The Emperor Is Fully Clothed
I've been thinking a little about the Kavanaugh nomination, and about Kavanaugh's decision to let loose at the hearing. Everyone was quick to jump to the conclusion that Trump was the audience, and that Kavanaugh was worried about the possibility that Trump might pull the nomination. But this always seemed odd. At that point in time, you would think that the "swing" senators were the audience, and Kavanaugh's display didn't seem well calibrated to win over "moderates." But then it came out that the White House itself counselled Kavanaugh's approach, which superficially seemed to confirm that Trump was the audience. But I don't think that this is the case. Instead, I think we're getting a peak behind the curtain. Trump wasn't the audience, his deplorables were. And Trump knows this.
When the White House told Kavanaugh to let loose, this was presumably a decision in which Trump, at some level, was involved. But it doesn't make sense that Trump would ask Kavanaugh to put on a show for Trump's benefit. After all, this would demonstrate the kind of self-awareness that defeats the purpose of the performance itself, because pandering to an audience only works if you can claim that you aren't pandering. In other words, this type of pandering requires that you act as if you're someone you're not, and it doesn't work if the audience knows you're lying to them. Instead, when Trump (via the White House) asked Kavanaugh to let loose, Trump was telling Kavanaugh that he should pander to the same audience to which Trump himself panders. The deplorables.
What this means, if there was any doubt, is that Trump is quite aware of what he's doing, and quite aware of where his power lies. Rather than a President that's shaping the electorate, at some level he's merely giving them the show that they want. It's despicable, but there's also a level of self-awareness for which Trump is not usually credited. He knows what he's doing.
As I said in a previous post, part of our collective issue with Trump is that "we" are no longer the audience for politics. Even when we would justifiably complain about past administrations, there was always a sense that we were being taken account of, even if this only meant that the people in power needed to lie to us. But now, the veils are off. No more lies - we're just being ignored, because we're irrelevant to the people in power.
One last point, which was actually made by a friend of mine. When the UN General Assembly laughed at Trump for claiming that in two years his administration had achieved more than almost any other, the story quickly became a story about Trump's foolishness. Look at the idiot, people said, the United States has become even more of a laughingstock. But few people bothered to watch anything more than the brief clip of people laughing at Trump. But if you bothered to watch the next few seconds, you see Trump's response. He chuckles too. And as my friend pointed out, he's laughing because he knows it's a joke. If he believed his lies, he wouldn't laugh, but would take offense. Instead, he can join the laughter, because he also knows he's full of shit. It's rare that we get a peek behind the curtain, but Trump's laugh was it.
We might be tempted to say that Trump is a case of the emperor having no clothes. But that's just a role he's playing, and that he knows he's playing. And this us because he also knows where his true power lies, and even though it lies with perhaps just 1/3 of the electorate, when you're the only one who understands power, that can be enough.