USA'S SALESMEN: WILLY & DONALD
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine . . . A salesman is got to dream, boy." [Death of a Salesman, Requiem, 1949, Arthur Miller]
Two peas in a pod: nothing is more American than selling. Sales, marketing and advertising are the lifeblood of every major news, information, entertainment, sports, and internet franchise in the Free World.
In this photo, actor Lee J. Cobb shown in 1949 in his role as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman." (AP) https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2015/11/06/arthur-miller-julie-wittes-schlack
(AP: Patrick Semansky) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-21
Donald Trump is the face of every salesman who ever lived. He wakes up selling, lives and dreams selling, and says his prayers in a sales pitch to God. No one can possibly understand Trump without seeing his 24/7/365-66 sales orientation. Love him, hate him or ignore him, he is what he is.
The closest apple we have to compare to the ‘Donald Trump apple’ in America is a fictional character.
Willy Loman
Arthur Miller’s ambition in Salesman is to make an audience recognize, and feel for, a tragic hero in the character of an ordinary man. In one scene, Willy’s wife Linda describes Willy to their two sons:
“I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.”
Attention must be paid! This is an alert, a warning to the audience, too. Willy’s only redeeming feature is his refusal to quit, his will to continue to struggle until his last breath. There is nothing resembling grace, exactly, in his will to struggle. He is by turns profane, maudlin, angry, apologetic, energized by hope, lost in hopeless despair.
Arthur Miller understood the heart and soul of America’s sales culture. Death of a Salesman is a wrenching probe into human existence. Well performed, it leaves audiences emotionally exhausted, both deeply touched and sore to their core. From a piece by National Public Radio’s Scott Simon 12 years ago:
“Critics who saw the first performance in 1949, with Lee J. Cobb as Willy, said that when the curtain closed, they only heard silence. Then, sobbing.
"“It's the only play I know that sends men weeping into the men's room," says director Robert Falls.”
Donald Trump
Salesmen have been running in American political campaigns, and been managing political campaigns, for well over a century. Donald Trump is not breaking new ground. JFK’s 1960 campaign was chock-full of volunteers who were marketing and advertising executives. The Kennedy campaign was largely run as a branded-product sales campaign, complete with sample customer polls and market-tested slogans. JFK and LBJ as a team were sold the same way as cornflakes and laundry detergents were marketed to a national audience. Before Trump, former college radio announcer Ronald Reagan was the most recent thoroughly professional salesman to become president. Still, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were very, very good at delivering sales pitches. In terms of sheer addiction to the role of selling, Bill Clinton may be as “hooked” on the vocation as Donald Trump.
Trump has been wealthy since birth, has been in the papers and on TV and the internet for decades, has become a Brand of his own devise. What could Donald Trump possibly have in common with the every-salesman Willy Loman?
Aside from the fact that neither man could ever rest very long before charging back into the dog-eat-dog Darwinian struggle to make a living with no safety net. And no cushion for feeling the full force of humiliation when he failed. And never making friends, only customers and enemies. There is this: “He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him.” You can argue all you like about what Donald Trump does and does not deserve. But that’s not the point. What is his lived experience? He is subject to constant smears and pointed ridicule. He encounters enormous institutional resistance to his every move. He has been relentlessly hunted, to make his job a “trophy kill” for his adamant opponents.
As did Willy, Donald walked himself into a mire of quicksand and entangled himself in a struggle against the engorging folds of a flesh-eating vine. He’s in a struggle for his job, for his vision of America’s public health and welfare, and for his personal life achievements. This a terrible thing he has got himself into, and he, as did Willy Loman, just keeps pressing on the accelerator. Entangled, trapped, and pointedly dehumanized in description by many in his own society, Trump cannot quit the struggle even if he decides that quitting is in his best interests.
The Archetype: the Struggle to “Matter”
Every human being has a longing to “matter.” A very few may be touched by the Grace of God, perhaps the ultimate proof of ”Mattering.” In the absence of such grace, for Willy Loman the love of his sons and wife was, or would have been, proof enough. Possibly for Donald Trump, the love of his family will be proof enough, as well — despite some unfavorable memories and anecdotes published by his sister’s daughter.
Neither Loman nor Trump could ever find satisfaction in withdrawing from his struggle. Each would or will keep making “just one more sales call” so long as there was or is breath in his body. Trump & Loman each did, and will, end up as traveling salesmen, to their dying days.
Matt Taibbi’s substack piece, The Trump Era Sucks and Needs to Be Over , provided stimulus for this article. Our opinions differ on both Trump and salesmanship. Matt’s work is always worth reading.