthest right parties in England and one of the few rightist parties with real support from the populace. Similarly, the current Marquess of Salisbury is one of the farther-right members of the Conservative Party and led the House of Lords, as his ancestors have done dating back to Elizabeth I.²¹ Both peers, like King Charles, are always dressed as they ought to be, and they live according to their duty.

Notably, it is only when such families degrade that they start acting like America’s elite. Prince Harry, notably, is now dressed poorly as he seemingly follows his abominable wife, Megyn Markle, around America. Further, he is a massive disappointment who has spat on his family and bloodline as his grandmother, the Queen, was dying; he also refused to do his duty by living as the royals are meant to.²² Instead of doing his duty, he has, like America’s wealth elite, engaged in all manner of pointless and scammy business schemes without following through while acting like a demented and petulant child.²³ It’s a sad and disgusting fate for one born with a golden spoon in his mouth, a monstrous betrayal of his duty.

But, though such exceptions to the general rule of nobles acting like gentlemen have become all the rarer as international elites have melded with America’s elites, there are still those like the Duke of Rutland or Trump who, in many ways, are similar to the gentlemen of the sort who existed until relatively recently.

Those gentlemen, as I have discussed before,²⁴ were much more like Trump than like the American wealth elite or Prince Harry.

For one, they always dressed as was befitting their station, whether in the frock coat and top boots of the early 19th century or the morning dress and spats of the early 20th. That dress, as with Trump’s, was worn not just because it was what a gentleman ought to wear and they were self-confident in marking themselves out as such, but because it would be demeaning and disrespectful to those below them on the socio-economic ladder to play pretend and dress down as a farmer or laborer.

More importantly than clothes, however, they also understood the concept of noblesse oblige. They knew that they were born into immense wealth and privilege, with the rents from their lands bringing in immense sums for which they never had to work. Though much of that income was spent on pleasure and keeping up the dignity of their station, as the Trumps also do, a great deal was also invested back into the community in which they lived.

The Marquesses of Bute, for example, spent three generations and the modern equivalent of perhaps $100 million, on building the port in Cardiff into one that was immensely beneficial for the farmers and miners.²⁵ While that helped their rents and coal mining profits, the port itself never earned a return of note for them and benefited the community as much, if not more, as it benefited the marquesses, which is why they built it. Similarly, the Earls Fitzwilliam, an ancient Norman family, grew immensely wealth off their coal mines. Unlike the plutocratic coal mine owners, however, the Fitzwilliams reinvested a great deal in ensuring the miners on their property were as safe as was possible, and relatively well paid.²⁶

But even more than that, the country gentlemen were notable for what they might provide to a community. Some were spendthrifts or disliked, of course, but many were quite good for the area in which they lived. A wealthy local magnate and his country house meant not just safer and less backbreaking jobs in the great house than those that were available on farms, but investment in building clean and sturdy housing for the local laborers, investment in constructing similar buildings in the local town or village, and generally more prosperity in an area that otherwise might be blighted. The Dukes of Bedford, for example, spent immense sums on building healthy and sturdy cottage houses for the poor agricultural laborers. They made no money on those; often they lost a great deal. But they saw building them as their duty. Skidelsky, describing what such a relationship looked like in his biography of the infamous Oswald Mosley, noted, of Mosley’s grandfather, a wealthy and powerful landed gentleman:

Mosley's adored and adoring grandfather was clearly a paternalist of the old school, who took his obligations and his rights very seriously. He was not without enterprise: the diversification from arable to livestock farming to counter the North American grain invasions of the 1880s saved the Rolleston economy for another generation, As a young man, he worked with his labourers in the field from dawn to dusk. He raised a prize-winning shorthorn herd, placed his pedigree bulls at the disposal of his tenants for a nominal fee, and remitted a portion of their rents in hard times.

He built cottages and a recreation hall for his workpeople, maintained a school for their children, an almshouse for the aged, a church for their spiritual health, and threw open his grounds to fêtes and fairs for their entertainment. His solicitude on one occasion took a positively Tolstoyan turn when he started baking a special wholemeal bread at the stone mill of Rolleston: ‘Standard Bread' provided Northcliffe's Daily Mail with one of its carliest journalistic stunts, and Rolleston was deluged for samples of the health-giving loaves

That is far from all. As they were born into privilege, such men saw serving the state in some capacity as their duty. So, most of the aristocratic families sent their sons to serve in the military, politics, or colonial administration. Thus, most of Wellington’s officers were gentlemen of some sort, the colonial wars were studded with peers and their sons, and it was men like Lord Paget who charged into the mouth of the guns at Balaklava with the Light Brigade. Meanwhile, their fellow Society members were settling farms in Rhodesia, investigating conditions in Central Africa, or fighting pirates in Borneo alongside Brooke.²⁷

Not all were, of course. Like Harry, there have always been bad apples. But, generally, those blessed by fortune with privilege were not just happy to repay it but saw themselves as honor-bound to do so. As a result, they were generally well-liked and remained powerful. Even with the agricultural depression²⁸ and Parliament Bill,²⁹ the English peerage remained a force to be reckoned with well into the 20th Century, long after the French aristocracy had any meaning and the Prussian junkers had been destroyed as a class of note.³⁰ All the while, the class was self-confident.

