The New Reality of TV: All Trump, All the Time

[babylonsister]

Television | Critic's Notebook
The New Reality of TV: All Trump, All the Time

By JAMES PONIEWOZIKDEC. 11, 2016



President-elect Donald J. Trump recently appeared at a Carrier furnace factory in Indiana and explained why he was there, having worked out a deal to keep some of that company’s jobs from moving to Mexico.

It all happened because he saw something on television: himself.

“About a week ago, I was watching the nightly news,” he said. “I won’t say which one, because I don’t want to give them credit.” (It was NBC.) A Carrier worker had challenged Mr. Trump to keep his promise to stop the manufacturer from leaving the state.

This was news to Mr. Trump, who didn’t believe he had made the promise until the newscast showed video of him doing it. There it was, on TV. So here he was.

It was a striking admission. And it captured, in miniature, what it means to have a president-elect who is so thoroughly of, by and for television.

Yes, the former host of “The Apprentice” is a TV performer. He is an instinctual TV producer, with a gut sense of what keeps the red camera light on. (He is also, by the way, still an executive producer of “The Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC, whose longstanding, icky entanglements involving Mr. Trump will now extend to the presidency of the man its news reporters will have to cover.)

But he’s also the ultimate TV viewer. Last year, he told NBC’s Chuck Todd that he got his military advice by watching “the shows” — i.e., political talk shows. He scarcely reads, he sleeps a scant few hours a night and, by all reports, he watches TV constantly, preferring programs about himself. At this point, what isn’t?

So to understand Mr. Trump is to realize that he is not just a TV celebrity; he is, in a strange, meta way, a spectator of his own performance. For the next four years at least, we are living in a TV show that Mr. Trump is simultaneously starring in, consuming and live-tweeting.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/arts/television/the-new-reality-of-tv-all-trump-all-the-time.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

[Cha]

1. Those assholes ever hear of

OVERKILL? Especially with someone as ugly as trumpos

[hedda_foil]

2. "...(H)e watches TV constantly, preferring programs about himself."

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GEVALT!