I have written about Donald Trump's chimpanzee politics. Recently, we have had an excellent illustration of how to counter Trump's alpha male theatrics. An alpha male cannot rule by himself, he needs the support of beta males. But then beta males are vulnerable to the charge that they are . . . only beta males servile to the alpha male.
Tim Ryan is a Democrat running for the U. S. Senate from Ohio. Normally, Ohio would seem to be Trump Country. And once Trump endorsed J. D. Vance for the Senate, that would seem to be enough for Vance to defeat Ryan.
But a few weeks ago, Trump held a rally in Ohio, where he bragged that while Vance had criticized him in 2016, he sought Trump's endorsement in 2022. Now, he's "kissing my ass," Trump gloated. Vance then walked onto the podium to praise Trump. In a debate with Vance, Ryan reminded the audience of this. What kind of a man would give up his dignity to win Trump's endorsement, he asked. He observed that no one he knows from his high school class would have done this--to emasculate himself in becoming subservient to a higher ranked male. What Ohio wants, Ryan proclaimed, is not an ass-kisser but an ass-kicker.
Notice that this has nothing to do with policy debates. It's pure chimpanzee politics--who's the dominant male, who's the beta male. Ryan simultaneously identified Vance as the beta male and himself as alpha--as an ass-kicker not an ass-kisser.
This is a dramatic illustration of the evolutionary psychology of the Democratic strategy for subverting Trump's rhetoric of chimpanzee politics. A narcissistic alpha male like Trump cannot prevail without the support of submissive beta males, but the very submissiveness of these beta males exposes them to the humiliation of being toadies.
As I see it, J. D. Vance is a clever aspiring Alpha chimp in national politics. Vance is using Trump as a sort of scaffolding to help himself to rise to the heights to which he aspires. Vance knows that Trump is old, and will be off the stage pretty soon. He can tolerate a little hazing from Trump in order to be promoted to the fraternity of the Alphas. I would say that Vance is doing pretty well in playing The Status Game. I suspect that Vance didn't feel humiliated by Trump's commments, and that most or many Republican voters didn't see him as humiliated. Most or many Republican voters see Vance as loyally standing with Trump, which they see as standing for virtuous, heroic, old-fashioned American Nationalism, Patriotism, Capitalism, Masculinity, Patriarchy, etc. I'm not a fan of ape politics. But we are apes, aren't we, and this is the Planet of the Apes, isn't it?
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