‘A Tiny Bit of a Man’: Evelyn Waugh’s Anticipation of Donald Trump

National Review ^ | March 14, 2016 | George Weigel

[C19fan]

More than 70 years ago, while on leave from the Royal Marines, Evelyn Waugh penned a portrait of a buccaneering moneyman with political ambitions and a hollow interior, a sketch that rings loud bells of familiarity in today’s presidential campaign. When Rex Mottram first appears in Brideshead Revisited, it’s not clear what the source of his wealth is. It certainly isn’t old money, like that of the aristocratic Flyte family to whose elder daughter, Julia, he pays court. Rex is very much the Modern Man: Having made his pile, he wants, and gets, the best cars, the best brandy, the best club memberships, the best available seat in Parliament, and the best women, all of which he’s prepared to buy, but only at the cheapest price on the market.

[C19fan]

Has NRO run out of anti-Trump material when a writer has to compare Trump to a fictional character?

[Biggirl]

Well Trump is what is called “new money.”

[silverleaf]

His fairest critics may not approve of his policy statements and personal mannerisms but at the age of 69 a man’s achievements and failures can be fairly balanced and Trump is not a hollow man

[silverleaf]

Any family whose sons and daughters hold elected offuce could be called “ new money”

Old money understood that politicians are to be bought, not bred

[olezip]

More than 70 years ago, while on leave from the Royal Marines, Evelyn Waugh penned a portrait of a buccaneering moneyman with political ambitions and a hollow interior, a sketch that rings loud bells of familiarity in today’s presidential campaign.

Evelyn Waugh's portrait of a buccaneering moneyman with political ambitions and a hollow interior, represents a sketch that does NOT ring loud bells of familiarity to Donald Trump.

The anti-Trump people are on a full court press looking for anything that they can use to discredit a Christian Nationalist running for president.

[TexasFreeper2009]

when your parents can give you a million dollar loan... you are not new money.

[Savage Beast]

Alexander of Macedonia anticipated Trump 2,300 years ago when he slashed through that Gordian Knot!

And THAT was not fiction.

[blueunicorn6]

You know, people say that National Review is out of touch and has made itself boring and unreadable.

They’re right.

[bajabaja]

NRO: what is the proper analogy of a thought leader that has fallen from its pinnacle to now spread vacuous opinions?

I sure there is such an instance of that.

[Biggirl]

Well you have to begin somewhere and Trump after that earned his keep.

[Biggirl]

.....And centuries after that, the man that built the Hagia Sophia, a massive building for its time.

[Donglalinger]

[Mamzelle]

NRO sucks!!

[MNJohnnie]

These sort of infantile attack pieces straight out of the WCC0 political establishment playbook is why the GOPE candidates are losing

[Shark24]

And George Weigel no less. I hope JPII visits him in a dream and gives him what all.

[Enlightened1]

Outstanding post!

National Review = Establishment/Globalist/Uniparty Review

[jmaroneps37]

Next the bereft of ideas NRO will go back to what the left did with a zero movie something about Hollow Man - something like that that they called Bush.
Now NRO has passed from anti Trump to anti Free Speech with it’s silence about Chicago.

[miss marmelstein]

I always thought Bill Buckley imagined himself a character out of Brideshead. Of course, they’d have treated him like a phony Yank parvenu (much like Trump would be)but that’s ignored by current NR writers.

[silverleaf]

And when the parent expects to be paid back - and is paid back as Trump repaid his father’s loan - - just color that smart money

[Byron_the_Aussie]

.. the anti-Trump people are on a full court press looking for anything that they can use to discredit a Christian Nationalist running for president ..