I’ve called Donald Trump a lot of things over the last eight years — reckless, callous, nativist, rageful, shameless and even adventurous, which was actually a compliment. But here’s something new and unexpected.
By Matt Bai
This is a stunning turn of events. As any of us who grew up in the New York media market during the 1980s could tell you, Trump was an entertainer before he was anything else. He didn’t become a billionaire celebrity because his name was on all those gaudy buildings; the financiers put his name on the buildings because he made himself a celebrity. He was, in a sense, the original influencer.
As an entertainer, Trump viscerally understood something about our politics, which was that a lot of voters couldn’t stand another minute of the condescending artifice. Trump crashed through the fourth wall of our politics, mocking absurdities that a lot of us who were closer to the process had come to see as part of the scenery.
One thing I’ve always found endlessly entertaining about Trump, I have to admit, is the way he reads a speech from a teleprompter. He makes no pretense of having ever seen the text before. Instead, he reads a bunch of lines, then looks up at the camera and expresses his own surprise at what he’s just said. That’s actually true. Can you believe we did that?
That’s Trump’s way of saying, in effect, that none of these other politicians really know what they’re saying, either, but they pretend to be speaking offhand, whereas he’s not going to hide it from you. It’s brilliant, and often funny as hell.
But something’s happened during these past several weeks. Trump’s act feels oddly unprovocative. His third campaign is turning out to be a little like Season 3 of “The Bear.” We’ve gone through all the plot turns and character development, and what’s left is a bunch of leftover footage and montages of scenes we’ve already watched.
I first noticed it during his convention speech, when even all those Trump worshipers with ear patches seemed to visually drift away as Trump droned on for 92 minutes, ricocheting among his many familiar grievances. It was on display this past week, too, when Trump did his big interview with Elon Musk on the platform formerly known as Twitter, which felt like a 20-year-old set list from a band that can’t stop touring.
Here’s the problem, I think. Until last month, Trump had always had the good fortune to run against a highly scripted Democratic Party led by perfectly cast paragons of the status quo. Hillary Clinton was a terrific foil. So was Joe Biden (even though he won). If you wanted to captivate America with a running, often shocking commentary on the staleness of our politics, it helped to have plodding adversaries who bleached their party of anything remotely raw or exciting.
But now, ever since the presidential debate that reshuffled the cast, it’s the Democrats who have unscripted drama on their side. It may have been tragic to watch Biden slowly lose his grip on his party, but it was also addictively entertaining. And it ended with the ascension of a new candidate who is, yes, a highly rote politician, but one who nonetheless — by virtue of her age and identity — represents an entirely new storyline.
Maybe, if Trump had clearly seen what was happening, he would have used that convention time to add some interesting new wrinkle to his own story. Speaking just days after an attempt on his life, he might have presented himself as reflective, a man who had glimpsed the darkest corner of our politics and decided to shine a light on it. Had he offered himself up then as a more statesmanlike figure, I believe he might have put the whole election away before Kamala Harris even got her chance to run.
But Trump forgot that even the most successful entertainers have to iterate; you always need a new direction or a new character, something that propels the audience forward, rather than daring them to channel-surf. Or maybe he just doesn’t have a sequel in him. Maybe he’s shown us all there is.
Whatever the reason, now it’s Harris starring in the freshest reality show in politics — thrust into an unfamiliar role in front of millions, teetering perilously between success and humiliation, commanding our attention at every turn. And it’s Trump who’s trotting out the same old shtick on an app that used to matter but which, like Trump, seems to be losing its audience.
For an entertainer as needy as Trump, losing an election might be less painful.
