The Trump Show has gotten old.
Trump is the political equivalent of late-stage Elvis. He is doing whatever it takes to renew his contract. He is jumping the shark.
"Fat Elvis" is the period at the end of Elvis Presley's career when he was no longer a heartthrob, no longer a Rock and Roll crossover White southern boy singing music with Black roots, wiggling his pelvis, and making teen age girls scream. "Fat Elvis" had an act in Las Vegas.
"Jumping the shark" describes a gimmick by someone with a show business act fading from popularity, in which something weird or wildly improbable is done to generate new excitement. It signals desperation. The phrase originated from the first episode of Season 5 of Happy Days when the "Fonzie" character water skis up and over a live shark.
Trump is Fat Elvis and he is jumping the shark.
Trump sought an audience, found it and developed it. He realized something the American political establishment wasn't addressing, voters unhappy and disillusioned that the two major political parties weren't slowing mass immigration, their leaders were still justifying foreign wars, and they weren't stopping manufacturing jobs from going offshore. Voters were open to blaming immigrants, domestic freeloaders, and foreign competitors. Trump added the themes of White racial resentment, anti-abortion, and political and religious nationalism. He created a popular movement with a political agenda of change.
He took this message on the road with live audiences. The Trump Show was a hit. I have seen him live five times, three of them in conventional rallies. Between the parking, the souvenir vendors, the pre-show warm-up acts, the big entrance, the big show, and then the after-show excitement and traffic, a Trump rally is the equivalent of a big music concert or sell-out NFL or college bowl game. It's a six hour event. The main act also televises well. It gets great ratings.
The Trump Show runs hot. Trump says exciting, provocative, startling things, and says them with humor and audience engagement. The Show is getting stale. We have seen it, and it has became irritating to enough voters to tip the scales from winner to loser. There are growing complaints that he is all about getting publicity and not about addressing real problems, most centrally, COVID. The process that took Elvis three decades, his move from young heartthrob to Las Vegas curiosity, took Trump fewer than four years. The original promises of swamp cleaning, of immigration reform, and of a new and wonderful health care alternative to the ACA have gotten lost.
What is left is the brand. Fat Elvis still sang the old hits. The young girls didn't scream anymore. He was a parody of himself--perfect now for Elvis impersonators--but he was a curiosity and he had a fan base so he had an audience.
Trump is performing his old hits, too. Draining the swamp evolved into rewarding and praising friends in the swamp, good swamp Sheldon Adelson vs. bad swamp George Soros and Jeff Bezos. He has called, again and still, for investigations of Hillary Clinton's emails, his golden oldie hit. Trump is still talking about ending Obamacare and replacing it with something better, although now his emphasis is on preserving the parts of Obamacare that still exist. The big, beautiful southern wall is still mostly the way it was 4 years ago, and Americans have paid for it.
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Easy to mock
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In a show built from Day One around the political equivalent of grand jumps over sharks, Trump needed to find even bigger sharks to jump. He is holding events being described as "super-spreaders" and doing so proudly and defiantly. He followed up the Bible in the Park photo op with the grand balcony photo op and considered a big Superman reveal. He is making rant telephone calls to Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Maria Bartiromo on Fox, and they needed to cut him short. He calls Kamala Harris a communist, Biden senile, himself the victim of the greatest political crime in the history of the country. He is openly saying he plans to contest the election and get a decision in the Supreme Court where he has the votes to assure a win. He is tweeting more compulsively than ever. Even his Fox allies hint that maybe the steroids are affecting his judgement. |
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It looks like end-game. His ratings--the polls--are down. Trump isn't new and fresh anymore. He is easy to mock, like Fat Elvis and sharp jumping.
History offers a warning. Endgame can last a long time. Fat Elvis played Los Vegas for 600 performances over 6 years, performing in the largest venue in the city, and sold it out every time. The TV show Happy Days played for 7 more seasons after Fonzie jumped the shark.
"Jumping the shark" describes a gimmick by someone with a show business act fading from popularity, in which something weird or wildly improbable is done to generate new excitement. It signals desperation. The phrase originated from the first episode of Season 5 of Happy Days when the "Fonzie" character water skis up and over a live shark. 
He took this message on the road with live audiences. The Trump Show was a hit. I have seen him live five times, three of them in conventional rallies. Between the parking, the souvenir vendors, the pre-show warm-up acts, the big entrance, the big show, and then the after-show excitement and traffic, a Trump rally is the equivalent of a big music concert or sell-out NFL or college bowl game. It's a six hour event. The main act also televises well. It gets great ratings.
6 comments:
Show Business.
You are so right on about the rallies. Rock Show! Sometimes they are spectacular, but here's the thing: each one has to be bigger than the last. The staging has become so overblown it overshadows the music in some cases.
