In the currency of today’s attention economy, Donald Trump He is the man richest in the world His appearance before the media in New York, where he stood trial on 34 charges this Tuesday, was the quintessential test.
Returning to the showbiz metropolis that propelled him to tabloid fame all those years ago, the former president has also returned to the same stage where he thrives the most.
As you do, even in a way unusually quietit demonstrated the peculiar way he meets the world: as a luminary and an offended being at the same time.
You love him? do you hate it? Not interested? It does not matter. As during his presidency, Trump controls attention. Still. Thousands of New York City police officers, the US Secret Service, and swarms of journalists stationed in Lower Manhattan can attest to this.
It was an appearance before the court, a formality without too much drama in any criminal case, but this Tuesday it was a complete show.
And calling it that, evaluating it that way, doesn’t detract from it, not in today’s world, where the show and all its derivatives drive the attention economy and cultural conversation.
There was something about Tuesday, and the previous five days, that was somehow familiar and deeply abnormal.
For the most part, Americans had left behind the spirit of Trump that ruled America’s destinies between 2016 and, say, mid-2021.
So that Trump-flavored noise, which has been prevalent since the impeachment news broke, was nothing new. Also familiar was the awkward collision of the show with seriousness, of the machinations of the government with the rhetoric of “anything goes” of populism of the 21st century affected the reality tv.
Yet all that familiarity obscured what was genuinely new under the American sun: the minute-by-minute of a former president walking to court, entering court, charged with felonies in court, leaving court in an airport-bound trailer to pick up aboard his private plane (which has his name very publicly painted on the side).
“Another world That’s the perfect way to put it,” Dana Bash told CNN.
looking trump
We can see everything, as it has become our way. Inside the courthouse, we saw the cinema-verité style of news cameras behind the barricades, desperately seeking and getting a glimpse.
Outside, everything was plotted from above four new helicoptersa painting that evokes a situation from years ago: that of the white Bronco truck driven in 1994 by OJ Simpson, also accused of a high-profile crime.
Three decades separate those two scenes narrated from a helicopter. Those years saw the rise of reality TV, the explosion of the internet and social media, and the general dominance of tools and mindsets to obscure reality and make American life, sometimes deliberately, look more and more like a movie. .
Trump, of course, was an important driver of this radical changeboth as a private actor and, later, as managing director.
That American concern for the big and loud stories was on full display Tuesday as presenters, pundits and sources They talked and talked and talked.
Some examples:
— There was one major character you couldn’t take your eyes off of: A Newsmax anchor, awaiting Trump’s court appearance, called him the “protagonist of the show”.
— There was a metaphorical soundtrack: “Your legal cases will be the soundtrack to your presidential campaign,” said CNN’s Jeff Zeleny.
“There was commercial power. “Donald Trump left a big mark,” said one of his lawyers, Joe Tacopina, after the indictment.
– Era disinformation built to sell products: Although authorities didn’t take the classic photo of Trump’s signature, people raising money in his name were quick to they created a fake and have used it to lighten their wallets.
– and there was an unstoppable flow of content, led by Trump himself, which he posted on his Truth Social account until he approached the courthouse and resumed just as he left off.
“America wasn’t meant to be like this,” he said at one point, another of those statements that calibrate perfectly to convert his personal tribulations into national ones.
Whose message?
For much of his life, Trump has been a storyteller, controlling the image, the message, and often the their favorite version of the truth.
With the presidency, he made this approach to national politics. But on Tuesday, when rules and laws took away that sense of control, he found himself not the narrator but the narrated. Even with all the attention and criticism over the years, this is a position he is not used to.
And from the looks of the photos and short video, it’s not one you liked. As those sad images of him in court flashed across national screens, presenters and pundits used words like “decreased” AND “lack of arrogance”. These are not things that Donald Trump generally respects.
“At that time, he is not a conqueror. He’s a grandfather having a bad daysaid CNN commentator Van Jones after seeing the former president’s downcast expression as he left Trump Tower ahead of the indictment.
Yet those same presenters and pundits have said exactly those things before, during their campaign, presidency and post-presidency. They tried to narrate for Trump. Somehow, time and time again, he re-emerges as the master storyteller of his own story, no matter how much fabulism it contains.
The night in Mar-a-Largo
By nightfall, he was at his home in Mar-a-Lago Florida, backed by American flagsspeaking to hundreds of supporters in a rally-style rally and revealing various grievances in prime time.
In doing so, he was trying to pick up on that narrative the way he’s always done best: in front of a carefully selected crowd to excite without hesitation and whistle at the right time. “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family,” she said.
His intention was obvious: to demonstrate that in the field of economics of American attention, where the struggle continues, Donald J. Trump continues to be a powerful force.
Call attention it was his world, and politics is an area of focus. If the legal arena, which he has so far successfully avoided, will be nearly the same for him, it could be a completely different reality.
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.