Showmancing the Presidency

Music: Damian Lazarus & the Ancient Moons: Heart of Sky (2018)

My book on political perversion is drafted except for the conclusion. The conclusion is hard to pull off, as the argument there is that gun violence and the recent presidential election participate in the same logic of demand and disavowal. It’s a complicated argument that could easily seem  hyperbolic--although it is not; forcing others to witness atrocity is central to both--and it will also be the gist of my talk at the National Communication Association in the fall (titled there, “Gunplay”).  To this end, I needed to reframe the last case study on the Trump campaign and presidency as a genre, and make a better case for why genre is a better basis for figuring ethics than, say, the displacement of character that we term “persona” in rhetorical studies. I know many of my friends who have used persona as a concept for criticism may disagree, but I think the idea was invented to make the conservative feel comfortable about critiquing people.  It assumes an autonomy of personhood that only makes sense in a pragmatic/everyday manner.  Ultimately you and me are enfoldments of culture. 

Anyhoo, since I finished writing the chapter, former FBI Director James Comey published a “tell-all” cash-in to set the record straight, reigniting the rumors of a “pee tape” by discussing it in his book and on the many (many many) television appearances he made since it published. Comey is complex, to be sure, but: dude? Regardless, if you want to write about Trump and keep it up to date, urine trouble.  Because Hair Führer is just not going to stop, I keep insisting that Trump is merely one big, fat example of a much larger issue: the arrival of popular/political perversion and the eclipse of cultural neurosis (widely signified as public guilt, compromise, and apology). Here is a taste of the re-vamped introduction to that chapter (sources removed to avoid formatting/coding horrors, but easily provided by request in the comments):

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For the last seven months of 2016, a former secret intelligence head for Russian affairs in the MI6 dashed off 17 memos to his employers at the DC-based Fusion GPS, an investigative firm that produces "oppositional research" for political actors.  British bloodhound Christopher Steele did not know for whom he investigated, only that he needed to provide leads for further research to verify his answers to the following question: "Why did Mr. [Donald] Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors shun?”  It turns out the private intelligence dossier that Steele helped to produce was paid for by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)--routine "oppo" politics, of course.  The report gradually landed into the hands of U.S. intelligence officials and in front of the alarmed gazes of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.  The distressing dossier alleged that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, in part by publicizing damning, private information illegally hacked from the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The report also contained damaging information about candidate Trump, which suggested that he was susceptible to blackmail.  

Although news of the existence and details of the dossier had been circulating "among journalists and politicians in Washington" months before it was reportedly revealed, much of the information was unsubstantiated and intelligence officials worried that the report would leak before Trump could be briefed on its existence.  After the president-elect was briefed, CNN reported on the existence of "classified documents" ten days before the inauguration, but resolved to disregard the details of the dossier because many of the allegations were unverified.  The online, tabloid news and media website BuzzFeed shared no such caution, however, and later on the evening of January 10, 2017, published the entire, leaked dossier "so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of government."  BuzzFeed was instantly pilloried by the press and government officials for violating journalistic ethics and compromising national security.

The possibility of a conspiracy with Russian officials is bad enough, but Trump's station was worsened by his repeated attempts to inhibit further investigation, which compounded the allegations of collusion with charges of obstructing justice: when the former Trump surrogate and current Attorney General recused himself from a special counsel investigation, Trump bullied and publicly humiliated the formerly, fiercely "loyal" Jeff Sesssions, and soon thereafter fired the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey. Yet despite the high drama of such political intrigue, and regardless of a seemingly never-ending investigation of high crimes--possibly treason!--by former FBI director Robert Mueller, at present the dominant catalyst for popular fascination are projections about Trump's allegedly aberrant proclivities in the bedroom.

While attending the Miss Universe pageant in 2013, the Steele dossier suggests that Trump watched two prostitutes urinate on a bed that the Obamas previously slept in at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton Hotel. As rumors about the Trump "pee tape" continue to circulate—-which Comey's tell-all memoir rallied again in 2018-—the argument that his political figure is perverse is hardly new(s): until the existence of the tape is proven or Trump leaves office or both, late night talk-show hosts will never let the rumors rest. In the fall of 2018, actor and comedian Tom Arnold hosted a Viceland documentary series, The Hunt for the Trump Tapes, in search of any incriminating recordings, the Holy Grail of which being filled to the brim with liquid gold . . .