Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian media guru, explains that a faster system destroys a slower system. The faster medium circles around the slower medium, surrounds it, consumes it and destroys it. Television moves faster than film. The Internet surrounded newspapers and destroyed them. The Internet destroyed bookstores; digital music did away with record stores; bookstores, likewise, fell out of sight. The cellphone moves around the desktop computer and personal computers decrease in number.
Donald Trump learned the television world as an insider with his own show. Cable TV moves faster than the networks. Twitter moves faster than cable TV and Trump keeps several steps ahead of the "mainstream media" through his Twitter account.
I laugh to hear people, including cables news media pundits, exclaim "can't somebody take that cellphone out of Trump's hand." That's like saying Robin Hood should put down his bow and arrow. What-- and pick up a spear and shield. Robin moved lightly and stayed ahead of the king's men.
Trump has a tool, his Twitter account, for getting to people faster than any of the cable outlets allows. He has a knack for moving quickly. He tries a strategy. If it fails, he never admits failure, just steps to the side, tweaks it, spins the story long enough for the story to get muddled and moves to the next thing. The man is a master of movement. His campaign struggled. He changed campaign managers. The next crew, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway did better and stayed. He found his audience, responded to the narrative they liked and moved ahead like a bull in a china shop.
Trump runs roughshod. His casino business didn't work. He went bankrupt and kept moving. We all wonder if this modus operandi works for running the free world. The story goes that his White House staff is in a state of constant turmoil. To quote a book of a few years back, he doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Presidents usually reassure us. President Franklin Roosevelt had his fireside chats and reassured the nation across the radio waves. That soothed anxieties through a Depression and a World War. How does the Trump method of stirring the hornet's nest compare to the peacefulness of a Barack Obama? A chorus of angry people, from the Tea Party rabble rousers to the Republican congressmen, hurled a constant chant of invectives at Obama. The right wing radio crowd led by Rush Limbaugh gnawed on Obama like he was a kind of satanic, malevolent force and never relented. Steve Bannon falls into that category. Be careful what you wish for--
Now Commander Chaos is in power. Trump sleeps 4 hours a night and wakes each morning stirring for a fight. Remember "speak softly and carry a big stick" came from Teddy Roosevelt, another master of imagery.
Trump insulted a Judge who rejected his Muslim ban. He called the man a "so-called judge." That move upset me. He spit in the face of the American system, the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Trump knows no boundaries-- hence the Commander Chaos moniker.
He continues to move at warp speed and exhausts everybody, even in the media hounds who thrive on the campaign trail. They love the jab and parry of electoral politics. That election season, the horse race of politics, was supposed to slow down with the election of a new president. Not for Trump, he enjoys King Lear's blasted heath. He refuses to slow down. We all suck wind to keep up and long for quieter days.
Melissa McCarthy's parody of Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, on Saturday Night Live, captured the insane, fever pitch of the present situation better than just about any rational analysis presented these last few weeks. She captured the Alice in Wonderland aspect of Mr. Trump's White House with brilliance and Trump-like intensity. Alec Baldwin has done a great job as Trump. SNL
seems like a voice of sanity in this whirlwind. Is this the new normal? That's the question we all must ask ourselves. Just look at that cellphone in your hand.
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