Trump Is Boring Now, and He Can't Do Anything About It

[Demovictory9]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/trump-boring-now-and-he-cant-do-anything-about-it/613654/

Trump Is Boring Now, and He Can’t Do Anything About It
Season 4 of The Trump Show just doesn’t have the zest and sparkle of the previous seasons.

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And Trump’s reaction to it all has been typically self-absorbed and, well, uninteresting. It’s one thing to remind people that the economy is great under one’s watch, quite another to remind people that the economy used to be great under one’s watch—a little bit like Icarus running for reelection on having once flown high. It’s one thing to boast of having done a lot of coronavirus testing, quite another to run on whining that there has been too much coronavirus testing.

When the president is outrageous these days, many people can’t even be bothered to muster outrage. On Sunday morning, Trump approvingly retweeted (and then un-retweeted) a video in which a supporter of his shouted “White power!” several times. The clamor was lucky to make the Sunday talk shows, before fading away by midday. Even grotesque offensiveness is old news.

And Trump knows how important it is to entertain. He has admitted that he has tried to create his persona so as to grab attention. At a 2018 rally in Pennsylvania, in fact, he once riffed that the reason he didn’t act more “presidential” was because it would turn away audiences. “You know . . . how easy it is to be ‘presidential’?” he asked. “But you all would be out of here right now. You’d be so bored. . . .If I came [here] like a stiff, you guys wouldn’t be here tonight.”

Indeed, Trump’s instincts about the presidency rely pervasively on the idea that the president should be entertaining. The country, in Trump’s view, needs to be constantly entranced by the president, or at least the president—if he is to be effective—needs to constantly be entrancing the country.


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Yes, the Trump show still has its core fans, and a lot of them don’t seem to notice that Season 4 just doesn’t have the zest and sparkle of the previous seasons. But outside the fandom, a lot of people have stopped watching. And the ratings are down.


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The White House seems to be road testing some efforts to revive the ratings. Most prominently, Trump has zeroed in on debates over the removal of Confederate monuments and other statues of historical figures with racist legacies. He sent out 15 tweets broadcasting efforts by the U.S. Park Police to identify protesters who vandalized a statue of Andrew Jackson that sits near the White House—some of which he then retweeted days later. And he signed an angry executive order on “Protecting American Monuments,” which had little practical effect but lambasted “left-wing extremists” as adherents to Marxism. Announcing how “tough” his administration has been toward protests over statues, he described to Fox News’ Sean Hannity his feeling that “we should let people know we’ve arrested a lot of people.” Meanwhile, Axios reports that the Trump campaign is attempting to tie Biden to these protests by suggesting that the former vice president is too weak to keep statues from being toppled—a somewhat strange argument, given that the statues have come down under Trump’s own watch.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/trump-boring-now-and-he-cant-do-anything-about-it/613654/

[soothsayer]

1. I think we're on to him now

Not getting bamboozled by his attempts to distract.

[dalton99a]

2. What he should do is try and fuck Ivanka on live television

if he's not going to nuke Iran or China

That ought to bring the ratings back up

[3Hotdogs]

3. Think of whatever response to this post would get me an "alert." Then imagine I posted it.

Because I would have if I thought of it before you did.


Now, its ok. Go ahead and alert on this post.

[Baked Potato]

4. Some ideas to get them crowds back:

Hard to compete with above 😬 but...

Comedy value:
Come out in a speedo and twerk to Hail to the Chief
Cup a fart and blow it in Pences ear, then tongue his ear


Get that sweet, sweet base back:
Repeat the racist jokes you hear from Miller and Bannon
Play Russian roulette with a real revolver and Putin lookalikes until Bang!

Hard core:
Let volunteers with confirmed ‘Rona cough right in your face
Really try to act presidential until booed, then say Just Kidding, Mother Fuckers!

[SoonerPride]

5. He will say the n word before November

It’s coming

[Baked Potato]

6. You know it!