I first became aware of the word “pivot” on the high school basketball court. The pivot foot must stay stationary. You plant that foot and spin your body in either direction to create a shot or to throw a pass. Trump never did pivot from the bellicose campaigner of the Republican primaries.
Many of us figured Donald Trump, if elected, would pivot and act serious, sober and rational, like the previous 44 presidents. It did not happen.
Donald did not pivot. Why? He learned that his base loves the plain-spoken, blunt, insulting, bullying Donald Trump.
The experts called for Trump to stop tweeting. Even loyal Republican supporters complained about the tweets. Trump wisely ignored the advice. He actually increased the tweeting. He now has 55,000,000 followers on Twitter. Why give that up? He can speak directly to his audience.
Donald Trump may qualify as a genius of 21stcentury communications-- some would say an evil-genius. He gets credit as a marketing and has branded the Trump name to the heavens. His domination of cable television, left and right, amazes all.
Trump recognizes politics has become theater. He brilliantly turned presidential politics into a reality TV show. Real reality and the virtual reality of internet and TV become difficult to distinguish. The electronic world has become the world.
Marshall McLuhan, my favorite media philosopher, recognized the revolution in human history in the change from books and newspapers to the electronic world we now inhabit. McLuhan’s emphasis on technology met stiff opposition, especially from the academic world. Guess who won that competition? Marshall was right. The academics have remained nostalgic for print media. "Long live print media!" they seem to say. Trump baits us with "failing New York Times."
McLuhan understood the change of a deep level. He identified a basic change from “acoustic space,” the space we inhabit on our devices to “visual space”—the continuous, logical and alphabet world, the world of books.
The multi-sensory world acoustic space of electronic media brought us back to a kind of tribal drumbeat:
“It was the space of the electric world, in which people are hit with almost random bursts of information from all sides.” (p.133)*
The pundits, the talking heads of cable TV, the cognoscenti, the journalists and presidential historians, gnash their teeth over Trump’s resistance to the norms of presidency. They seek logic, reason and a continuous narrative. Trump gives us spontaneity, equivocation, multiple versions of the same story, a revolving door of employees and speeches sounding more like standup comedy.
Trump understands McLuhan’s acoustic space. He has responds constantly, just to keep up with our speeded-up world. The pace and randomness of the information systems suits his ADHD tendencies very well. And seems to work for much of the audience.
Many long for a more peaceful presidency with less name-calling, divisiveness and partisanship. If you want to understand the new presidency-- check out the Housewives shows-- New Jersey, Atlanta, Orange County, etc. housewives. Drama is created out of seemingly nowhere. Conflict powers the narrative. Change happens quickly. Andy Cohen is the Bravo TV mogul behind the Housewives franchise. Andy holds a close second to Donald Trump when it comes to media literacy.
Both men understand their audience. Funny how such different audiences agree of their passion for drama. Trump flourishes there. And Obama, as you may recall, had the nickname "N0 Drama Obama."
Apparently we got tired of Obama's gentlemanly air of peace and tranquility and voted in Donald Trump, a Tasmanian Devil of energy, manipulation and shape-shifting.
* Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, by: Philip Marchand
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