Whatever dubious claims Donald Trump may have made regarding his impact on the US economy, one industry he inarguably boosted is publishing. Whether it’s high-profile journalists sitting on details of a major outrage until months after the event to shift a few more units of their portentously titled tome, or an endless coterie of former staffers attempting to launder their legacy to history, there’s been no shortage of dross. Then you get revelations like the one in New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new book Confidence Man, and you realise you never want it to cease.
Trump announced he had tested positive to COVID in October 2020 — this was pre-vaccine, and back when a high-profile case still had the power to surprise us. And his plan when announcing his recovery may be the single greatest “what if” in the history of political theatre. According the book, Trump, inspired by James Brown and pro-wrestling:
… would be wheeled out of Walter Reed in a chair and, once outdoors, he would dramatically stand up, then open his button-down dress shirt to reveal [a] Superman logo beneath it. (Trump was so serious about it that he called the campaign headquarters to instruct an aide, Max Miller, to procure the Superman shirts; Miller was sent to a Virginia big-box store.)
We have previously noted that if you can briefly tune out the horror of the Trump administration, his was objectively the weirdest and funniest presidency in history. Details like this give us an indication of just how much weirder it could have gotten. Long may they continue.
Who put a stop to the Superman t-shirt? Off with their head.
We need to round up and identify the sensible grown ups that prevented this and other potential scenarios from happening. We might need them again.
Funny and entertaining, perhaps. But if Trump gets back into office we have been warned he will be driven by spite. He is a better fit with world autocrats than the USA’s post-war allies, and puts little value in alliances with what he dismisses as weaklings. Not much to amuse ASEAN, PIN’s or Aus/NZ if America puts him back in office. Policy wonks can no longer assume a benevolent (in our direction) US. Then there is the UK in a relevance spiral, on fast toward in recent years, with abundant hilarity in Australia seeking to make new pacts of brotherhood with both. Comedy gold.
I might laugh so hard I cry.
Scary that the assumption is that half of all Americans think that he is their best bet to win back office.
The concern of many in academia and journalism in the US have, is that although Trump is problematic, he is a symptom who will die one day, but the causes or ideology and influence remain in the background, and explicit e.g. stacking the SCOTUS for a generation.