by Here we are, the year of Donald Trump. Of course, we’ve already had several years of Trump. But, as he would say, this is the big one. Will he choose it?
It’s a pretty basic electoral proposition: an all-consuming Trump against an ever-retiring Joe Biden. Does Trump every day, often a day, insult, attack, never stop talking, filling every space with weirdness and baldash, accepting loudly everyone who came in the multiple fights of his life, inviting your redemption or unity (that is, beyond the hard heart it encourages)? Does Biden’s lack of base effect, almost physical transparency, clear frustration or disgust with the demand for theatrics, and overall back office behavior create confusion, feelings of hopelessness or relief?
Trump’s strategy, despite all efforts to parse the larger meaning or “dog whistles” of his messages, boils down to pure media dominance. The more news cycles he controls, the happier he is and the better he judges his political success. In Trump’s case, political logic is always a backstop for the showmen. Since the start of the primary campaign season, about a year ago, Trump’s singular approach, and his natural demeanor, has been to give any and all competitors any airtime. If he was getting attention, they weren’t. It was not, as in any traditional political formation, about who had more money – Ron DeSantis, his main rival, had a lot of it. And it wasn’t about knocking on doors and retail politics — something Trump has little patience for. It was about having an overarching story, and an ongoing story: Trump. Trump only.
The election calendar for his march to the nomination, his many trials, means that every day is Trump Day
Strangely enough, or naively, this is still a shock to the political system. After his victory in 2020, and on January 6, and exiled to Mar-a-Lago, there was the impression that, at best, Trump was a big letdown. But here again there was a misunderstanding between the game of politics and the techniques of reality television. In the first you try to control conflict, in the second you invite it as much as possible. Almost every political insider, Democrat and Republican alike, considered his insistence and constant regurgitation of the “stolen” election to be foolish if not psychotic. And yet the effect of his obsessive harping was to give him not just a simple, rich question of conflict – loaded with martyrdom, victims, and us-versus-them – but one about him. The issue isn’t about politics, or policy, or anything weird like that: it just is. In addition, it allowed him, again like reality TV, to maintain the dramatic tendency – no matter how ridiculous – that he was still president. He wasn’t a competitor, he was a holder (well, he would be, if …). Because of the force or the ludicrousness with which he remained in person – never refer to him as the “former president” – he kept himself and Mar-a-Lago as an alternative power center in America. The added benefit of this was that he could avoid the hard work of going on the campaign trail to get attention. As the other president his speeches and speeches brought him direct attention, and it hardly even affected his golf game.
His numerous prosecutions, seeking nothing less than his political and personal destruction, did not so much challenge his unique status as help support and awaken him. The more headlines – the reason and tenor don’t really matter – the more important it is. And for many, the more inevitable.
And, realistically, we haven’t seen anything yet.
Next week, his lawyers go into Federal Court in Washington to argue his case for full presidential immunity, a cockamamie defense that defies all constitutional logic and is now suddenly, for no real reason other than sheer nutty drama. of, being taken seriously. Trump himself is threatening to personally appear in court to hear his lawyers argue this case. Why? Without legal reason. All that needs to be done is to pay more attention to drama and the media.
Two days later is the final day of his trial in New York on civil fraud charges. He will lose this trial – on the strength of the rulings already made, he has lost. But he continues to appear in the New York courthouse and, with each bathroom break, he has generated new headlines in the courtrooms. What are the odds he won’t show up on the final day?
Four days later there are Iowa caucuses – the first primary vote. And the first of a series of potential Trump victories.
The next day, E Jean Carroll, who had previously won her suit against him for sexual assault, goes back to court suing him for defamation (he continued to assault her). Trump privately mocked his lawyers for dissuading him from attending the first trial. He promised not to miss the second one.
The New Hampshire primary is a week later. And we’re not even done with January.
Biden can only hope that at the end of the day the contrast, as extreme as any in American political life, will be with him
The election calendar with his march to the nomination, his many trials — his criminal trials, his civil trials, the efforts of many states to get him off the ballots, his various issues now going up to the Supreme Court — with his daily opportunities fire. and fury, and his natural state in which the air he wants to live in is television air, means, quite simply, that every day is Trump Day.
So where is Joe Biden?
It’s clear he can’t fight this fight and it’s clear he doesn’t even want to try. He can only hope that at the end of the day the contrast, as extreme as it has ever been in American politics: dominance and dominance of perception, an inescapable cacophony of sound and image, compared to the obvious force, silence enough. optimism will be taken as a sign of competence and dedication (rather than being out of place).
American political punditry has defined this as a choice between the despotic and the democratic. But perhaps that is a complex for a more widespread collective judgment.
Does Trump win because of his ratings drive at all? Or will he lose by jumping the shark? After all, no show goes on forever. And this one is pushing the number of already credible off-seasons.
Michael Wolff is the author of Fire and Fury and The Fall: The End of the Murdoch Empire
