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“Trump as the ‘Kardashian of Politics’? Daniel J. Boorstin’s ‘Pseudo‐Event’ and the Rise of Donald Trump”

2020; Wiley; Volume: 43; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/jacc.13184

1542-734X

Cornelia Klecker,

Social Media and Politics

He’s a poor person’s idea of a rich person. They see him. They think, "If I were rich, I’d have a fabulous tie like that. Why are my ties not made of 400 acres of polyester?" All that stuff he shows you in his house—the gold faucets—if you won the lottery, that’s what you’d buy. Fran Lebowitz (qtd. in Fox) In the November 2016 issue of Television and New Media, with a Trump presidency looming, a special section on “The Reality Celebrity of Donald Trump” provided a collection of short and insightful commentaries that discussed various facets of the relationship between Trump and the media (Negra 646). In one of those commentaries, Laurie Ouellette makes the case that much of the media criticism surrounding Trump too easily dismisses reality television as mindless entertainment instead of recognizing how it has long played a role in the “neoliberal ‘reinvention’ of government” (648). Among other sources, she brings up Neal Gabler’s Salon article that essentially takes the media to task by blaming the “deeply unserious media and reality-TV culture” for the rise of Trump (Gabler; Ouellette 648). To make his point, Gabler draws on Daniel J. Boorstin’s seminal work The Image, first published in 1962, in which he establishes the concept of the “pseudo-event” and identifies it as a major menace to American culture in the age of mass communication. Gabler appropriates Boorstin’s terminology by calling Trump’s campaign a “pseudo campaign” and the candidate himself a “pseudo-candidate” because of the way Trump’s success seems mostly based on his status as a celebrity, or someone who is famous for being famous. “Trump is the Kardashian of politics,” he declared poignantly (Gabler; also qtd. in Ouellette 648). Gabler’s essay reads as a provocative polemic against the media coverage of politics over the past several decades, but his evocation of Boorstin’s The Image is particularly astute and deserves further academic scrutiny. Despite the fact that The Image was published in the early 1960s and comments on the (news) media landscape of that time, this article will show how his original concept of the pseudo-event and his related elaborations on the notion of celebrity as “human pseudo-events” can help explain one of the most consequential events of the 2010s: Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential election. The object of this analysis is not only to explore Trump’s ascent to the highest office in the United States but also to reveal the media’s complicit role in it. The central argument is twofold: First, this article will demonstrate how Trump’s cultivation of his (false) public image as self-made man and billionaire perfectly encapsulates the human pseudo-event as defined by Boorstin. By laying out how the reality TV show The Apprentice helped cement his persona, it will also become clear that using Boorstin’s theories does not necessarily contradict Ouellette’s plea to consider the significance of reality television. Second, it will concentrate on Trump’s outspoken role in elevating “birtherism” from a fringe talking point to a national conversation. Briefly put, birtherism is a conspiracy theory that, contrary to evidence, claims that Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the United States, was not born in the United States and is thus not a legitimate president. The reason that special consideration is given to “birtherism” is that it occupies a unique place in Trump’s lifelong staging of pseudo-events. It is the only one he actively participated in for an extended period of time that was not directly about himself and did not help his brand as successful businessman. Furthermore, while Trump had “teased” the idea of a presidential run many times throughout his adult life, mostly for the purpose of self-promotion, it was his persistent contributions to this conspiracy theory over a number of years that gained him many supporters, particularly in far-right circles. This in turn led him on a path to win the Republican nomination and eventually the presidency. A comparison of some of Trump’s media appearances related to “birtherism” to Boorstin’s criticism of Joseph McCarthy will illustrate how they constituted the staging of the ultimate pseudo-event. It will also show how these interviews already foreshadowed the problematic media coverage of his presidential campaign that helped him get elected. As with any victorious candidate, there were certainly numerous factors that contributed to Trump’s election win, many of which a growing body of academic work has addressed12 Among others, Trump and his projection of authenticity has received considerable academic attention. See, for instance, Theye and Melling; Rubrofsky; Guthey; Shane; and Higgins. . Nonetheless, returning to Boorstin’s concepts helps illuminate important elements that significantly facilitated Trump’s becoming the first pseudo-candidate for president and eventually his very real election win. In The Image, Daniel J. Boorstin describes the ways America built “the thicket of unreality which stands between us and the facts of life” (3). He argues that the origins of this unreality are what he coins “pseudo-events,” or, generally, news stories that are artificially created (Boorstin 11). Since the publication of The Image in the early 1960s, many scholars have drawn on and further developed Boorstin’s theories on pseudo-events and celebrity culture. For example, in History of the Mass Media in the United States: An Encyclopedia, David Cassidy’s entry on “Staged News” refers