President Trump: Reality Star embarks on Season 3

If you've been looking for an insight into Donald Trump that you cannot get from his loyal friends on Fox News of his detractors on MSNBC we have an insider who understands this President and his Administration. Our guide to the Trump brain is none other than Omarosa, the former Celebrity Apprentice star. Omarosa said Trump is a reality star and this is the start of Season 3.

Omarosa Manigault had great insights into how Reality TV keeps a show rocking for Season 3.
At the beginning of Season 3, the Hero often becomes the Heel.

A Heel is another term for villain. Trump may make himself a Heel for Season 3 so he can magically transform into a Hero for Season 4 and the 2020 election.

All this seemed farfetched until I heard Trump skewer John McCain, recently deceased Senator from Arizona and Vietnam War POW and war hero. Why attack Senator McCain? No good reason unless you want to keep your name at the top of the newsfeed.

Trump does know how change and movement keeps the Reality TV show fresh and alive. The whole notion of choosing Hero or Heel is very reminiscent of Vince McMahon and the WWE. Wrestlers decide in the locker room much of what will happen that night in the ring. They prepare themselves for the body slams and the folded metal chairs exploding against their foreheads.

The WWE kind of control and planning appeals to Trump's sense of the benefits of controlling the message.

Omarosa showed a talent for survival on Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump was impressed enough to carry her to the White Office. She bucked and complained when it was time for her to go. She demonstrated and ego and narcissism approaching the superhuman self-love of her mentor Mr. Trump. It takes one to know one.

Recognize the Trump election as America choosing Trump TV over Hillary TV. He definitely had media mastery over Hillary. Barack Obama snuck up on Hillary and defeated her partly because Barack was more watchable than Hillary.

Trump is a bare knuckles brawler who prefers election fights over governing. As President he has elevated his family's financial gains over the country's welfare. He has been consistent in his self-aggrandizement.

And now we get to look forward to the nicknames! Who will be the next Low Energy Jeb Bush... etc.? Elizabeth Warren struggles from under the Pocahontas label and may not escape it. Trump not only creates his own brand, he brands others and they continue to feel the sting for years afterward. Just like pro wrestling-- it's raw and over the top with good guys, bad guys and lots of trash talk.

And we keep watching.

The Talented Mr. Trump….according to Scott Adams

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why/?utm_term=.3518dc00b78c

                                                                                                            

The 800 pound gorilla on the TV screen… we cannot get the name Trump off her lips Recently I read a Washington Post article on Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist, from March 21, 2016, way before before Election Day. Adams brilliantly outlined the reasons for his prediction that Donald Trump would win the presidency.

Much of this blog comes directly from the Washington Post article by Michael Cavna. See the link above. The ideas come from Scott Adams, almost verbatim.

(I apologize in advance for any failure to include quotation marks. Scott Adams’ insights make the entire basis for this blog entry.)

We should all be listening to Scott Adams. Adams predicted Trump beating Clinton easily, playing Hillary like a fiddle much as he had with his primary competitors. Adams must know something none of the rest of us knew, including Nate Silver. We should be beating down Scott Adams door to learn the reasons behind Trumps victory…to learn the lessons of modern presidential politics in the electronic age!

Adams states that Trump, a master of psychology, understands a basic fact of human behavior—we are all irrational beings. We like to think of ourselves as fact-based. We are not. We are emotion-based. Trump realized this, created his own facts if necessary but mainly avoided facts altogether. Trump found the hot-button issues, immigration being a big one, and began to fill stadiums with enthusiastic crowds.

Scott Adams, thankfully, has taken the time to figure out the rhetorical style of Donald Trump. Behind Trump’s rhetoric lays a campaign strategy and an understanding of human psychology.

• Trump loves to win and crush the competition.

• Trump has a great mastery of human psychology. Adams believes this skill—psychology-- is the most important and only skill needed to win the presidency.

• Trump knows that human beings are ruled by emotion, not the facts.

• Trump has amazing powers of persuasion.

Adams likens Trump’s mastery of persuasion to the power a hypnotist maintains over a subject. Humans are irrational beings. Adams himself had to gain an awareness of human irrationality to become a successful cartoonist. Bill Keane of Family Circus instructed Adams to stop writing for himself. Adams changed his subject to the workplace, and the demands and inhumanity of the corporate work environment. Trump connected to a similar sort of invisible "suffering" and connected to people "on an emotional level."

Trump became the most interesting by a fearless approach. Adams said Trump “can always be the most interesting story if he has nothing to fear and nothing to lose.” Bolstered by a no-fear, nothing-to-lose perspective Trump could employ language in a way never seen before on the political stage. The audiences loved Trump’s rhetorical style. He spoke directly to them, like a comedian. The fans felt Trump sounded “like one of us”—. Trump became that microphone. He painted word pictures—Low Energy Jeb, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted and Crooked Hillary—insulting nicknames that knocked down his adversaries one-by-one.

Adams did and said whatever was necessary to strengthen his ties to conservatives. Adams believes Trump, if he so desired, had the ability to run as a Democrat, and could have found the hot-button issues to appeal to liberal-minded voters.

