Donald Trump’s bizarre presidency is a bastion of smoke and mirrors, an illusion forever under construction. He may owe his celebrity to reality TV, but there is absolutely nothing real about this imposter posing as America’s 45th president.
There he was on Monday, in an elegantly appointed room filled with faux Important People, right out of central casting. He was signing impressive looking documents and handing out souvenir pens, all to the accompaniment of a military band. It was, as the Los Angeles Times’ Noah Bierman reported, Trump’s kickoff of “infrastructure week”, complete with promises of a “great new era” and a “revolution in technology.”
The scene looked very much like a president on the march, a leader focused singularly on his vision for America, showing the world he would not be distracted by annoying FBI investigations. Yet it was all fake. The documents Trump signed during the photo op were neither bills nor executive orders. They were, according to the Times, letters to Congress in support of transferring control of the nation’s air traffic control system to the private sector. Days later, there are still no available details on his infrastructure plan. It was all a sham.
Granted, presidents – and lesser mortals whose job security rests with the ballot box – have been known to spin, obfuscate and prevaricate their way through public service. But the Donald has not just made an art form out of deception, he’s taken it to an entirely new level. It’s no longer about “playing to the base” as a source of leverage to accomplish stuff. With Trump, keeping his base’s love alive is an end in itself.
This guy has but one gear: puffing himself up to look good to his loyal army of passionate supporters. Remember those post-primary commentaries about Trump’s need to pivot for the general election? Never happened. Then he won the election and pundits said he needed to “pivot to the presidential”. Not happening. Forget jumping, this white guy doesn’t even pivot. He just keeps playing to his base like it’s two days before the New Hampshire primary.
For example, legal analysts sympathetic to the president say Trump seriously damaged his travel ban case this week with Twitter messages that not only chastised judges and his own justice department, but used phrases like “people from DANGEROUS countries”. The tweets undermined and contradicted arguments his lawyers had advanced on his behalf. As the Washington Post’s James Hohmann noted, this behavior is beyond goofy Trump impulsiveness. “If Trump truly cared about the underlying ban and wanted it to be in place for the country’s security, as he claims,” wrote Hohmann, “he would not be speaking so freely. The billionaire businessman has been mired in litigation off and on for decades and has demonstrated an ability – when his own money was at stake – to be self-disciplined.”
So why would he deliberately jeopardize such a key platform pillar? The answer is that Donald Trump is unable – or unwilling – to pivot. He is in perpetual campaign mode; all that matters is feeling the love of his base. He is willing to risk a legal defeat over his travel ban in order to let them know how passionate he is about keeping Muslims out of the county. Even if it never happens. Just like the fake bill signing, it’s all about the illusion.
Same story with all of the campaign hits:
• Medical Insurance. Trump is still serenading his base with talk of “fantastic health care for everyone . . .it will cost less and have lower deductibles.” That’s the illusion. The reality is that he never lifted a finger to make any of that happen. He simply supported a House Republican bill he never understood that would eliminate coverage for 23 million people.
• Mexican Border Wall. He celebrated the 100th day of his presidency telling a Harrisburg, PA rally of screaming fans, “Don’t even worry about it. Go home, go to sleep, rest assured, we’ll build the wall.” That’s the illusion. The reality is that a Republican Congress refused to fund the project as part of the 2017 budget and has little to no enthusiasm for taking it up in 2018.
• Climate Change and Job Creation. In another staged Rose Garden celebration, Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, touting his campaign promise to “save that coal industry, believe me, we’re going to save it.” That’s the illusion. The reality is that there is no sign of a single coal mining job being created – or saved – as a result of the U.S. pulling out of the Paris agreement.
Right now, the dynamic of this presidency is propelled not by a public policy agenda, but by the symbiotic relationship between Trump and his base: an insecure narcissist looking for love, and alienated voters looking for hope. The president’s problem is with his long game. The harder he works to fuel the illusion of hope, the more damage he does to his already abysmal chances of actually effecting change. There are already signs of disillusionment in his base. Nate Silver, the pollster superstar, reports that 21 percent of the electorate now say they strongly approve of Trump. That’s down from a peak of 30 percent in February, a loss of about a third of his base.
This erosion seems likely to continue. It’s hard to let go of hope, particularly when you’ve gone so long without it. But when the insurance gets worse instead of better, when the jobs don’t come back, when the wall isn’t built, and nobody is more secure, hope starts to feel pretty empty. And when hope dies, so dies the love that has propelled this illusionist president since Day One. The quid-pro-quo deal will have not so artfully ended. Only one question remains: Will “The Apprentice” take him back?