Blowhard: "Noun. A person who blusters and boasts in an unpleasant way."
Trump's brand is right at a tipping point.
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| Click: "Not as big as you promised." |
It has always been near that point, with Trump's shamelessness as a promoter being part of his image. He owns it. A salesman? You're darn right.
Trump has a cardboard cutout of himself with his trademark "You're fired!"
Trump University. It isn't just classes on real estate. It is a university.
Trump Steaks, "The World's Greatest Steaks." .Click: Example: Trump Steaks.
According to current polls, some 85 or 90% of Republicans think Trump manages to stay credible as a leader. Or, if not always fully credible, at least they are willing to overlook his excesses, his tweets, his grandstanding because, after all, he fights for the team against enemies they dislike.
According to current polls, some 85 or 90% of Republicans think Trump manages to stay credible as a leader. Or, if not always fully credible, at least they are willing to overlook his excesses, his tweets, his grandstanding because, after all, he fights for the team against enemies they dislike.
Trump has always flirted with taking it too far. The line between "magnificent" and "grandiloquent" is close. Proud is good, pompous is bad. Confident is good; cocksure is bad.
Trump hugs a flag. We get it. He is acting, playing a role. What is important is that the role is is playing is a guy who loves the flag.
He holds up a Bible. Of course it is acting. He is playing the role of the soldier-leader for Judeo-Christian tradition. It's not important that he is implausible as the actor, and overacting. What is important is that he chose the script, and wanted to make the point of Judeo-Christian triumph. His base sees his heart is in the right place.
Trump's exaggerated behavior can be seen in one of two ways. Either it is proudly showing the team he is on and willing to look silly to do so, or it goes past the tipping point and becomes just a blowhard, using exaggerated behavior to cover up insincere, self-interested behavior. (Maybe those "greatest steaks" are just ridiculously marked up normal steaks.)
The Lincoln Project is an independent group of disaffected Republicans and they are creating ads which have two purposes. One is to undermine Trump with negative ads about him. The other is their audience of one: Trump himself. He hates their ads, and they cause Trump to reveal his true self, a deeply insecure and thin skinned man. He shows how dangerously he seeks approval and how thoroughly unfit for office he is.
The newest ad, just up, has the voice of a female narrator mocking Trump, using the smaller than promised Tulsa crowd. Trump the big talker. Trump the showoff. Small Trump, weak Trump. She has a whispery, mocking tone. You bad boy. You fraud.
The ad is nasty. It has a huge potential to backfire, but it catches attention and will circulate.
It links the size of the crowd to the notion of Trump, the less-than-promised president and less than promised male. It is the Marco Rubio insult all over again, only this time it is a nameless woman mocking Trump, which makes the ad about Trump, not about Rubio-insulting-Trump. Men may hate the ad. Trump is not alone among males at feeling insecure over the notion that women find them disappointing and then whisper about them to others.
The ad accelerates something that is happening generally, the cascade of GOP abandonment of Trump. John Bolton says he is dangerous and unfit, serving his own interests over the country's. This comes atop a similar criticism by Trump's former Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary, plus the apology by the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. People close to the president are saying he is all about his mage, to the detriment of the reality.
Trump spent ten minutes of time at the rally refuting an image of him looking weak walking down the ramp at West Point. It was a good refutation, with a plausible context of slick shoes on a metal ramp, and fake news hoping he would fail. But the fact that he spent ten minutes on it is a gigantic "tell." It fits the image portrayed by Trump's defecting associates. He is all about projecting an image, and dangerously so, which is why he chooses political self interest over the national interest in relations with North Korea, China, Russia, Ukraine, with COVID-19, and with race relations.
Defectors like Bolton, campaign ad like this one, and Trump's own personality will do the work of causing some segment of Americans to see Trump as ridiculous rather than fascinating. They push him past the tipping point on the fraud scale. The anti-Trump vote will be there in November.
Of course, this leaves the other question, whether Joe Biden will look like a competent alternative.
4 comments:
Many people have stopped listening to Trump. It doesn’t matter what he says, as they have already seen what he does. Promoting anger and hate on his part just feels false and irrelevant to objective non Trump lovers. The anger and hate is against Trump, not the poor victim Trump supporters. People don’t go to Trump university or eat his stakes. Housing with his name brings DOWN the value of his real estate. If you know he is a liar and a fraud, do you still buy a used car from him when he tells you how great the used car is? I don’t hear the chant of four more years being sung.
I told you the Republicans would defect if they detected Trump's support slipping.
Watch Lindsey Graham...He's the weather vane that will show which way the wind is blowing. It may become a storm. Mcconnell's behavior after the Kentucky primary will be instructive also.
A botched rally in Tulsa may be a moment of comic relief, but only time will tell if it is the tipping point. It seems the Republican strategy is be to keep their heads down and pray things don't get worse.
Good luck with that...
Seems scary to keep Trump in the White House, it will bring us continuing chaos.
Seems scary to hand the reins to the Democrats, the ones leading the cities that allow gangs of armed thugs to loot, destroy public parks, run the police out of certain parts of town, and threaten residents and business owners.
Doesn't seem like there are any good options for America.
Well, parables are always useful, and here with Trump, we have "The Emperor's New Clothes." His diehard fans will stay with him because, well, where else can they go? (I must say, the way Trump's policies affect the white working class have me thinking about one of my favorite Onion headlines: "German Jews Concerned About Hitler's 'Kill All Jews' Policy.") But the cloak of a strong economy is gone; and any illusion of managerial competence (“Only I can do it!”) is gone with the pandemic. I'm afraid Trump's branding skills were radically narrow; great, but narrow. And unable to survive the "black swan" that has now roosted in his golden pomade.
Your brand assessments are wonderful. Actually, in Trump's case, assessing his brand is like shooting babies in bathwater, as he's got all the moves of a door, while the brand of others can be challenging because so many are all over the place, with no brand to assess. Hard to say whether not having a brand is as bad as having a weak brand. Biden does risk being seen as a weak brand; Doddering Joe instead of Joe the Woke Bloke? Whatever, I think Biden can take us to the finish line, but it's more in reaction against Trump's now tarnished brand than any great positive-brand push. If Biden could win the Democratic race so brilliantly, I say, "What, me worry?"
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