Why Donald Trump is Going to Be Elected — Part 3
In yesterday’s New York Times, columnist Charles Blow published a scathing analysis of Trump’s first big public rally in Waco, Texas.
Blow hits all the right points, but his conclusion is wrong. Trump is going to be both nominated and re-elected, owing almost entirely to the points Blow makes as his weaknesses. They aren’t weaknesses, they are his strengths.
Of course, Trump opens his campaign in Waco, Texas, the site of the FBI and Federal government’s deadly siege of David Koresh and his Branch Dividians there exactly 30 years ago. By the time the siege was over, 76 members of the cult, 26 of them children, had been killed. For the American right wing, Waco, Texas is the 9/11 moment of their movement — proof positive that the government is not just their enemy, but the ‘enemy of the people,’ as Trump loves to say.
He knows exactly what he is doing, and it is not so far removed from Ronald Reagan kicking off his own successful Presidential campaign in 1980 in Neshoba County, Mississippi, the site of the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers — Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.
In his OpEd piece, Blow over and over makes the point that Trump is not really a politician. He is an entertainer, a comedian, as though this was a liability. It is not.
“It’s a standard part of Trump’s routine: Comedians aren’t bound by the truth — or the sensitivities of race, gender and sexuality — after all. To get laughs, they’re granted license to engage in all manner of distortion, and that’s what Trump does.”
He is exactly right.
For a political writer for The New York Times, it may be annoying that Trump does not pay attention to facts, and is willing to say just about anything to get a laugh from the crowd, but that is exactly what makes him so popular, and exactly why he is going to be re-elected, probably in a landslide if the Democrats run Biden.
Americans, the vast majority of them, don’t care about platforms. They don’t care about policies. They don’t even care about scandals. What they care about is entertainment. Is this candidate entertaining? Does he make me laugh. Do I ‘like’ him.
This, of course, was the famous George Bush secret weapon when he got elected. “Is this the kind of guy you want to have a beer with?”
Trump is endlessly entertaining in a society that lives and breathes entertainment, pretty much endless entertainment 24-hours a day, from Netflix to TikTok to Top Gun.
Blow complains that Trump is the Andrew Dice Clay of politics.
“Trump is the Andrew Dice Clay of American politics, appealing to machismo, misogyny and mischief — a type of character that’s a constant in American culture.”
He is right. Trump IS the Andrew Dice Clay of American politics — or the Howard Stern of American politics or the Adele of American politics. They all put on a great show.
A friend of mine just paid $10,000 for a ticket to the Adele show in Las Vegas. She nightly fills a 5,000 seat auditorium and by the time she is finished will do 72 shows. Always sold out. Every seat, every night.
Is anyone going to pay $10,000 for a seat at the Joe Biden show? Would anyone pay $10 for a seat? A dollar?
Not that Biden is a bad person. He is just terrible television. He is terrible entertainment, and in America, that is the touch of death.
We no longer have elections. Our election cycle has become a Reality TV Show — Who Wants To Be President, with weekly eliminations as potential candidates are voted off the island. “Goodbye Ted Cruz. Goodbye Mike Pence.” And why? Because they are terrible television. They are not entertaining. They are not fun to watch.
Hillary lost in 2016 because no one could countenance watching The Hillary Clinton Show for 4 long years. It had nothing to do with abilities or her political skills or knowledge which were deep, particularly compared to the unbelievably shallow Trump. But in 21st Century America, those skills don’t matter. It’s all about who puts on a good show.
Political leaders tend to reflect the countries that they lead. Putin is popular in Russia because Russians like a Czar. It’s in their history and culture. Xi is popular in China because he is an Emperor. You can’t argue with 2,500 years of history. America is the land of Hollywood, of TV shows and sit coms, or never ending entertainment. When it comes to deciding who will lead us, well the answer is already baked into our culture.
So here’s a bit of advice to the Democratic Party. You want to defeat Trump, don’t run Biden. Run Jon Stewart. Run Seinfeld. Run Dave Chappelle. Run Oprah. Run Adelle.
That’s just who we are.
That’s entertainment.
If you found this interesting, check out my newest book The Rise of the Mediaverse.
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