to pseudo-events and defines them (he uses the terms synonymously) as “effort to control manner of news presentation,” which can either come from people that wish to be covered or from the media itself (624). In the course of their study of pseudo-events and the Philippine press, Edson C. Tandoc Jr. and Marko M. Skoric observe that Boorstin’s elaborations have been used to analyze many different aspects of media coverage of the government and politicians, such as the military, campaigns, elections, presidents, and at least one first lady (35). Among the articles they reference is Tim Barney’s work that exposes how the 2000 US presidential election played out as a media spectacle. However, he merely evokes Boorstin’s work on the image without ever truly engaging with it (Barney 2332). In his analysis of George W. Bush’s famous jet landing aboard an aircraft carrier in 2003, an event so elaborately staged that many compared it to scenes from Top Gun (1986), W. Lance Bennett builds on Boorstin’s pseudo-event and defines what he calls “news reality frames,” whose distinguishing characteristic is that the media’s participation in these staged events is much more active and interventionist than with “regular” pseudo-events (Bennett 174; also referenced in Tandoc Jr. and Skoric 35). Similarly, Simon Morgan tests the usefulness of the concept of the pseudo-event for historians but argues in the process, counter to Boorstin’s contention, that celebrities and celebrity culture do not have their origin in the midtwentieth century but already existed as a phenomenon in the centuries before. Similarly, William. Harpine argues that William McKinley’s “front porch campaign,” which happened already in 1896, was a series of staged events. However, Boorstin’s observations on how new technologies of his time (i.e., film, television, and glossy magazines) and their ubiquity created pseudo-events and celebrities out of thin air still have great value and can help us make sense of the 2016 presidential election. As Richard W. Waterman et al. emphasize, even though Boorstin criticized the superficiality of events of the late 1950s and early 1960s, such as the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, presidential debates have further decreased in substance “as presidents practice jokes and one-liners with their political consultants in preparation for their debates, ever aware that these will be used as sound bites by the news media…” (17, original emphasis). Stephanie Viens, too, maintains that The Image “remains a classic example of an ‘older’ media criticism that is still pertinent” (95) and laid the groundwork for what was subsequently called and further developed as “hyperreality” (94). The present article, however, will specifically and deliberately draw on Boorstin’s elaborations and terminology because, as the following review of literature on celebrity studies will demonstrate, Trump is best defined and explained by using Boorstin’s original concepts.23 For a more comprehensive literature review on Boorstin’s pseudo-event, see Tandoc Jr. and Skoric (34–36) and Gleason (266–67). According to Boorstin, pseudo-events do not happen spontaneously, but are planned in advance in ways that ensure that the media can easily relate them to the public. Whether or not a pseudo-event is successful is solely determined by how widely it is reported (11). Interestingly, Boorstin’s prime example of a pseudo-event—the interview—is something that has become so normal and is so frequently used that most people could not imagine the news landscape without it. Boorstin argues that unlike, for example, a natural disaster, the interview is a clear instance where news is being made rather than merely reported (11, 14). And it is this making of news—that is, the deliberate creation of pseudo-events—that lies at the heart of what we might call society’s self-deception. The situation is made even worse by the way pseudo-events may easily drown out genuine events since they prioritize their potential dramatic effect over their actual newsworthiness and can be repeated as often as necessary in order to be more impactful (39). “Participants,” Boorstin explains, “are selected for their newsworthy and dramatic interest” (39). What he really means is that participants are chosen according to their prospective news-making ability. An interview may be newsworthy in the sense that it is likely to draw a lot of attention but not so much in terms of how important the content of the interview truly is. News-making ability stresses performance over substance, which makes pseudo-events instantly more accessible to people than ordinary events. As Boorstin remarks: “Even if we cannot discuss intelligently the qualifications of the candidates or the complicated issues, we can at least judge the effectiveness of a television performance” (Boorstin 39–40). The fact that much of post-presidential-debate coverage on cable news does not discuss policies but focuses instead on which of the candidates "won" the debate confirms this observation. Besides the pseudo-event, Boorstin laments the excesses of celebrity culture. Similar to the way he juxtaposes pseudo-events with spontaneous events, he contrasts celebrities with heroes by distinctly differentiating fame from greatness. He explains that for a long time, famous people were generally known for heroic actions. Now that the media and their consumers can so easily make any person famous, the general public still has the tendency to equate fame with greatness, even though the former no longer entails the latter. Unlike most heroes, celebrities are not necessarily self-made, but are typically created by the media and by public reception. Celebrities are artificially produced in the same ways that pseudo-events are manufactured (Boorstin 46–48), and in fact, Boorstin