And that comes back to Trump. He’s no country gentleman, as shown by his love of NYC and Trump Tower, and certainly not a peer. But he is self-confident and understands his duty to his countrymen. He lives well and dresses well because he understands how he ought to act. He spends his fortune not simply on pleasure and consumption, as many of his class do, but instead on trying to serve his country and his fellows, much like the gentlemen of yesteryear invested immense sums in the country communities in which they lived.³¹ That is important, as it marks him as one of the few American aristocrats, one of the few “wealth elites” willing to live up to his privilege and position in society and use what he has to lead and serve rather than lose himself in pointless pleasure.

The Old, the New, and the Better

Critically, that means the benefits of the old order are re-emerging, if slowly and painfully.

The thing about rule by gentlemen is that, unlike bureaucrats,³² they are connected to and devoted to their little communities and know the people within them intimately. They know the farmers, the pub keepers, the dry goods merchants, the gamekeepers, and so on. As a result, they know how to lead men, something also picked up during military service, and understand what the work being done is even if they don’t do it themselves, as is often the case. That gives them insight and understanding when leading, whether as a politician, officer, or justice of the peace, that leads to better outcomes tailored to and for those experiencing them. Further, it means they have some degree of camaraderie with those doing the work and view them and their work as worthy of respect, in its proper place on the social ladder, rather than as something to be despised.

Bureaucrats and managers, those currently in charge, are quite different in that they never do the work. Whether it's frying the fries at McDonald’s or changing the linen at a Trump Tower,³³ you can be sure the C-suite and the consultants advising it never did anything of the sort that the workers do, or that they have even seen it done. The result tends to be that they despise those doing the work and have no respect either for the work itself or for those doing it.

Trump, to his credit, is much more like a gentleman than a bureaucrat. He has long been known for having a degree of rapport and camaraderie with those working construction on his development sites or doing the work in his hotels.³⁴ He never hides his wealth, of course, and is self-confident in being the billionaire that he is. But he also knows the hard work those under him on the social ladder do, and that such people are worthy of respect. That shines through whenever he is around those of any distance, near or far, on the social ladder. He’s friendly, puts them at ease, shows gratitude and understanding, and is generally known for being pleasant to underlings.

That’s unlike the Clintons, Bidens, or Harris, all of whom are wealthy, though to a lesser degree, and known for being horrible in every imaginable way to underlings, including the Secret Service officers and military personnel whose job it is to serve and protect them.³⁵ There’s no gratitude, understanding, or respect that such people have for others, quite in contrast to Trump. Further, they’re not self-confident, as shown by their attempts to hide their wealth, whether by dressing down or speaking as if they’re just like a normal Joe in every way.

And that, I think, explains much of his popularity. He’s not like the other “elites.” Though without a title, he’s aristocratic and gentlemanly in bearing. He’s self-confident, both in his decisions and in his wealth. He’s imbued, evidently, by a sense of duty and noblesse oblige, a desire to help rather than parasitically leech off of. And, as someone with such a mindset, he’s respectful and caring rather than eyeing those around him like a hyena eyes a dying antelope.

It’s an entirely different attitude that is discernable in everything about him and his bearing, and is one that I think people pick up on and support him because of, in a way that they don’t at all support even those that honestly echo the same positions. It’s not really about the issue stances; it’s about his attitude.

Featured image credit: CSPAN

1.

2. For example, Walz playing dress up in flannel: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/article/2024/aug/29/can-a-wardrobe-win-the-white-house

3. https://www.ft.com/content/51cf1792-5955-4135-8b78-7346519c551b

4. Stormy and I discussed that here:

5. https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/nancy-pelosi/net-worth?cid=N00007360

6.

7.

8. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/democratic-vp-candidate-tim-walzs-flannel-fashion-sense-wins-praise-from-barack-obama-6392404

9. This is something Fussell notes in Class: A Guide Through the American Status System; the current wealthy hide in mansions well removed from public view in the hope that their wealth might soon be forgotten by the public. Trump doesn’t do that

10. “In March 2016, Forbes estimated his net worth at $4.5 billion. A year later, shortly after his inauguration, they lowered it by $1 billion, and by the end of his presidential term, they had subtracted yet another $1 billion.”

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_of_Donald_Trump

11. The fact that he might lose everything is discussed here:

12. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/nyregion/trump-bond-ny-fraud-case.html

13.

14. https://www.tatler.com/article/hugh-grosvenor-wealth

15. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj35mv0m5zno

16.

17. https://8point9.com/king-charles-calls-for-investment-in-regenerative-agriculture-at-opening-of-cop28/

18. https://duchyofcornwall.org/poundbury.html/

19. A good video on the lives of duty they live:

20. https://royaltygroup.fandom.com/wiki/David_Manners,_11th_Duke_of_Rutland

21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil,_7th_Marquess_of_Salisbury

22. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64179164

23. https://m.imdb.com/news/ni64527378/

24.

25. See “Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute”

26. See “Aristocratic Enterprise: The Fitzwilliam Industrial Undertakings, 1795-1857”

27. Read about Brooke here: https://x.com/Will_Tanner_1/status/1849461971755614230

28.

29.

30. See “European Landed Elites in the Nineteenth Century” by Spring

31.

32.

33. See, for example:

34. See above

35. See, for example: https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/10/hillary-clinton-secret-service-treatment-abuse/