Uncle Rudy Guiliani: Trump’s breakout star

Rudy Giuliani (74 years) is two years older than Donald Trump (72 years) and a fellow New Yorker. Rudy’s age makes him a perfect mentor to Trump. Or just the perfect wing man.

Rudy’s role for Trump seems more bomb thrower than legal advisor. 

Rudy goes out for media interviews and drops the bombs. The bombs reveal some truth about Trump’a actual behavior. Like a defense attorney, he offers his client’s misdeeds before the prosecutors can get to make the accusations:

·     Donald Trump did pay off the Playboy girlfriend…. No big deal!

·     Michael Cohen does have tapes. No big deal! Wait that is a big deal. Cohen's a scumbag.

·     Trump  involved in the Russia meeting at Trump Tower. No big deal!

·     Even if the President colluded, it’s not a crime. No big deal!

Giuliani's rambling, drunk uncle style of communication, is strangely reassuring. I grew up in New York. I recognize the bombastic, circular storytelling of the eccentric relative. Somehow Rudy's rambling narratives feel a little like a TV version of a fireside chat. Giuliani is no FDR but he has some legendary exploits on his resume that make him a venerable, if not always loved, figure. 

Rudy’s Legend

Rudy is the guy who:

·     Took on the Mafia as a prosecutor.

·     As mayor, is often credited with curbing crime in New York City. His “broken window policy” locked up small time offenders and returned law and order to the city.

·     The 9/11 attacks with Rudy Giuliani marching around downtown New York with a dust mask over his face and bringing a sense of calm in the tragedy’s aftermath.

Rudy has the brash style of a New York City, not unlike his boss in the White House. Who could have guessed that the sweet, silent majority of the Flyover States would embrace a cabal of New York City characters? 

The top of the New York heap is—

1) Donald Trump, real estate developer and insult expert

2) Rudy Giuliani, former crime-buster, now flaunts the law and criticizes the FBI and Justice Department.

If I didn’t know better … the spin coming from Rudy Giuliani sounds vaguely like Norm Crosby, the famous double talk comedian. Norm also felt like a dose of normalcy in a world gone mad. 

Norm Crosby revealed day-to-day reality as an illusion. Nothing is as it seems, certainly not if this is the new normal kind of political discourse. 

Rudy now tap dances like a vaudeville hoofer. He doles out spoonfuls of truth  in the middle of Trump's hail storm of lies and distortions. Rudy has been so effective adding to the haze around Trump that the Donald seems content to give him tons of TV time. 

Rudy is the breakout star—the Fonzie of Happy Days in the White House.  

Rudy, like Trump, worked the New York streets and media scene for years. Trump respects that media wisdom and gives Rudy a forum and  his very own screen time. Rudy has a breakout hit in Season 2 of The Trump White House Reality Show. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the other big breakout star.

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Rudy's detractors make a mistake if they underestimates his media performance. Rudy knows the TV cameras. 

The left finally realizes Trump's ability to weave an "emotional narrative" resonates with voters-- even if his is a hate-filled story. The left needs to learn some storytelling skills with maybe a warmer message. Meantime Trump and Rudy run the airwaves like a bull in a china shop.

Trump’s drunken dance: may be working

 Zeibekiko is a popular Greek nightclub dance, done by only one person at a time, a male performer, and everyone else has to kneel down, forming a circle around the dancer, clapping following the rhythm and encouraging the dancer. Zeibekiko dance does have some particular steps, but the most impressive dance is the one where the dancer shows his creativity, performing special feats, adding a little humor and personal touch to the occasion.

(Wikipedia)

Donald Trump moves with the creativity and freedom of a drunk or a Greek guy stumbling around the dance floor. The Zeibekiko dancer sometimes mimics a drunk.Trump stomps across the world stage with the stumbling grace of a drunk. He bellows around the White House or Mar a Lago or Trump Tower, stomps out of G7 gatherings, hires Rudy Giuliani as alternative drunk uncle to fend off Robert Mueller and the Stormy Daniels lawyer. Trump huffs and puffs and tweets like a man possessed, but still pulls off a meeting with North Korea. Donald J. Trump, a teetotaler, never has touched alcohol, but moves with the stumbling grace of a drunk.

Trumps lack of planning may be his secret. Presidential campaign? He hadn’t a clue. Came up with a great slogan—Make America Great Again. Surprised people by filling up stadiums on the campaign trail. He talked different. Trump delivers speeches like a standup comic. We all watch him wondering about his next move. The behavior of an improvisational performer attracts our attention. 

