Belongs on Saturday morning TV, not Saturday Night Live
The Press and Trump are working in two very different parts of the world—the narrative versus the descriptive.
Trump’s a TV guy.
TV runs on a narrative, which is driven by conflict. Shakespeare or Saturday morning cartoons, makes no difference. Trump constantly picks fights to make sure he has conflict going.
TV President Trump wants to be the hero. He needs a villain.
Someone he can reliably count to be against him.
Enter the Press.
When Trump fucks up, the Press reports it. Trump then says, the Press is against him.
If Trump does something that doesn’t blow up in his face like an exploding cigar, he stays quiet. But to drive the narrative and the conflict, he is always glad to mention his Arch-Enemy, the Press, to dispute negative news, which he generates by the metric ton.
He says the Press is his enemy.
This pushes forward two dynamics that serve his interest: 1. He has created a villain (Press) for his TV character to be in conflict with. 2. He devalues the news, and facts themselves, to promote reliance on himself as the authoritative source of information (Fascism 101).
Trump needs for political reasons to run a narrative for his TV show (he wants to generate continuing emotional connection by his base—the political equivalent of ratings). He needs a narrative that features a villain so he can throw the base red meat.
The Press is simply trying to get the facts and describe them.
That’s their agenda. If the facts look bad for Trump it’s because the facts are bad. Not the Press’ doing, not the Press’ intention. If doing something stupid makes Trump look stupid, it’s on Trump.
The Press isn’t playing Trump’s game—except by default, when they don’t blow the whistle on what he is doing.
What the Press fails to describe to the public—and should—is that Trump is trying to rope them into his Punch and Judy show.
And they need, overly and expressly, to decline the role. Trump wants them to co-star in his craziness. They need to refuse.
