Trump's Reality TV Presidency Needs to Get Real
The line between politics and entertainment has been thinning ever since the rise of television. But Trump, a product of TV and no prior public job, has taken the show biz side to a new level. Judging by his raucous first solo news conference as president, the former real estate developer and star of "The Apprentice" never really left TV -- in his own mind.
He merely moved from entertainment programming to the news channels, which for him was a remarkably easy move to make after years of reinventing himself through TV.
As Trump's long-time friend and adviser Roger Stone explained in the PBS "Frontline" documentary "The Choice 2016," Trump's 14 seasons on "The Apprentice" gave Trump the star power that he needed to get himself elected without having any experience at running government.
"The Apprentice" took Trump into households nationwide as the perfect Hollywood version of a corporate leader, complete with a tall throne-like boardroom chair and a memorable commanding tag line: "You're fired!"
And appearances matter. A lot. "The elites say, 'That's reality TV,' " Stone recalled. "But the voters don't see it that way. To them, TV news and entertainment -- it's all television."
Right. It's all television.
In fact, there are moments when "It's all television" seems to be the Trump administration's unofficial motto.
Unfortunately for him, Trump sounded in his news conference as though nobody gave him the script for running the White House.
For 77 minutes, the news conference hopped from topic to topic, with Trump dodging the hard questions -- which was almost all of them. His style that merged boasting, scolding, a sermon and a comedy monologue. He was Mr. President as Mr. Entertainer.
The hastily organized presser seemed to be aimed at countering reports of chaos, scandal, incompetence and other troubles in his new administration. Hey, no chaos, he tried to assure the world. "This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine," he said.
I don't think anybody believed that. However, he did give us a new Orwellian observation about the media to top Conway's "alternative facts": "Leaks are real, the news is fake." Wrap your mind around that for a while.
In fact, if the leaks are real, the news is real, too. Trump needs to face that reality or end up on "America's Next Top Failure."
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