Adams compares Trump’s ability to warp reality to his own needs to Steve Jobs, the Apple creator, and his reputation for inventing new realities through force of will. Trump’s new reality, I am one of you heartland Americans… based on emotion, grew from a brilliant campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” From this cornerstone he went all out with his sales pitch to the conservative voter.

Trump’s manufactured reality led the building of a new identity—the onetime New York City socialite, braggart, multi-bankrupted billionaire became a friend to the truck driver, factory worker, flyover state mom, and unemployed coal miner. Adams explains it best, before Election Day:

“Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American, Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. Clinton is well on her way to owning the identities of angry women, beta males, immigrants, and disenfranchised minorities.

“If this were poker, which hand looks stronger to you for a national election?”

Cut to post-election. Donald Trump is President. His critics seethe with anger at the ineptitude of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Scott Adams has become a big Trump supporter. I disagree with his position. I wish Donald had stuck to building golf courses.

Meanwhile, about a week ago CNN promoted an upcoming program “How Trump Won”… produced by Fareed Zakaria. I’m not sure the show has aired or pulled from the schedule. If the CNN special does not include air time with Scott Adams… I remain a skeptic. Adams may be the one man in America who can tell us—What Happened. *

*Apologies to Hillary Clinton. Her similarly titled book on the election— What Happened – is due out any day. I’m not sure she knows.

Trump is Hermes (the shape shifter)

Hermes is Trump... Hermes is the second youngest of the Greek gods. Dionysos, god of wine and partying, is the youngest. Donald Trump is a teetotaler. Doesn't seem like a party animal. Not a Dionysian, Trump is Hermes.

Hermes is considered a god of transitions and boundaries. He is described as quick and cunning, moving freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine. "He is an emissary and messenger of the gods, an intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the after-life."

Trump has become an intercessor between physical reality and electronic or virtual reality. He has turned facts and truth into a game. His wild ravings change direction constantly and twitter rantings create a universe of their own. He alone manages that electronic universe  from atop his Trump Tower. He works with only a small phone in his hand, texting out unsettling versions of reality while the media, his followers, and his enemies, hang on every tweet.  Trump is the master of rhetoric and crosser of boundaries.

"In some myths, Hermes is a trickster and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or for the sake of humankind."

Trump has proven himself to be the master trickster, portraying himself as a patriot while paying no taxes, calls himself a friend to the little man, but steals money from the little man through gambling casinos, phony Trump University, etc.. Trump lacks real friends. He prefers not to have physical contact with other people, certainly not the hoi polloi, the common people. Watch how awkward his physical movements become when he stands in close proximity to anybody, other than his wife and children.

Hermes' attributes and symbols include the herms, the herms is a statue of just the head and genitals... Trump brags about his genitals...  the rooster,  Trump strives to be the rooster in the henhouse, the tortoise (Trump is a hard-skinned animal), satchel or pouch  and Trump carries a money bag with his constant references to his wealth, winged sandals (Trump prefers wingtips, the shoes of the businessman), and winged cap. Trump wears a crazy wig of orange hair with wings flying off in every direction. 

"Hermes has been viewed as the protector and patron of herdsmen, thieves, oratory and wit, literature and poetry, athletics and sports, invention and trade roads, boundaries and travelers." 

Trump has a fondness for thieves and conmen-- a rogues gallery of characters like Rudy Guiliani and Chris Christie, the vainglorious David Petraeus, etc.. As for sports, Trump has been involved with boxing, at his failed casinos, and the United States Football League (USFL). Trump has an undeniable talent for oratory-- he used words to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes-- tripping up the likes of Jeb Bush... low energy.... Ted Cruz... Lying' Ted.... and Hillary Clinton... Crooked Hillary with his witty and effective use of language.

Hermes is called Mercury in the Roman pantheon. Have you seen the elusive movement of mercury, a substance neither solid nor liquid, shifting constantly, impossible to grab, dissipating and re-forming but always impossible to grasp. Trump is Mercury.

The Hymn to Hermes invokes him as the one "of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods." 

Trump is the shape shifter supreme.

TV Candidates beware--earnestness is fatal

TV demands sophistication and insouciance.

Words of advice for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and company...

Way back in 1968, Marshall McLuhan explained that TV candidates must understand "the contemporary interface of all cultures" and should not "be deluded into any earnest regard for any one of them." 

The wise candidate shows insouciance (indifference) as a survival technique. Jeb Bush serves as a cautionary tale for wanting the job too much.

McLuhan warns against  getting in a huff about the immorality of it all... "The new changes are not moral but technological." 

Saturday Evening Post (August 10, 1968)      

All of the Candidates are Asleep         

By: Marshall McLuhan


Why should TV demand sophistication and insouciance? Simply because it is a depth medium for which earnestness is fatal. Depth requires perception on   many levels, and, therefore, an absence of single       purpose or direction. An all-at-once world, fashioned by electric information, demands a candidate full  of puns and expected nuances. Such a man is one     who knows so much about the contemporary interface of all cultures that he cannot possibly be deluded  into any earnest regard for any of them. The new       changes are not moral but technological.