Trump’s understanding of modern electronic media may explain his mastery of the improvisational. Our social media network is very interactive. As Marshall McLuhan correctly predicted—the new era of electronic communications, the one we’re living in now, is all about engagement. Cellphones, video games, Facebook, etc. engage us more personally than books, newspapers and even the television of old.

Trump has integrated his Twitter account with the hours of coverage he attracts on cable television to become a broadcasting system all his own. How does he keep his viewership, readership, follower numbers at a high level?... He does it with outrageous statements, insults, provocative lies, and manufactured culture wars with American football players, and the timing, intonations and attitude of a seasoned standup comic.

I look for traces of Donald Trump in old footage of his early television appearances. He seems slightly shy but eager to master the TV studio. He has a glint in his eye. I see a Rascal.

Trump reveals in those brief TV appearances, traces of the rascal, the scamp, scalawag, scoundrel, who would come to fruition during his run for Presidency. He quickly wanted to master the TV performer’s craft. He had some success but really flourished when he began to control everything. 

“Emoluments? What is that? I want to make money and be President at the same time.” 

He seems out of control but then controls almost everything. 

The improvisational mode suits Trump and his spontaneity suits the new electronic media environment. Trump’s media enemies hate the ease of his approach and fault him for being stupid, a sign they do not “get” Trump’s mastery of their own medium.

And the Zeibekiko dance continues.... 

Trump totters at the edge of the nightclub stage, verges on a drunken stumble but always finds his footing. 

He somehow avoids falling down-- and surprises us again and again with the outrageous behavior of a wild standup comic.

Postcards from the Heartland: Trump's base speaks out

Recently I read a conservative publication, a right wing newspaper from deep in the heart of Texas. My copy came via a friend with connections to the paper. I've told him I'm a liberal and a Hillary Clinton voter at that! But still he shared the paper with me. Here are a few of these Trump Base sentiments, followed by My Liberal Perspective:

Trump Base Beliefs:

1) Trump is under attack. Attackers include lefties, Hollywood people and even Republicans like Paul Ryan, John McCain, John Kasich and Marco Rubio.

2) He is a "poor man's billionaire."

3) Every media platform is against him.

4)  Trump is an earthy man because of his experience in the construction industry.

5) Trump borrowed money from his father, but turned the million dollar loan into an empire worth more than 10 billion dollars.

6) Trump raised his kids right by making them on construction sites-- driving back-hoes and heavy equipment.

7) Donald Trump uses a bullying style because it works and because of the intensity of the attacks against him.

8) Trump is learning to be less gruff as he gains experience as President.  

9) Trump is anti-establishment.

10) Trump has revealed the Washington D.C. swamp for what it is. He threatens the Deep State bureaucrats, special interest groups and lobbyists running our government like no other president.

11)The United States is actually being run by a shadow government and Trump has done his level best to reveal the situation.

12) Trump puts America first. His enemies are using the Russia collusion story in an desperate attempt to bring him down.

My liberal perspective:

I love the term poor man's billionaire and I think it does capture one of Donald Trump's paradoxes-- though a high roller, he rarely appeals to educated voters from the upper income demographic. His cabinet is full of wealthy people, not exactly a swamp-drainer.

I interpret the tough guy approach to politics as Trump's strategy more than a personality trait. As Trump's primary campaign unfolded he got a clear message from Republican primary voters-- the more outrageous and less politically correct you behave, the more we like it.

Trump has perfected a very direct style of speech-making. I heard one commentator state that Trump speaks with the cadences of a comedian. Trump is at his most effective when he stays away from the teleprompter. He becomes animated and entertaining.

Trump is an interesting contradiction-- very open about using Twitter in support of his complicated machinations but a master of distraction. Trump has instincts towards secrecy-- ask him about his income taxes and he changes the subject. 

The baffling combination of saying whatever crosses his mind, while changing his mind constantly- makes for a 24/7 reality-TV show. Nobody seems sure Trump is suitable for the presidency, but he's a master of marketing and media. And he somehow figured this out from a second tier reality TV show called Celebrity Apprentice...

The "You're fired!" tagline for Celebrity Apprentice works well for Trump's approach to government. Just ask Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Sean Spicer,  and James Comey. They all got the axe, bit the bullet, took one for the team. Jeff Sessions may be next, and the Donald may even add Robert Mueller's head to the chopping block. That will add some thickening to the plot.

Trump never hired Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie, experienced politicians with  media savvy. Trump doesn't like to share the spotlight with the heavyweights. But smooth talking Anthony Scaramucci has recently arrived on the scene. "The Mooch" grabbed some of Trump's screen time over the last 48 hours and may soon hit the highway for the same reason...