calls celebrities “human pseudo-events” (57, 66). However, since many people hold celebrities in high regard, they frequently refuse to acknowledge the ties between celebrity and artificiality, and therefore confuse fame with heroism. As Boorstin points out, the public wants celebrities to be great even though fame cannot instill greatness (48). What Boorstin finds most troubling about this problem is that celebrities tend to eclipse heroes in ways strikingly similar to the ways pseudo-events pull public attention toward them and away from spontaneous events (66). Consequently, social attention, too, is directed to people who are famous for being famous. Boorstin pithily distills the essence of the difference between celebrity and hero as such: “The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name” (Boorstin 61). James Monaco recognized the same development distinguishing heroes from the past with celebrities of the present: “[Heroes] have done things, acted in the world: written, thought, understood, led. Celebrities, on the other hand, needn’t have done – needn’t do – anything special. Their function isn’t to act – just to be” (Monaco 5–6, original emphasis). Nonetheless, he subsequently categorizes celebrities into three types: The hero who is famous for their actions, the star who is known for their persona, and the “quasar” who does not seek the spotlight and has (almost) no control over their fame because their status as celebrity stems from who society believes they are. Quasars are sometimes even victims of media attention (Monaco 10–12). As Graeme Turner points out in his Understanding Celebrity, the quasar is rather similar to what he, Bonner, and Marshall much later (2000) described as “accidental celebrity” (Turner 24). Turner favors the taxonomy of celebrities established by Chris Rojek that, in his opinion, provides more nuance and has also been embraced by many other scholars (Turner 24–25). Besides the three definitions of “ascribed,” “achieved,” and “attributed” celebrity, Rojek introduces additionally the terms “celetoid” and “celeactor.” He focuses his analysis largely on celebrity that is either achieved (i.e., merit-based) or attributed (i.e., almost purely media-constructed), both of which he contrasts with ascribed celebrity that depends on lineage and bloodline (Rojek 17–18). Celetoids, then, are “any form of compressed, concentrated, attributed celebrity” (Rojek 20), that is, people who are famous for a very short amount of time and then completely disappear again. A subcategory of the celetoid is the celeactor, who is essentially a fictional persona that receives celebrity status. According to Rojek, Ali G, a role played by Sacha Baron Cohen, is a prime example (23). Besides some variants and the acknowledgment that categories are blurry and can overlap, what is noticeable in the work of these scholars is that they all include a version of Boorstin’s original distinction between hero and celebrity. In other words, it matters whether the celebrityhood is, for lack of a better word, deserved due to skills and achievements that go beyond creating fame, or whether it is meritless in the sense that fame is not just a by-product or a means to an end, but the end itself. The present analysis of Donald Trump’s ascent to the highest office in the US government is built on exactly this foundational distinction. I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big. Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage. (Trump and Schwartz 46–47) The Art of the Deal was the first of a series of books in which Trump crafted his persona as a successful businessman, real estate mogul, and dealmaker. Despite the fact that his books mostly serve as a glorification of himself, many of them, like The Art of the Deal, are disguised as “how-to” books (among others Trump: How to Get Rich, How to Build a Fortune: Your Plan for Success from the World’s Most Famous Businessman, Trump 101: The Way to Success, and Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know about Success, Real Estate, and Life), which helped him establish and support his narrative of the self-made man by laying out the brilliant techniques and strategies he used that (as he claims) single-handedly turned him into a billionaire. Trump biographer (and longtime Trump critic) Timothy O’Brien describes how important it was for Donald Trump to be perceived as very rich and very successful in Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald. According to O’Brien, Trump claimed he was a billionaire in a conversation with him as early as 1996 and asserted that he had increasing (albeit fluctuating) amounts of money throughout the following years (Trump Nation 152–54). When he announced his candidacy for president in 2015, he claimed to be worth 8.7 billion dollars (Kranish and Fisher 293). Only one month later, however, he upped his financial disclosure report, which presidential candidates are required to file with the Federal Election Commission, to a round ten billion dollars (Mullany). But it is not enough for Trump to have people believe he is very rich, he is also adamant about having done it by himself. During a town-hall appearance in October of the same year, he boasted: “It has not been easy for me. And you know I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars” (Trump qtd. in Kessler). When he was called out by the media and other presidential candidates not only for the untruthfulness of the statement but also for considering one million dollars a small amount of money, he doubled down: “I got a very, very small loan from my father many years ago. I built that into a massive empire and I paid my father back that loan…” (Trump qtd. in Kessler). What this incident already hints at is that Trump’s image of the self-made billionaire is almost entirely