Trump courting his fans, not the media
At first glance it would seem the most dangerous person in Donald Trump’s world is Donald Trump.
It’s not that what he says is necessarily wrong; it’s just that conventional wisdom would suggest he’s wrong to say it, though he’s been thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom since first wading into presidential waters.
His insults make even his most ardent admirers wince; so, too, do his nicknames, ridicules and petulant putdowns.
There’s a fleeting scene in “As Good As It Gets,” a terrific 1997 comedy about an obsessive-compulsive writer (Jack Nicholson) in which an admiring waitress (Helen Hunt) confides she found him handsome and appealing, before adding with a shrug, “Then, of course, you spoke.”
That’s sort of how Trump enthusiasts feel when their man leans into a microphone. It’s a “fasten your seatbelt” moment, knowing he’s likely to invite the further loathing of befuddled Democrats as well as the transparent ire of bellicose media.
Yet he doesn’t seem a bit concerned. If anything, he seems totally dismissive of his opponents’ attacks, not unlike the late Howard Cosell who pooh-poohed those who knocked him by suggesting they were “throwing spitballs at a battleship.”
Is that what Trump’s detractors are now doing?
A case could be made that it’s unwise to incur the displeasure of the media.
Jim Rice, for instance, never should have been made to wait until his 15th and final year of eligibility (2009) for enshrinement in baseball’s Hall of Fame, not with the prodigious numbers he posted over 16 seasons with the Red Sox.
But writers found him to be a lot less than a barrel of laughs.
“I don’t want them (writers) loving me,” he once said, acknowledging his often frosty relationship with them. “I don’t even want my teammates loving me. I just want them to respect me.”
Trump, likewise, hungers only for the approval of those whose approval matters most to him, which clearly excludes experts, pollsters, analysts, panelists and pundits.
It’s the voters to whom he makes his appeals and it appears they like what they’re seeing and hearing.
To them, there’s nothing dangerous about the shoot-from-the-hip style of our 45th commander in chief; in fact, judging by his rock-star presence at rallies, it seems an increasingly large chunk of America appreciates his saltiness and utter disregard for politically correct restraints.
Ironically, in his visceral appeal to the electorate, Trump is somewhat reminiscent of a great Democrat from the past, Harry Truman, our 33rd president, whose no-baloney style earned him the sobriquet
“Give ’em Hell Harry!”
Years later, reflecting on that moniker, Truman said, “I never did give them hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”
That’s how Trump’s critics look at him these days and the guessing here is that history will recall they were every bit as wrong.