Geoff Waite vs. Donald Trump on Intenionality

In a recent post I discussed him and his fascinating mind fuck of a book on Nietzsche.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/on-bullshit-trump-nietzsche-and-waite.html

http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsches-Corps-Technoculture-Post-Contemporary-Interventions/dp/0822317192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440956404&sr=8-1&keywords=geoff+waite

After reading a book like this I don't see how you can ever be quite the same again-which may or may not be a bad thing. Of course, many people will find it hard to believe that a mere book can have this sort of impact-not necessarily those with the best imaginations.

Anyway a central charge of Waite against Nietzsche in his 'Decelebration of Nietzsche' is that Nietzsche is pernicious as he writes in an esoteric style-one that makes distinctions between readers.

Basically there are two kinds of readers Right Nietzscheans and Left Nietzschoids and he says something different to each.

He insists that going forward in reading Nietzsche-or anyone else-it's vital that we put the issue of intentionality at the forefront-both the author's and ours.

But that's just it. It seems to me that with the fascinating Know Nothing campaign of Trump

http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsches-Corps-Technoculture-Post-Contemporary-Interventions/dp/0822317192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440956404&sr=8-1&keywords=geoff+waite

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/rush-limbaugh-on-know-nothing-movement.html

it doesn't matter what his intentions are. Like some have pointed out that he's an incredible social satirist

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-stephen-colbert-loves-trump.html

whether intentional or not. My guess it's mostly not but maybe partly is-like 35%.

But the beauty of it is it doesn't really matter that much. Here Jonathan Chait games out the endgame and concludes that whether Trump has a plan or doesn't it all comes out the same-he will end up going third party.
"There are two broad possibilities that explain Trump’s campaign. The first is that he has no real plan. His presidential run is the extension of his broader public persona — a bid for attention and to carry out grudges. Trump is running to spite the reporters and pundits who predicted he would never actually enter the race. Or perhaps he started out trying to grab attention, and simply kept going. Or he actually wants to be president in some vague way, and believes or hopes the force of his personality will carry him through. Or he just hates Jeb Bush a lot — one “Trump associate” told the Washington Post that Trump “has two goals: One, to be elected president, and two, to have Jeb not be president” — and would drop out of the race if Scott Walker or Marco Rubio supplants Bush."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/08/what-is-the-trump-endgame.html

Reason enough to like him in my view.

"If this is the case, then sooner or later — probably later — Trump will come to grips with the reality that he cannot win the Republican nomination. The field will narrow, the voters will get more realistic, and he will have to defeat a candidate who can be relied upon to carry out the Republican policy agenda."

Not necessarily. It's possible the voters don't get more realistic and the GOP has to use some kind of GOP insider chicanery-one idea already floated was trying to keep him off the ballot in certain places like SC.

More likely than this I would guess is the delegates refusing to answer the call for him even if their state has voted for him. Which would give him great justification for running in the mind of the base that supports him.

"The second possibility is that Trump actually has a plan. If you analyze his behavior from the premise that he has in mind a specific destination, and not just a journey, then it is possible to make sense of it. Trump is running to the right of the rest of the Republican field on immigration, but to its left on role-of-government issues. He is not talking much about Obamacare (and he has praised single-payer insurance). He has assailedhis opponents for proposing to cut social-insurance programs. (“They're attacking Social Security — the Republicans — they're attacking Medicare and Medicaid, but they're not saying how to make the country rich again.”) He’s called his opponents “puppets” of the Koch brothers, and proposed to raise taxes on the rich."

"If all this is indeed the result of a considered plan, then the plan is probably not to become the Republican candidate for president. The plan is probably to run an independent campaign. Trump needs to initially declare himself as a Republican, because the primaries are the source of the media attention at this stage of the race. Running as a Republican gives him access to Iowa state fairs, nationally televised debates, and other venues for attention. But Trump is, at best, going through the motions of making himself acceptable to the party regulars. At worst he is actively antagonizing them. By this line of thought, Trump’s strategy is to provoke a break that would allow him to claim he has been driven out of the GOP, or that the party is not worthy of him, setting the stage for an independent candidacy."

"In other words, both assumptions — that Trump has a plan, and that he has no plan — lead to the same outcome: Trump runs a third-party race. These are not foregone conclusions, of course. But the looming prospect of an independent Trump campaign is already serious enough to have set off frantic maneuvering"

So from the point of view of results at least Trump''s intentions really don't matter. This has been  fascinating as Trump's campaign surely is the first one so blatantly esoteric in a long time.

Yet, contrary to Waite I think you can argue the effects have overall been very positive.