grounded in performance and spectacle and not in substance. His many business failures and questionable net worth were already sporadically exposed throughout his career long before his campaign announcement, and such reports intensified somewhat once he became a serious presidential contender. However, the media coverage on this topic has only truly become extensive since he took office as president of the United States, perhaps partly fueled by Trump’s refusal to do what, according to Kertscher, all major-party candidates since Jimmy Carter had done—publicly release his tax returns. In the aforementioned Trump biography, whose first edition was published in 2005, O’Brien lays out in great detail how the financial magazine Forbes more or less randomly assessed and published Trump’s fluctuating net worth on the influential Forbes 400, the magazine’s annual list of the richest people in the United States, throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Trump Nation 149–52). In the new introduction to the 2016 edition of the same biography, O’Brien calls to mind that Trump was so unsettled by O’Brien’s allegation that he was not as rich as he was claiming that he filed a 5-billion-dollar lawsuit for defamation against the author and his publisher (Trump Nation xv), a suit he ultimately lost in 2011 (O’Brien, “I’ve Watched Trump Testify”). In the course of this trial, O’Brien’s lawyers had the opportunity to depose Trump and he admitted a total of thirty times that he had lied over the years about various issues, his wealth and assets among them (Fahrenthold and O’Harrow Jr.). In another unfavorable Trump biography, author David Cay Johnston, an investigative journalist specializing in tax issues and economics, quotes from the transcript of this deposition where Trump gave away his game: “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings…” (Trump qtd. in Johnston 78). When asked what he based his numbers on in public statements about his net worth, he explained: “I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked. And as I say, it varies” (Trump qtd. in Johnston 79). Johnston expands on how Trump inflated his net worth, how he overvalued but also undervalued his properties depending on what was more advantageous in the given situation (overstating the value to make him appear richer, understating it to avoid taxes), how time and again he was not able to pay his bills, which completely undermines his claim to be a billionaire, and how a 1987 evaluation by an independent accounting firm actually showed that Trump was 295 million dollars in debt (77–89). Johnston additionally reveals how Trump has a long and well-documented history of calling journalists under a fake name claiming to be a spokesperson of himself to try and manipulate the media into portraying him as a financially successful womanizer (Johnston 137–40; Fisher and Hobson). The most damning and extensive reports on Trump’s finances were published when he was already president. The Washington Post reported in the spring of 2019 how throughout his career Trump often fabricated “Statements of Financial Condition” that were not based on facts when he wanted to "prove" his riches to journalists or a potential business partner. These statements even contain an “accountant’s warning” making clear that they “have not audited or reviewed the accompanying financial statement and, accordingly, do not express an opinion or provide any assurance about whether the financial statement is in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America” (Fahrenthold and Connell). The New York Times topped this report only two months later with an in-depth analysis of ten years of tax transcripts they had obtained covering the years from 1985 to 1994. These records document Trump’s massive annual losses including the 250 million dollars he lost in 1990 and 1991, which was, according to The New York Times, “more than double those of the nearest taxpayer… for those years” (Buettner and Craig). Another New York Times article published the year before gave a detailed account on how Trump’s own origin story of the self-made man is nothing short of fiction. Instead of merely “a small loan of a million dollars,” his father in fact provided him with what amounted to the equivalent of 413 million dollars (adjusted for inflation) over five decades. From effectively earning a salary from his father’s real estate empire since he was three years old, over loans for his new projects, to simple cash infusions to his various failing businesses, Trump could always rely on his father’s support (Barstow, Craig, and Buettner). But wait, you say, isn't he a huge business success that knows what he's talking about? No he isn't. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn't create it. And what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there's Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage? (Romney qtd. in Beckwith) It looks like piles of raw steaks, bottles of wine, pallets of water, and a propped-up magazine. The Secret Service is guarding it like a table of ancient artifacts, which in a sense it is. The wine is from Trump Winery in Virginia. The water is wrapped in baby-blue Trump logos. The magazine, called The Jewel of Palm Beach, has a Trump property cover. And the steaks? They appear to be Trump Steaks. (Tur 152) On closer inspection, however, Tur and her fellow reporters quickly realized that none of those items were actually Trump products but were made by other companies (152–53). Once again, it was all just for show, a made-for-TV production that included actual props. One thing that was not included in the display was any reference to Trump University. When Romney gave his speech, it was already deeply entangled in a class action lawsuit in which former students accused Trump and