In today's attention economy currency,
Donald Trump is the
richest
man in the world.
His appearance before the media in New York, where on Tuesday he was prosecuted for 34 charges, was the evidence par excellence.
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 most.
As he did so, even in an
uncharacteristically quiet
way , he demonstrated the peculiar way he meets the world: as a luminary and a wronged being at the same time.
You love him?
You hate it?
Not interested?
It doesn't matter.
As during his presidency, Trump controls the attention.
Still.
Thousands of New York City police officers, the US Secret Service, and swarms of journalists stationed in lower Manhattan can attest to that.
It was a trial court appearance, a formality without much drama in any criminal case, but this Tuesday
was a complete show.
And calling it that, evaluating it that way, doesn't diminish it, not in today's world, where spectacle and all its by-products
drive the attention economy
and cultural conversation.
There was something about Tuesday, and the five days before it, that was somehow both 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 news of the impeachment broke, was nothing new.
Also familiar was the uncomfortable collision of
showmanship with seriousness,
of
government
machinations with the "anything goes" rhetoric of
21st century populism
influenced by
reality TV.
Trump waves to a crowd back in Florida.
Photo: Reuters
Yet all that familiarity obscured what was genuinely new under the American sun: the minute-by-minute of a former president going to court, entering court, charged with felonies in court, leaving court in a caravan heading to the airport to board his private plane (which has his name very publicly painted on the side).
“
Another world
is the perfect way to say it”, said Dana Bash on CNN.
looking at trump
We get to see it all, as it has become our way.
Inside the courthouse, we saw the cinema-verité style of news cameras behind barricades, desperately seeking, and getting, a glimpse.
Outside, everything was tracked from above by
four news helicopters
, a scene reminiscent of a situation from years ago: that of the white Bronco pickup driven in 1994 by OJ Simpson, someone 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 useful tools and mindsets to obscure reality and make American life feel, sometimes deliberately, more and more like a movie.
Trump, of course, has been
a prominent driver of this sea change
, both as a private citizen actor and, later, as a CEO.
That American preoccupation with
big, loud stories
was on full display Tuesday as anchors, pundits and sources
talked and talked and talked.
Some examples:
— There was one main character you couldn't take your eyes off: A Newsmax anchor, awaiting Trump's court appearance, called him the
"star of the show."
— There was a metaphorical musical score: "Your legal cases will be the soundtrack to your presidential campaign," said CNN's Jeff Zeleny.
— There was commercial power.
“Donald Trump has made a great mark,” one of his attorneys, Joe Tacopina, said after the arraignment.
—
Disinformation
Constructed to Sell Merchandise
: While authorities didn't take Trump's classic profile picture, people who raised funds in his name quickly
created a fake one
and exploited it to lighten their wallets.
— And there was
a relentless stream of content,
spearheaded by Trump himself, who posted to his Truth Social account right up until he walked up to court and picked up just as he left.
"America wasn't supposed to be like this," he said at one point, another of those statements that calibrates perfectly to turn
his personal woes into national ones.
Whose message?
For much of his life, Trump has been a storyteller, controlling the image, the message, and often
his preferred version of the truth.
Trump arrives at court on Tuesday.
Photo: Ed Jones / AFP
With the presidency, he made that approach to national politics.
But on Tuesday, when the rules and laws took that sense of control away from him, he found himself not the storyteller but the narrated.
Even with all the attention and criticism over the years, that's
a position he's not used to.
And from the looks of the photos and the short video, it's not one you liked.
As those grim images of him in court flashed across national screens, words like "diminished"
and
"lacking in arrogance"
were used by newscasters and pundits
.
They are not things that Donald Trump generally respects.
“At that time, he is not a conqueror.
He is a grandfather having a very bad day
,” commentator Van Jones said on CNN after seeing the dejected facial expression of the former president as he was leaving Trump Tower before the arraignment.
Yet those same presenters and pundits have said exactly those things before, through their campaign and presidency and post-presidency.
They have tried to narrate for Trump.
Somehow, time and time again, he reemerges as the master storyteller of his own story, no matter how much fabulism it contains.
The night at Mar-a-Largo
By nightfall, he was at his home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida,
backed by American flags
, speaking to hundreds of supporters in a rally-style gathering and revealing various grievances in prime time.
By nightfall, Trump was at his home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, backed by American flags.
Photo: Chandan Khanna / AFP
In doing so, he was trying to recapture that narrative the way he's always done it best:
before a handpicked crowd
to unhesitatingly enthuse and boo on cue.
“I have a judge who hates Trump with a wife and family who hate Trump,” he said.
His intent was obvious: to show that in the arena of the American attention economy, where the fighting continues,
Donald J. Trump remains a powerful force.
Getting attention
has been his world
, and politics is a realm of attention.
If the legal arena, which he has successfully avoided until now, will be almost the same for him, it may be a completely different reality.
The author is an Associated Press journalist.
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