From a production standpoint, Trump has peaked with nowhere to go.
The light shows from the 60s come to mind. The audiences would become mesmerized, with some chemical help, by the undulating images projected on sheets behind the bands. At the time it was revolutionary, and has evolved into the multi-million dollar displays that are de rigueur now. The cult comes for the high, blinded by the illusion of the successful tycoon that promises them riches and an escape from their dreary existence.
Elvis would be 85 now had he lived, and probably would still be doing Vegas. Let's not forget that it's not about the singer or the show, it's about the fans and their delusions and they will hang on til the bitter end. As long as there's a dollar to be squeezed from the marks they will wheel the guy out on a dolly.
It's a strong possibility that we are seeing the ex-president strategy being set up. It's unlikely any meaningful prosecutions will be mounted, as much as one hopes.
The Show Must Go On...
In one sense I will miss Trump being president. It is fun to mock him with my friends. The perfect physical specimen wearing a Superman costume. It’s to bad he didn’t go there. It would have been fun to have seen it to laugh at. Laughing at him also takes away the pride for Trump voters. We are laughing at him and you for being for him. Being laughed at is not being powerful, it is being weak. Can’t wait for the humiliating defeat that is coming his way.
Graceland is a national treasure. The obese and drug-using Elvis, as seen late in his life, was caused by the rise to stardom and fame too soon and unbound brought low. The act in Vegas was threadbare and stale made better by warmup acts that eclipsed the Elvis image. The cult of Elvis sprung up. We even had the Church of Elvis in Portland. I little hole-in-the-wall storefront with an Elvis impersonator I knew as a former student we would say today was on the spectrum. Wearing the costume and playing a cardboard guitar to recorded music he attracted a crowd and the hat passed was filled with money until one day it all stopped.
What does this have to do with Trump? The entertainer personae is what. He is entertaining. He knows how to get ratings for his "show rallies". He's a promoter and his own image maker. And he can't fathom how "sleepy Joe" is beating him in the polls. The reason is clear - Trump is blind to his own failings. Throughout his life he's been able to change the narrative and deflect or distract away from the challenge or criticism, while retaining the media spotlight. He's polished a speaking style of making a damning statement or smear by asking a question. If the smear resonates he pushes it more and more. If there's pushback that's effective he retreats by saying he was just asking or joking or he changes the topic. Reagan was also an accomplished entertainer and master of the moment. But Reagan had one thing Trump doesn't - the ability to think beyond to moment and plan his course.
Will the rallies move the needle in his ratings? Maybe. More likely the true value of the Trump brand will be diminished except to the faithful. And as we've seen with Elvis and the Church of Elvis in Portland and Graceland the entertainment value and eyes-on attention is diverted to the newest and latest sensation. But what does this have to do with the votes for Trump or Biden? Well, Kanye West is on the ballot in important swing states. If you're Black and a BLM supporter you have the option of voting for a Black man Kanye West for President of the United States. Trump knows media - don't count him down or out yet. If you're truly sick of the Daily Donald Trump Show please cast your vote to reflect your concerns.
I doubt that anyone who goes to his rallies doesn't know how they are going to vote. They go for the entertainment. They want to see him in person. They are part of his base, unwavering. But, you can't win a national election with only 40% of the voters. It's those middle of the road types who are still undecided. Those people who are not sure yet. But, Trump doesn't play to them. He plays to his base because he loves them and they love him back. They cast adulations on him, which he craves. They shower him with praise which fulfills his ego. Lets face it. He loves that shit.
But, he doesn't get the votes he needs at a rally. He's got those already. He needs the people who don't go to rallies. The people who watch him on TV or read about him in the news. He's got to show he can lead in a crisis and get the backing of serious people. Those people are starting to see who they voted for in 2016 and don't like what they see. Unless he changes something, he's toast.
He knows all that because he's starting to claim the election is rigged. That's like saying he knows he's going to lose long before a vote is cast. So, if he can find a way to throw it to the Supreme Court, he then can win. That's his only out, so packing the Court is really important.
The day after the election he will file. Even before all the votes are counted. The only ones that win will be the lawyers. Not the country.
True that. It’s no longer about politics or winning. Just three more weeks of adrenaline shots from being in the spotlight. More drama for Nero as America burns...
Great analogy and insightful comments - except Peter C, historians think that the American Revolution was pulled off with only about 40% popular support. So I do worry that 40% can prevail with the right conditions. But Peter Sage can add insights if he thinks that's true.
Many of us are concerned with how much destruction he could do in the 78 days between Nov 3 and 1/20; that he'd be more of a injured bear than a lame duck. As a grief-stricken "loser" (his all time favorite insult), we would be watching at least 2 of the five stages of grief: denial and anger -which will be retributive in some way. So maybe not a fizzled but harmless Vegas or Portland street act.
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