Donald Trump is a creature of television. It informs how he thinks about the world, and it helped create his public persona. He ran for president as America’s first reality show candidate, and he has largely governed as somebody who’s always looking for a big ratings stunt for sweeps week. A world where all we can watch on TV is Donald Trump is maybe a world he’d love to see.
Trump’s big realization during the 2016 presidential campaign was that if he could dominate the news cycle and keep driving the story forward, people would be more than happy to keep following that story. At the time, I suggested that Trump had learned these skills from reality television and his days on The Apprentice.
Since he’s been president, he has often been able to turn the 24-hour news networks into his own ad hoc Trump TV, even if their interest in his every move waxes and wanes from month to month. But in a massive crisis like this one, cable news expects to be able to cut to the president saying something sobering to keep the nation calm, no matter who’s in office. And as with so many truisms our media holds dearly, Trump has utterly hijacked this idea.
Article posted by, Great Gazoo.
