The curtain is about to come up on the theatre of Trump
We hope Trump doesn’t fulfil his absurd pledges, yet his Twitter feed shows us that it’s not looking good, says Joe Dowling
AS someone who has spent a lifetime in theatre — where make-believe is our common currency — I watched the campaign for the US presidency unfold with a mixture of disbelief, fascination and, let it be said, a measure of admiration for camp Trump.
While Hillary Clinton was obviously the best qualified candidate and her speeches were filled with substance and well reasoned arguments, Donald Trump’s free-wheeling style, his sloganeering and his calculated insults to his opponents made for much more entertaining television.
The contrast was like watching a later work of Ibsen in its original Norwegian or spending the evening with Mrs Brown and her boys. The network producers, in the manner of impresarios everywhere, saw the difference and gave the people what they wanted.
Trump has described himself as a “ratings machine” and throughout the campaign he didn’t disappoint his avid followers. He played the role to perfection, with a rare instinct to tap into the fears and uncertainties of his audience.
I have to admit that it was great fun hearing him describe his opponents as Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted or Low Energy Jeb. Those debates showed his performance skills at their best. He had little or nothing to offer by way of policy but, with clever timing, carefully placed interruptions and knowledge of how to play to a camera, he outfoxed the whole Republican establishment.
US audiences ignored the fact-based reporting of his many bankruptcies, admitted sexual bullying and failure to pay any taxes for years. We preferred to tune in to his latest bad-boy performance, knowing that it was all bluster and chicanery.
His growing number of devotees ate up slogans such as “Make America great again”, “Build the wall”, and “Lock her up” — without really believing a word he said. One Nuremberg-style rally followed another and his standing in the polls rose to match and eclipse Clinton.
As the campaign got uglier, his crowds became larger and every insult hurled from the platform was soaked up by the adoring mob. It was amazing to watch him in action. His whole demeanour was clearly a performance and, like any good actor, he knew how to build a laugh, how to wait for his applause to crest before coming in with the next line, and how to keep his audience in suspense.
None of his speeches contained any real policy proposals. It was all insults, quips and narcissistic boasts about his poll numbers.
But Trump understood the essence of building and sustaining a fictitious character. At times, he would play the pantomime villain and revel in the chants of approval as he trashed his opponents and the political establishment. At other times, he was the downhome boy, who spoke to the crowds in vulgar language, proving that his billionaire status hadn’t spoilt him.
His ad-libbed performances were impressive — but once his campaign insisted on his using a teleprompter, he became completely deflated and the performance couldn’t be sustained. He quickly went back to improvisation.
Clinton had no answer for Trump’s level of showmanship. She ran a campaign on facts and ideas and had limited skills as a performer. Her delivery was wooden and her speeches dull. She doesn’t have the easy manner that made her husband such a popular figure and instead was doggedly determined to take the high ground. “When they go low, we go high,” was the best she could do by way of retort — and even that was a quote from Michelle Obama. She had problems reducing her political and economic arguments to bite-size quotes NOTICE ANY SIMILARITIES? Donald Trump has said that Orson Welles’s 1941 film ‘Citizen Kane’ is his all-time favourite movie and was outperformed every time.
Trump brought negative campaigning to a new level of disreputable success. Clinton didn’t understand that the media playbook of previous campaigns needed to be torn up and binned. Marshall McLuhan’s concept of medium and message has reached its apogee — and however much we abhor its consequences, going low is now the way to win elections.
Trump knows that if a brazen lie is told with conviction, you can persuade your audience of its truth before those pesky fact-checkers have woken up. He learnt well from Joseph Goebbels, who said: “It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned, that a square is in fact a circle.”
Night after night, I would watch angrily as Trump surrogates came on CNN or MSNBC to offer their candidate’s blatant untruths as gospel facts. One of the most frustrating failures of the whole campaign was how few television reporters challenged their absurdities with strong and persistent questioning. How I longed for a Jeremy Paxman or a Claire Byrne!
Living in the New York bubble, I still believed that it would all work out. I nodded in approval as the pundits assured me of a Clinton landslide. This would be an historic win for the most qualified candidate ever. And, yes, as a bonus, she would finally break the glass ceiling in American politics. The other candidate was clearly not qualified. What could go wrong? Then came the cold shower of November 8 when, because of the vagaries of the Electoral College system, my hopes were ground into the mud.
The American people — or at least those in the states that mattered — had spoken. Most of the world watched in horror as a reality TV star with an orange face, a dreadful combover and the articulacy of a five-year-old began to assemble the most right-wing Cabinet in White House history.
As many have said, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Donald J Trump is not the first showman to be successful in American politics. Indeed, the history of US electoral contests is rich with colourful characters, rife with charlatans and bullies. From Wild Bill Hickok through PT Barnum to Arnold Schwarzenegger, there have been many outsiders running for election.
What makes Trump unique is that he is the first person who has never held public office or served in the military prior to being elected to the position.
Who knows what a Trump presidency will bring? Maybe his better angels will triumph and he will not fulfil his absurd campaign promises? Maybe the awesome responsibility of his new office will temper the showman instincts and lead to more mature decision making?
However, the transition period has been dispiriting, as he overworked his Twitter account in pursuit of enemies, real or imagined.
Given the craven attitude of much of the American media, I don’t hold out much hope that they will speak truth to power. So it was thrilling to hear the great Meryl Streep call him out at the Golden Globes on his appalling mockery of a disabled journalist.
Inevitably, Trump went on to dismiss her as “an overrated actress” — but what we heard was the good conscience of a citizen who is not afraid of the tweeting bully. She bravely reminded us that however “normal” the media tries to make our new president, his character will always be remembered as that cruel mimic, that master of the put-down, that thin-skinned narcissist that we watched in horror throughout 2016. Joe Dowling is former artistic director at the Abbey Theatre. He lives in the US
‘However much we abhor its consequences, going low is now the way to win elections’