Trump's 'Weave' and His 'Smart' Defenders

Mardi Gras was great fun, but more on that some other time. The festivities included a ball that had me up past my writer's/old man's relatively early bedtime. A Trump follower made me aware (on that otherwise relatively Trump-free day) that he would be addressing Congress, not that I'd have watched it in real time anyway.

(A question: If Trump knows everything and is omnipotent as so many followers of his seem to imagine, why does he need to deliver a message to us poor slobs at all? Why delay America's Golden Age one more second by prattling about it? I find this question remarkably similar to ones I had as a boy starting off from the supposed need for imperfect, inefficient human missionaries to "spread the word" on behalf of a deity alleged to be omnipotent and ubiquitous -- i.e., more capable and better-placed to do so...)

This post won't be about whatever Trump bloviated on then, but about a couple of pieces I've run across that make interesting points about the President that I think are worth considering.

This post will, however, probably help the reader better grasp why the President does some of the things he does, and communicates about them the way he does.

The first and much longer (and better) of these is a Jonah Goldberg piece at The Dispatch, titled "Judge Trump's Motives, Not Just His Methods," and it is aimed at a common shortcoming in analyses of Trump's actions. (There are a few that aren't tribal embarrassments consisting of blind worship or hysterical smearing.).

Goldberg's piece is a bit long (about 2000 words), but uses multiple examples to build a case that many conservative defenders of Trump, while partly correct to push back against a certain hysterical kind of leftwing criticism of the President's actions, fail to impart true understanding of those actions:

This approach of taking each controversy as a single, isolated argument amounts to debating single trees while ignoring the forest.

To be blunt: This approach's fundamental problem is it treats Trump as a kind of academic abstraction. What can the president do? rather than the more pressing question: Why is this president doing this?

And, much later:

I do not think the smart conservatives I have in mind necessarily disagree with me in whole or in part. But the tendency to fall back on those academic -- and correct! -- arguments about the president's power often hinge on a false assumption about Trump's motives. The motives of a president matter a great deal. His politicization of government institutions is not simply a needed corrective to past politicizations, as sorely deserving those politicizations were in need of correction.

This is not normal. Trump's program isn't really ideological and certainly not "conservative" in any traditional sense. If Trump were overseeing the imposition of Reaganism, or even some ideological agenda I disagreed with, those arguments would have greater purchase with me. But MAGA at its best is a pretext, and more often it's not even that. This is the faux-ideology of one person, one person's vanity, grievances and personal glory.

That's why I think the "why" of it all is much more important than debates about "can." Sure, he can do a lot of things, because the Founders really didn't envision someone like Trump as president. They envisioned the man who presided over the Constitutional Convention, George Washington... [bold added, links omitted]

Regulars will know that Goldberg is no raving leftist willing to impute/project ridiculous alleged motives onto Trump. Goldberg instead follows the proper approach of abstracting a motive from the commonalities of the various controversies.

The second piece is mercifully short (coming as it does from a Trump acolyte) but also less helpful (again, coming as it does from a Trump acolyte). It is about the trademark rhetorical style Trump uses in front of supporters and other people he feels he has power over, and which he himself has called "the weave."

Like the first, what is probably most interesting is what modern conservatives are failing to notice.

Trump's rhetorical style, the piece claims, is intentional, with the President always returning to where he started from. (No, I have not myself verified the claim that the full text of his remarks will prove it, but let's accept the premise here.)

And indeed, this ability to touch on a vast array of topics is precisely what makes President Trump's "weave" so effective. From building his business empire to his time atop the entertainment industry, President Trump has spent his entire career learning to be an effective speaker. Unlike most career politicians who sound rigid and stale in front of a microphone, President Trump has an innate [sic] ability to feel the mood and energy of an audience and adjust accordingly.

Without becoming boring or dull, President Trump provides colorful context while helping anyone listening to him understand the broader connections between various different issues. Through the power of storytelling, he provides the American people with an inside look into the events and interactions that shape his thinking and decision-making. "The weave" is a central part of what makes him the most open and transparent president in American history. [bold added]

Setting aside for a moment, effective? at what?: Many commenters have noted the value of storytelling to build a connection with an audience, and it is well known that some orators are very good a reading a room and throwing out the right kind of red meat. Resist gagging at the obsequiousness and you can see a valid point.

But if Trump is as brilliant as he says he is and is as transparent as his toadies say, where is his ironclad case for tariffs? Or for continuing the "War on Drugs"? Or for releasing actual criminals during his blanket January 6 pardons?

There are no such arguments in these stories, and it is disturbing that so many conservatives are apparently okay with that.

Things work -- or don't -- for reasons in reality, and for the vast majority of matters in politics, ordinary men can understand those reasons.

And a truly honest and effective leader will be able to explain those things to the public in a succinct way they can understand. (Indeed, this is why good leaders make cases so clear that opponents hang themselves when they continue to present opposition.) That is about the one thing "the weave" leaves out altogether.

-- CAV