David Lynch Is Not a Trump Supporter, But He's Never Been a Democrat, So Deal With It — Analysis

However, before Breitbart can claim the filmmaker as one of their own — well, it’s too late for that — we should consider Lynch’s history of bizarro ideology, from his peculiar support of Ronald Reagan to his convictions about transcendental meditation. It all ties to elements of his work that have appealed to audiences for decades, yet it’s possible to acknowledge those ideas without throwing his artistry under the bus.

Let’s be clear: Lynch never pulled a Kayne. The director supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, voted for Gary Johnson, and his general disdain for governmental regulation as well as the corrosive powers of wealth suggest the markings of a center-left Libertarian (not unlike the “South Park” guys). Lynch also reveres the working-class plight, with everything from “Blue Velvet” to “Twin Peaks” burrowing inside the American dream from the inside out. He hates any system that tries to control people. The last season of “Twin Peaks” was all about the quest for clarity when faced with ominous, invisible forces governing the visible world.

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Often, Lynch’s movies collapse into spectacular, cryptic bouts of lyricism far more powerful than any single character’s agency. Whether it’s the climactic shush of “Mulholland Drive” or the careening into an endless night in the final minutes of “Lost Highway,” Lynch embraces the notion of worlds disintegrating or veering off in unknown directions. Reduced to a pure aesthetic impulse, it’s a beautiful obsession. When he’s talking about America’s lizard-brain tyrant, it smarts.

Nevertheless, Lynch’s thoughts on Trump struck me as having less in common with Kanye or Roseanne than the eccentric Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek (himself a movie character, most famously with “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema” in 2006). After Trump’s election, Žižek called Trump “personally disgusting,” acknowledged his “bad racist jokes, vulgarities, and so on.” The Marxist academic predicted that Trump would yield “a big awakening” in American politics. In Lynch’s interview with The Guardian, he echoes that observation. “Our so-called leaders can’t take the country forward,” Lynch said. “Trump has shown all this.” The implication seems to be more that Trump so blatantly epitomizes the inanities of modern political machinations that he’s forced the entire system out into the open — and in the wake of his deranged rulership, a new system of accountability will take shape, hopefully better equipped to handle him.

And sure, that’s a ridiculous conceit, one that fails to take into account the terrible immediate reverberations of the Trump presidency — the cruelty, the bigotry, the horrific policies that inflict so much harm on people of color, the inane tax policies, the isolationist strategies scaring off American allies, and so on.

Lynch’s movies idolize post-war America — shiny sports cars, Elvis music, slick hairdos gleaming in the lights — and views the prospects of its extinction as a terrifying inevitability. They’re an extraordinary blend of Norman Rockwell and Francisco Goya. You don’t need to agree with that worldview to relish his astonishing, singular vision.

Bottom line: Lynch has never adhered to a logic familiar to most of us. He has never made complete sense. That’s part of what has made his work so alluring over the years. However, there’s a through-line in all this — his movies exude an empathy for desperate, lonely characters battling through a chaotic existence. He wants the little guy to succeed against impossible odds. There is no way he actually likes the crude belligerence of Trump or agrees with his most corrosive policies. Still, it’s hard to imagine that any statement or new interview might clarify his position. All you have to do is look at the movies, and keep searching for answers. Lynchian magic has more to do with the quest than its outcome.

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