…Let’s talk about Trump as a cultural phenomenon because I think of two things. The McDonald’s drive-through and the garbage truck, both things that broke into the pop culture conversation, even beyond our world. Could any other candidate do that?
Fabrizio: MMA fights. Joe Rogan. We think of them as very specific things, but the symbolism — It says something about him that she couldn’t capture.
Where she’s doing the big speech or having the big debate, the conventional warfare, traditional campaign tactics. Donald Trump goes to the McDonald’s drive-through. But in the year 2024, when we’re all living on our phones, a big speech at the Ellipse vs. Trump at the drive-through, which is going to break through?
LaCivita: Donald Trump is a man who has made a large part of his living in a visual medium: TV. He understands that politics is a visual medium. And so he looks at everything through the prism of that. And your average candidate for public office doesn’t look at the world that way.
He’s also a celebrity.
LaCivita: Defined outside the realm of politics. He has his own persona and definition outside of politics.
And because of that, some of the stuff he says …
LaCivita: He gets away with, he does.
He’s not graded as a politician. He’s graded as a celebrity.
Fabrizio: I know this is going to sound counterintuitive, but when he says stuff that makes people go — (grimaces) — it only reinforces that …
LaCivita: … He’s not a politician, exactly!
…Is there one big thing that you think we’re missing in this campaign that was enormously consequential or at least significant?
LaCivita: You guys have written about the impact of the assassination attempt. But I don’t think people give enough credit to the fact that the world has a visual. It’s an iconic visual. But I don’t think people have given enough credit to that visual.
Him holding up his fist.
LaCivita: And what that visual means. And what the visual conveys. Not only about him, but the country as a whole. Americans get knocked down, but they always fight back. And that visual is as quintessential America as the fucking flag is.
Fabrizio: I am always amazed, I’ve learned not to be amazed, but he has this ability in most cases to put his finger on something. And you say to yourself: “Where did he come up with that?” But he just does. Then you test it and, holy shit, he’s right.
UPDATE: The period this statue dates from and the area in which it was found was Gandhara, which was a major center of Buddhism. A great deal of Buddhism went to China from Gandhara. Chinese Buddhist nuns, to this day, take Sarvastivadan monastic vows which probably came from Gandhara. Buddhist statuary developed in this area under the strong influence of Greek statuary which became prevalent in that region due to the Greek presence brought by Alexander the Great. The earliest attested Buddhist teachings come to us from this area through Pyrrho, the Greek skeptic, who studied with Buddhist monks. Skepticism is clearly based on Buddhist core teachings. See Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia for more on this topic. I highly recommend that book. ABN
American Buddhist Net 