Obama, Trump and Bubba Gump
By Greg T.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” –Lyndon B. Johnson, 1960
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and I was determined to do absolutely nothing. With remote in hand, I settled onto the couch for a mindless day of channel surfing. A few clicks later, I happened upon Forrest Gump, which is described by Variety film critic, Todd McCarthy as, “a picaresque story of a simpleton’s charmed odyssey through 30 years of tumultuous American history.”
By now, just about everyone has seen the movie and can quote its most memorable lines. “Mama always said, life is like…” “After that, everywhere I went, I was…” The film is well made and quite entertaining, especially if one ignores the fact that the title character gets his name from a distant relative, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the real-life Confederate General infamous for his role in massacring black soldiers at Fort Pillow and for being a Grand Wizard and founding member of the Pulaski, Tennessee Ku Klux Klan. But, hey. It’s a movie, and Tom Hanks speaks funny and lucks his way into some historical situations. Shut up and tune out.
I watched as Forrest grows from a young boy with a 75 I.Q. to a wealthy pop icon, who somehow dodges the AIDS virus after unprotected sex. Early in the film, Forrest ships off to Bootcamp before heading to Vietnam. At this point, we meet Benjamin Buford Blue, better known as Bubba, one of the most iconic characters in film history. It was also about here where the LBJ quote came to mind. How could the producers convince audiences to empty their pockets for the rags to riches story of a man with a 75 I.Q? Give them someone else to look down on, and while you’re at it, make him black, with crossed eyes and a slack jaw. For good measure, make Bubba a servant who perseverates on shrimp to the point that even Forrest tires of his depth of knowledge.
Not one to tune out too long, my mind wandered to the current state of politics. America responded to two terms of its first black president by electing Trump. So, you voted for a Harvard educated family-centered black man who speaks in prose? Cool, we have a Wharton graduate who has five kids by three women, had unprotected sex with porn stars and speaks in bumper sticker. What, the first black president served eight years and earned the nickname, “No Drama Obama?” Hold my beer. Obama wore a tan suit on Easter? That’s cute; Trump wears a spray tan every day. And the list goes on.
Other similarities come to mind. For example, it is Bubba who inspires Forrest to get into the shrimping business. The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company not only saves Lieutenant Dan’s life by giving him a sense of purpose, it makes him and Forrest rich enough to get in on the IPO of “a fruit company.” That company happened to be Apple, and it is estimated that Gump’s holdings would have made him a multimillionaire. Trump boasts of record economic growth during his term, but economists are quick to point out the growth began during the second term of Obama’s presidency.
Whether or not they agree with Obama’s policies, even his harshest critics have to admit that he is generally a decent guy. Once one strips away the coded racism from this 2007 quote and “whitesplains” its meaning, it’s easy to see what Joe Biden thought of Obama, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Despite this, a certain segment of the country saw Obama as one thing and only one thing. To them, he might as well have looked and acted like Bubba, or a thug, or a terrorist, or a Nazi Muslim Socialist—whatever that is. No matter what he did, they found a way to look down on him. And they reacted by electing a charmed simpleton who has taken the country on an odyssey through three years of tumult.