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<\/p>\nDavid Trend<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat you have to understand about Trump, first of all, is that he\u2019s a performance artist, not a politician,\u201d explained filmmaker Michael Moore (one of the first public figures to predict Trump\u2019s election).\u00a0 In recent months, considerable attention has been given the President’s\u00a0apparent distain of reality or what some nominally call “truth.” But maybe its time to look at Trump’s “creative” approach to factuality in a different way. \u00a0Say what you will about The Donald, his ability to get public attention is astonishing. And while some critics question the President\u2019s grasp of \u201creality,\u201d others see a calculated shrewdness in his behavior\u2013\u2013an underlying strategy\u00a0not unlike what Naomi Klein discussed in The Shock Doctrine<\/em>.<\/p>\n Is this veteran huckster simply putting on an act?<\/p>\n After all, aren\u2019t all politicians \u201cperformers\u201d in some sense of the term? You would expect that in an age of media spectacle most Americans are accustomed to this idea. The problem is that many still yearn for authenticity in their leaders\u2019 words and deeds. Hungering for a vision of a better world, voters will cast aside doubts about a candidate\u2019s claims and promises\u2013\u2013only to be disappointed when reality sets in. This partly explains why Americans have become cynical about democracy. One often hears laments for idealized past when \u201ctruth\u201d prevailed, that it could be recognized it when it appeared, and that the concept informed America\u2019s behavior in the world. In actuality, Americans (and their politicians) have always had a \u201ccreative\u201d relationship with the truth. Might the President simply be taking this tradition to its logical end?<\/p>\n A discourse quietly has begun percolating in recent months, which places Trump\u2019s antics in the realm of artistic expression. And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Before the recent election cycle, Trump\u2019s most visible role had been that of a media showman in various incarnations of his well-known Apprentice<\/em> TV shows. His books The Art of the Deal<\/em> (1987), The Art of Survival<\/em> (1991), and The Art of the Comeback<\/em> (1997) are peppered with references to his \u201ccreative\u201d financing and bookkeeping. A quintessential proponent of creative capitalism, Trump wrote that \u201cDeals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I make deal\u2019s, preferably big deals.\u201dArt itself is a \u201ccon\u201d to Trump, who once quipped that \u201csuccessful painters are better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.\u201d\u00a0 The Trump family has made a fortune from the creative economy \u2013\u2013 from Donald Trump\u2019s own entertainment enterprises, to Melania Trump\u2019s career as a fashion model, to Ivanka Trump\u2019s clothing and accessory lines, to Donald Trump, Jr\u2019s. real estate investments in New York\u2019s artistic East Village. Recently, famed performance artist Karen Finley put the matter bluntly in stating that \u201cDonald Trump owes all of his wealth<\/em> to arts and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump-as-performance-artist premise isn\u2019t as far-fetched as it might sound. Entrepreneurial success often hinges on creative traits like imagination, novelty-seeking, risk taking, and \u201cthinking outside the box.\u201d Also, the President\u2019s iconoclastic slash-and-burn assault on liberal sensibilities fits within certain well-established aesthetic traditions. Dada and Surrealist artists of the early-20th<\/sup> century delighted in upsetting bourgeois sensibilities. Often linked to anarchist movements of the time, Dadaist \u201canti-art\u201d upended conventional logic, aesthetics, and morality to shake up a complacent society and open the way toward a better world. Andr\u00e9 Breton\u2019s Surrealist manifesto of 1924 advocated \u201cthe absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.\u201d One outraged reviewer in American Art News<\/em> called the movement \u201cthe most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man.”<\/p>\n Now obviously, America\u2019s fearless leader might balk at these comparisons.\u00a0 And keep in mind that early \u00a0Dada and Surrealism (as well as their 1960s revivals) patently opposed both capitalism and militarism. Yet while Trump\u2019s brand of disruptive aesthetics lacks the utopianism of those movements, his antics indeed may have another precedent\u2013\u2013in the proto-fascist Italian Futurist movement that emerged from Dada. In 1908, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti\u2019s, \u201cFuturist Manifesto\u201d celebrated industry, speed, and technology with a rabid nationalism and a determined view of humanity\u2019s triumph over nature. \u201cThey will crowd around us, panting with anguish and disappointment, and exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage, will hurl themselves forward to kill us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us,\u201d Marinetti wrote.\u00a0Rebelling against harmony and the niceties of \u201cgood taste,\u201d the Futurists also valued intuition not unlike President Trump. And of course, the Futurist movement propelled the rise of Benito Mussolini\u2013\u2013an authoritarian outsider whose populist appeal lay in his assault on establishment values.<\/p>\n Propaganda was a key tool of the Italian Fascist regime, as it also was in pre-World War II Germany. Mussolini reveled in pageantry, expansive rhetoric, and an image of infallibility. \u00a0The corporatist state was valorized over liberal democracy, with a heavy emphasis on military power. Mussolini repudiated immigrants and anything \u201cforeign.\u201d\u00a0 And in yet another eerie parallel to Trump, \u201cIl Duce\u201d was portrayed as a workaholic insomniac who was infallible in his judgements. A popular slogan of the time proclaimed \u201cMussolini is always right.\u201d\u00a0 Journalistic accounts that contradicted the regime were condemned, with newspapers often confiscated. \u00a0New outlets approved by Il Duce largely ran stories about rampant crime and \u201cmonsters\u201d loose on the streets. As a former news editor himself, Mussolini eventually established his own Ministry of Popular Culture to manage public opinion, much like the Third Reich\u2019s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Trump Chief Strategist Steve Bannon often has cited the Reich Ministry as a source of technique and inspiration.<\/p>\n While it is tempting to draw parallels between past authoritarian leaders and today\u2019s President Trump, such comparisons aren\u2019t entirely accurate and they risk trivializing the horrors of the World War II era. Trump is less a creature of fascist ideology than of business pragmatism. He really isn\u2019t that much of a \u201cconservative\u201d either, as many republicans now grumble. For Trump the deal really is everything. And like any good dealmaker, Trump knows the value of putting the other side at a disadvantage. Posturing, intimidation, and deceit are the main tactics Trump has used against such hospitality giants as Hilton, Hyatt, and Holiday Inn. One key to Trump\u2019s success lies in his skill in throwing opponents off balance while ignoring their arguments. According to Harvard University\u2019s Program on Negotiating (PON), this can be a shrewd technique. In \u201cSecrets of Successful Dealmaking,\u201d PON experts wrote that strategic use of chaos and disruption allows \u201cthose who can adapt quickly to changing circumstances to gain an important edge on their competition.\u201d In contrast, managers clinging to \u201crigid strategies risk being blind to unexpected perils \u2013 and to unforeseen opportunities, especially when engaging in integrative negotiation strategies.\u201dThe bigger and more complex the deal, the more useful chaos can be.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Trend \u201cWhat you have to understand about Trump, first of all, is that he\u2019s a performance artist, not a politician,\u201d explained filmmaker Michael Moore (one of the first public figures to predict Trump\u2019s election).\u00a0 In recent months, considerable attention has been given the President’s\u00a0apparent distain of reality or what some nominally call “truth.” But … <\/p>\n