the university of fraud. In a 2005 promotional video, Trump had claimed: “At Trump University, we teach success…. We’re going to teach you better than the business schools are going to teach you, and I went to the best business school” (Trump qtd. in Johnston 119, 121). According to the plaintiffs, none of this was true. Despite Trump’s repeated claims that he would fight this to the end and be ultimately victorious at trial, two months after Trump’s inauguration, the judge approved a 25-million-dollar settlement that would reimburse the over 3,700 students for about 90 percent of what they had spent at the sham educational facility (Eder and Medina). In the latest setback to the Trump empire, Donald J. Trump Foundation, the purported charitable organization of the Trump family, was forced to dissolve under court supervision in December 2018. This was the result of a lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general, who claimed that the foundation was “little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests” (qtd. in Goldmacher). Trump Foundation was not the only time Trump’s generosity, or lack thereof, became the topic of controversy. Many journalists who tried to confirm his many public claims of charitable donations found that they were never followed through (see, for instance, Kranish and Fisher 307; Johnston 133–35; Fahrenthold; Fahrenthold and Crites). The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration – and a very effective form of promotion. (Trump and Schwartz 58) Not surprisingly, Trump did not actually write this book (or any subsequent books) himself, but the actual author is Tony Schwartz, who has since become an outspoken critic of him. In early 2019, he tweeted: “The ‘Art of the Deal' was a phrase that came out of my mouth 30 years ago as a way for Trump to write an autobiography he didn't have. It was a fake marketing idea, not a reality. I regret it every day of my life” (@tonyschwartz). Even the book’s best-selling status, at least around the time of publication, is questionable. John R. O’Donnell, a former employee of Trump’s who helped him run Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino for three years, revealed that Trump Plaza and Trump Castle (two of Trump’s failed casinos) were ordered to purchase thousands of copies to boost sales and make them appear more popular. However, they were unable to sell them to their customers and so eventually simply gave them away for free (O’Donnell 24–25; see also Kranish and Fisher 134). As this brief survey of Trump’s life as a businessman illustrates, there is ample evidence that Trump is not, in fact, a billionaire (or at least not as rich as he claims). He is not a particularly masterful dealmaker either, and as for his image as a real estate mogul, while he certainly did have some success in that area, he has not built anything in a long time. In fact, he does not even own many of the buildings that carry his name. He merely licensed his name for a fee (Clarke; Fleishman; Kranish and Fisher; Swanson 241). As Boorstin stated, “the celebrity is a big name.” Boorstin also declared that a “celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness” (57). This seems certainly true for the Kardashians34 While the origin of their fame may be perplexing, they undoubtably have managed to monetize it. For instance, Kim Kardashian makes millions from, among others, her own beauty line, KKW Beauty; Kendall Jenner is the highest-paid model in the world; and Kylie Jenner became the youngest billionaire in the world in 2019 with her company Kylie Cosmetics (Jordan). , which probably prompted Gabler’s comparison between them and Trump. However, unlike Gabler’s contention that “Trump is the Kardashian of politics,” one could argue that Trump is (or was before becoming president) actually not just “known for his well-knownness.” While many may reasonably ask what the Kardashians actually do and why they are famous, these questions are rather easily answered when it comes to Trump. His image was actually very specific. He was known for being a self-made billionaire, an unmatched dealmaker, and a real estate mogul. The only problem is that, as evidenced, none of these are grounded in reality. Therefore, in a way, he is really only known for being known for being a self-made billionaire, unmatched dealmaker, and real estate mogul. I own buildings all over the place, model agencies, the Miss Universe pageant, jet liners, golf courses, casinos, and private resorts like Mar-a-Lago … But it wasn’t always so easy. About thirteen years ago, I was seriously in trouble…. But I fought back…. I used my brain. I used my negotiating skills…. I’ve mastered the art of the deal, and I’ve turned the name Trump into the highest-quality brand. And as the master, I wanna pass along my knowledge to somebody else. I’m looking for the apprentice. (“Meet the Billionaire” 01:16–02:10) As Trump briefly explains the premise of the show, we see him get out of the limousine and into a Trump helicopter. As the helicopter takes off, the opening credits start rolling. In this opening sequence, Trump seems to be taking his own advice of “thinking big” and using “truthful hyperbole,” portraying himself as the most powerful magnate who also benevolently wants to share his wealth of knowledge with others. The show was an instant hit. The first season, according to Joshua Green, averaged 20 million viewers per episode (94). Besides the striking opening sequence, the most important scenes of the show were the ones that were said to take place in the boardroom of Trump Organization, high up in the famous Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. But, according to Misha Kavka, in her article on Trump and reality television, The Apprentice featured a studio version of Trump’s boardroom (152). Acc