I wrote the post below in the summer of 2023, trying to understand the continued appeal of Trump through the lens of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s great play Death of a Salesman.
Thanks. I think there's definitely a cultural answer to why so many feel left behind. And why people may be making more income, even at the median and inflation adjusted, but feel worse because their income is more precarious.
In answer to your question, no book currently helps, nor did Dusty in the Willy role. But what did help, a few weeks ago, was John Irving on a Zoom call about his new book "Queen Esther," telling us to always write about what makes you angry. So, have at it. And, grab John's new book.
I’ve been thinking about Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I’ve been wondering how many Owens are there out there. We’re gonna need that level of sacrifice to get out of this.
Your posts referencing the arts are a great reassurance for me because someone out there values the same references that I do. What texts do I turn to? I am reading a lot of history. I just finished a trenchant essay on Thucydides’ Melian dialogue and another comparing Clausewitz’s theory of war with Aquinas’s just war theory. The background gives me a framework. Beyond that, O’Brian, Jane Austen and the Anne of Green Gables books.
I do not think that Trump would have given Mr. Loman a rationale. Why would he pay attention to aiding what he would consider a broke, aged loser? He got the man’s vote. That served his purpose. What remains is selling the paid off house to a private equity firm and hoping his wife doesn’t consume too many resources. For Trump, Willy Loman is Kleenex. Time to flush.
Thanks Susan. One of the great things about literature is speculating on what the characters might do. My speculation is that Willy might have derived hope from the MAGA theme of a restoration to a golden age. But then WL would not have benefitted at all form the policies.
Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ comes to mind as an antidote and as the polar opposite of the senseless utopian and collectivist schemes of our insufferable liberal elites.
Fountainhead influenced me but I was so unpolitical when I read it. And politics in the 80s and early 90s wasn’t so divided. Most were moderates and pro America.
I am very concerned about the deterioration of democracy and society.
One of the reasons Rand’s writing pushed me left was the realization that in her world, everyone must be able to exist independently. Children, the frail elderly and disabled people are not a concern at all. If a child is orphaned and too young to start a business and kick ass, well, too bad! Only healthy, able people matter.
Since I care about society as a whole, I reject libertarianism.
So thank you, Rand, for helping me, when I was a young adult, to reject much of conservatism. :)
I read that book when I was a teenager and liked it very much then. If you are a liberal, I don't think you are a collectivist or a utopian. Our Founding Fathers fit squarely in the liberal tradition and were under no illusions about people behaving as angels. Collectivism and Utopian promises have always been cover stories for seizing power.
Interesting question. I’m a classically trained musician, soon turning 70. Classical music, jazz, and arranging music for my synagogue choir, which I also conduct, are what help me deal with my personal worries as well as the worries of the world.
More and more, however, I’m looking for and discovering ways for setting up the choir to continue without me in some odd years.
Oh, I would really like to hear your insights after you read it!
My junior high English arts teacher had no idea what she set off when she assigned that! It made me question everything. I have a collection of Ibsen’s works, but for anyone who doesn’t but would like to read it right now: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2446/2446-h/2446-h.htm
I think it is extremely timely right now and would love to discuss.
It’s probably the finest American play. There’s a new production of Salesman this Spring with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf. I’ve never seen it performed live, so this is good inspiration to get tickets.
This piece is a powerful, empathetic revisit—timely in 2026 as ever.
Drawing that line from Willy Loman's quiet devastation (the disappearing open sky, the boss who discards him for "new blood," the desperate myth of being "well-liked") to the deep frustration many feel in today's economy hits hard. It's not about excusing choices, but understanding the despair that makes someone cling to a figure who promises to smash the system that crushed them. Your refusal to reduce Trump supporters to caricature, instead seeing them as thwarted people searching for dignity and recognition, feels rare and necessary right now.
The play's tragedy hasn't aged a day because the forces—capitalism's impersonal grind, the myth of individual success, the emasculation of being made disposable—haven't gone away; they've only intensified. Literature like this gives us tools to bridge the divide, to feel the human ache beneath the anger.
Thank you for bringing it back and reminding us why stories matter when everything feels senseless.
Thanks for the comment. it does seem that the feeling of being thwarted and hemmed in has risen. Sentiment polls bear this out. Some economic statistics run counter to this but general statistics don't matter when people are feeling frustrated and precarious.
I've watched and re-watched Little Big Man (coincidentally also starring Dustin Hoffman) more than any other film. What I like about the film is that it is narrated by a centenarian who is looking back over his life. You get both his young-man's perspective and his later reflections about those times woven together throughout.
I turn to Goya’s Black Paintings, created by a deaf, isolated old man on intimate terms with war, cruelty and grief. I particularly love his almost abstract dog stranded on what looks to be a mountain of quicksand. The sky is on fire. A faint gleam in the dog’s eye suggests he hasn’t entirely lost hope. This painting tells the truth about desolation but also about the unquenchable will to keep on going, which the artist embodied.
