Seriously, Not Literally
How Often Does the Media Be Reminded?
The best way to understand Donald Trump is to take him seriously, but not literally.
He was a property developer, a job that requires a rather large dollop of fabulist to be successful at.
“Loan me $500 million to build this great new big thing and I’ll double your money” is a very standard line from developers.
‘It’s amazing, it can’t fail, it’s the best of its kind ever, everything else it the worst” is the typical follow up line.
It may work out, it may not, but the project doesn’t even stand a chance if the developer doesn’t push the edges of current reality at least a bit to raise the funds. Decent developers (Note – I have dealt with many many in the past through my city council position) do not lie, per se, as that would endanger their investment trusts and so on, but, hearkening back to that infamous CNN “fiery but mostly peaceful” caption in 2020, some developers may try to claim something like that could be true “because less than 50% of Kenosha was not burning at that moment.”
Trump wouldn’t, but it is a developer’s nature to declare his ideas great and every other competing developers the worst. In other words, talk Mars, but settle on delivering the moon.
In 2016, Salena Zito with The Atlantic magazine came up with the original line as to Trump: “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
And over the past eight years, that has been proven, time and time again, to be not only true about the media and Trump supporters but also how he should be covered.
As seen with his attempt to get Matt Gaetz named attorney general, Trump swings for the fences on a very regular basis; he throws things at the wall to see what sticks and if his sillier things – like the Gaetz nomination - do not work out he moves on.
Trump is a breeder of stalking horses, or, in Gaetz’s case, at least ponies.
And still the media does not understand that.
Greenland, Panama, Wayne Gretzky for Governor of Canada – all of those are examples of Trump’s wow and dazzle and put people on their backfoot strategy.
Sometimes they have undertones of merit – talking about a new Panama Canal treaty is almost assuredly a feint to get Panama to charge American ships less to use the canal (it’s at least a million bucks a ship now) and/or a way to get Panama to back away from China.
But does he really think he can get it back? Of course not.
Greenland is, well, sillier but deep down it is clear Trump wants America to buy land – it was/is his job. Do you not think that if a real estate agent ever got elected president would – hopefully under her breath – begin appraising the White House the moment she walked in? Purely force of habit.
Canada and Gretzky and tariffs also has a bit of seriousness to it, as seen by the collapse of the Justin Trudeau government.
By the way, couldn’t happen to a nicer “guy.”
Even odder is that the media has declared Trump to be nuts, a dangerous madman, a loony but yet it still insists on taking him literally. True, he has been and will be president, but it is internally incoherent.
Imagine this scenario: A reporter is dispatched to Bellevue to interview one of the many Napoleons who live there. The Napoleon interviewed is a 27-year-old schizophrenic from Queens with a dent in his head.
The reporter knows this person is clinical, but takes every utterance as serious and real and as possible and even argues with Napoleon about his strategy to reclaim his throne by first invading Antarctica.
“That may not be the best use of your military resources, what do you really gain by taking Antarctica, what impact would your invasion have on the climate?” are the questions and concepts posited by the reporter.
The reporter then writes a detailed piece on why all of Napoleon’s ideas are not at all good and even mentions that he is an actual mental patient.
The New York Times then runs it on the front page in an effort to discredit Napoleon and his plan to invade Antarctica, making sure to get a few comments from The Atlantic Council on how it would disrupt the status quo.
In other words, the press still does not take Trump seriously but it still takes him literally, even though – concurrently - the media has decided that he is bonkers. That simply does not make sense.
The internal cognitive dissonance in the media must be deafening – do you take your crazy aunt literally? And imagine if you did – how many imaginary burglars would you try to track down, how many tinfoil hats to keep the rays of Zargon the Malignant (who, by the way, your aunt said she’s going to marry soon even though he has killed billions of humans and Tylopians – she’s forgiving that way) would you make before you realized that you have driven yourself insane?
The press has yet to realize that it has driven itself - and a large swath of the country - insane by how it has covered Trump –crassly but not consistently, literally but not seriously.
Of course, snappy headlines like “Trump wants to…” are clickbait, so maybe it’s just that craven.
Either way, it’s wrong.