David Lynch Says President Trump Could Be Among History’s Greatest, Having ‘Disrupted The Thing So Much’
Famous for his on-screen depictions of atmospheric, American small town narratives, and regarded on the Internet Movie Database as a director who will “will never stop making beauty on the screen,” David Lynch has been described by Reason as the “original libertarian democrat.”
Though Lynch, he said, dislikes Democrats because he is a smoker, and they have “come up with these rules for non-smoking,” he claimed to have always been a Democrat with libertarian leanings. In a recent interview with The Guardian, the famous director touched on the current President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Trump, Lynch says, may not be doing a great job as himself, but it is the president’s unorthodoxy that could pave the way for change.
“He could go down as one of the greatest presidents in history because he has disrupted the thing so much. No one is able to counter this guy in an intelligent way.”
“Let the empire burn,” an accelerationist sentiment Lynch is now echoing has been one of the stranger – albeit some would say inherent – phenomenons to blossom out of Trump’s presidency. On the furthest fringes of the left, Slovenian political philosopher, Marxist, and all-around eccentric, Slavoj Zizek, (in)famously made the case for Trump.
In an interview with Vice, the far-left Marxist philosopher asserted his position, explaining his support for Trump from the perspective of the left which, Zizek said, is in desperate need of change. Hillary Clinton’s loss was necessary to disrupt the status quo and ensure the long-term survival of the Democratic party, according to Zizek.
David Lynch: ‘You gotta be selfish. It's a terrible thing’ https://t.co/aijxFEPzfD
— The Guardian (@guardian) June 23, 2018
While one could argue that Donald Trump has, indeed, broken and dismantled the status quo, exposing the American political landscape for what it is, some have warned of the “dangers of an untethered Trump.” American political commentator, professor, and author Robert B. Reich argued in a column for the Baltimore Sun that Donald Trump has made the dangerous journey from vanity-driven pettiness to cruelty.
As a film director, David Lynch is widely known for relying on dreamlike imagery, symbolism, and recurring motifs, so his seemingly accelerationist view of Donald Trump may appear out of character. In the grand scheme of things, Lynch argues, Trump may have shown the infantility of American politicians, incapable of moving the country forward.
“Our so-called leaders can’t take the country forward, can’t get anything done. Like children, they are. Trump has shown all this.”
The motifs behind David Lynch’s journey from “the original libertarian democrat,” to, it seems, an accelerationist, could only be described by his eternal yearning for absolute freedom. Much like many of his film characters, trapped in eerie, claustrophobic small towns, David Lynch appears to want only freedom, and if it takes a Trump to get him there, then so be it.
“I am not really a political person, but I really like the freedom to do what you want to do,” he told The Guardian.