Rona, like this famous Auden poem about Icarus. It mentions how "dogs go on with their doggy life." I wonder if Auden was thinking of the Goya painting.
Musée des Beaux Arts
BY W. H. AUDEN
December 1938
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Really liked this essay. I have NO sympathy for Trump, but his supporters are another matter, at least some of them. I don't think they had any idea what they were unleashing. I have no one writer to whom I turn, but I do turn to music, both listening and singing.
I have a soft spot for Willy Loman because my grandfather, who inherited a lot of money from his father, lost it all in bright ideas that were wrong for the moment (ways of expanding gas lighting just when electricity became available etc etc) and ended up a travelling salesman. He died before I was born, but one benefit was that he had a typewriter for writing receipts and in his spare time, he wrote a lot of letters and family history. Although he too felt broken and a failure (imagine, losing all the money your father had built up from nothing), I don't think he would have been a Trump supporter. His parents were cultured German and his mindset was European.
Interesting idea. Ray and I took our daughter, then a tender age 12, to see Glengarry Glen Ross because we thought it would be good to introduce her to adult theatre. Stupidly, we knew nothing about the play (I thought it was something about Scotland!) It could hardly have been worse– she was strongly affected by all the expletives and never wanted to go to the theatre again for years!
There are a number of books that speak to me in that way, I think. I've just been reading the last Philip Pullman book but the whole His Dark Materials series gives us an amazing universe with a varied cast of resisters who are faced with a murderous, oppressive, and gaslighting political administration. (Witches and polar bears unite!). I also recently saw a production of Exit the King, and welll.... on point.
I've often wondered about T S Eliot's famous line 'Mankind cannot bear very much reality' given it was written in a time when people would have endured two World Wars. But your piece has defined/clarified the line for me. It more likely applies to man's need for hope and being vulnerable to illusive narratives.
Thanks. I think there's definitely a cultural answer to why so many feel left behind. And why people may be making more income, even at the median and inflation adjusted, but feel worse because their income is more precarious.
In answer to your question, no book currently helps, nor did Dusty in the Willy role. But what did help, a few weeks ago, was John Irving on a Zoom call about his new book "Queen Esther," telling us to always write about what makes you angry. So, have at it. And, grab John's new book.
I saw that call. Very interesting.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Working from the inside. I think I've found my next read. Thanks for mentioning.
I’ve been thinking about Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I’ve been wondering how many Owens are there out there. We’re gonna need that level of sacrifice to get out of this.
Your posts referencing the arts are a great reassurance for me because someone out there values the same references that I do. What texts do I turn to? I am reading a lot of history. I just finished a trenchant essay on Thucydides’ Melian dialogue and another comparing Clausewitz’s theory of war with Aquinas’s just war theory. The background gives me a framework. Beyond that, O’Brian, Jane Austen and the Anne of Green Gables books.
I do not think that Trump would have given Mr. Loman a rationale. Why would he pay attention to aiding what he would consider a broke, aged loser? He got the man’s vote. That served his purpose. What remains is selling the paid off house to a private equity firm and hoping his wife doesn’t consume too many resources. For Trump, Willy Loman is Kleenex. Time to flush.
Thanks Susan. One of the great things about literature is speculating on what the characters might do. My speculation is that Willy might have derived hope from the MAGA theme of a restoration to a golden age. But then WL would not have benefitted at all form the policies.
Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ comes to mind as an antidote and as the polar opposite of the senseless utopian and collectivist schemes of our insufferable liberal elites.
That book did much to cement my liberal beliefs!
It has not aged well for me.
Fountainhead influenced me but I was so unpolitical when I read it. And politics in the 80s and early 90s wasn’t so divided. Most were moderates and pro America.
I am very concerned about the deterioration of democracy and society.
One of the reasons Rand’s writing pushed me left was the realization that in her world, everyone must be able to exist independently. Children, the frail elderly and disabled people are not a concern at all. If a child is orphaned and too young to start a business and kick ass, well, too bad! Only healthy, able people matter.
Since I care about society as a whole, I reject libertarianism.
So thank you, Rand, for helping me, when I was a young adult, to reject much of conservatism. :)
I read that book when I was a teenager and liked it very much then. If you are a liberal, I don't think you are a collectivist or a utopian. Our Founding Fathers fit squarely in the liberal tradition and were under no illusions about people behaving as angels. Collectivism and Utopian promises have always been cover stories for seizing power.
Interesting question. I’m a classically trained musician, soon turning 70. Classical music, jazz, and arranging music for my synagogue choir, which I also conduct, are what help me deal with my personal worries as well as the worries of the world.
More and more, however, I’m looking for and discovering ways for setting up the choir to continue without me in some odd years.
Thanks Elizabeth for the comment.
A formative text for me was Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. We read it in junior high and I’ve never stopped thinking about it.
Years later, I ran across Fromm’s Escape From Freedom. Same.
They explain a lot.
I've never read that play. Thanks for the rec, Michelle.
Oh, I would really like to hear your insights after you read it!
My junior high English arts teacher had no idea what she set off when she assigned that! It made me question everything. I have a collection of Ibsen’s works, but for anyone who doesn’t but would like to read it right now: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2446/2446-h/2446-h.htm
I think it is extremely timely right now and would love to discuss.
It’s probably the finest American play. There’s a new production of Salesman this Spring with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf. I’ve never seen it performed live, so this is good inspiration to get tickets.
I would like to see it again. Thanks Doug.
Now I want to revisit this play. A brilliant piece of writing. I wonder who Willy would have voted for in 1949 when the play opened on Broadway.
In 1952, I'm pretty sure he would have avoided the "egghead" Stevenson and voted for Ike.
Desiderata-Max Ehrmann
Thanks Jrod. I just read it.
This piece is a powerful, empathetic revisit—timely in 2026 as ever.
Drawing that line from Willy Loman's quiet devastation (the disappearing open sky, the boss who discards him for "new blood," the desperate myth of being "well-liked") to the deep frustration many feel in today's economy hits hard. It's not about excusing choices, but understanding the despair that makes someone cling to a figure who promises to smash the system that crushed them. Your refusal to reduce Trump supporters to caricature, instead seeing them as thwarted people searching for dignity and recognition, feels rare and necessary right now.
The play's tragedy hasn't aged a day because the forces—capitalism's impersonal grind, the myth of individual success, the emasculation of being made disposable—haven't gone away; they've only intensified. Literature like this gives us tools to bridge the divide, to feel the human ache beneath the anger.
Thank you for bringing it back and reminding us why stories matter when everything feels senseless.
Thanks for the comment. it does seem that the feeling of being thwarted and hemmed in has risen. Sentiment polls bear this out. Some economic statistics run counter to this but general statistics don't matter when people are feeling frustrated and precarious.
David, your description of Trump supporters is a caricature. Serious question, have you ever actually met one?
I've met and know many. And of course I did not mean to suggest that every Trump voter feels as thwarted as Willy Loman. But some certainly do.
Great, I’ll look forward to a post someday that highlights the positive aspects of a Trump supporter.
I've watched and re-watched Little Big Man (coincidentally also starring Dustin Hoffman) more than any other film. What I like about the film is that it is narrated by a centenarian who is looking back over his life. You get both his young-man's perspective and his later reflections about those times woven together throughout.
David, that's a great suggestion for a movie. If I did see it, that was decades ago. Thanks.
I turn to Goya’s Black Paintings, created by a deaf, isolated old man on intimate terms with war, cruelty and grief. I particularly love his almost abstract dog stranded on what looks to be a mountain of quicksand. The sky is on fire. A faint gleam in the dog’s eye suggests he hasn’t entirely lost hope. This painting tells the truth about desolation but also about the unquenchable will to keep on going, which the artist embodied.
Rona, like this famous Auden poem about Icarus. It mentions how "dogs go on with their doggy life." I wonder if Auden was thinking of the Goya painting.
Musée des Beaux Arts
BY W. H. AUDEN
December 1938
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Really liked this essay. I have NO sympathy for Trump, but his supporters are another matter, at least some of them. I don't think they had any idea what they were unleashing. I have no one writer to whom I turn, but I do turn to music, both listening and singing.
I have a soft spot for Willy Loman because my grandfather, who inherited a lot of money from his father, lost it all in bright ideas that were wrong for the moment (ways of expanding gas lighting just when electricity became available etc etc) and ended up a travelling salesman. He died before I was born, but one benefit was that he had a typewriter for writing receipts and in his spare time, he wrote a lot of letters and family history. Although he too felt broken and a failure (imagine, losing all the money your father had built up from nothing), I don't think he would have been a Trump supporter. His parents were cultured German and his mindset was European.
Thanks Ann. I have a very soft spot for Willy Loman, too. It just occurred to me that the salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross are Willy's heirs.
Interesting idea. Ray and I took our daughter, then a tender age 12, to see Glengarry Glen Ross because we thought it would be good to introduce her to adult theatre. Stupidly, we knew nothing about the play (I thought it was something about Scotland!) It could hardly have been worse– she was strongly affected by all the expletives and never wanted to go to the theatre again for years!
Oops!
There are a number of books that speak to me in that way, I think. I've just been reading the last Philip Pullman book but the whole His Dark Materials series gives us an amazing universe with a varied cast of resisters who are faced with a murderous, oppressive, and gaslighting political administration. (Witches and polar bears unite!). I also recently saw a production of Exit the King, and welll.... on point.
I've often wondered about T S Eliot's famous line 'Mankind cannot bear very much reality' given it was written in a time when people would have endured two World Wars. But your piece has defined/clarified the line for me. It more likely applies to man's need for hope and being vulnerable to illusive narratives.
Thanks Clare. We all need a little bit of illusion and fantasy.