“A key subtext of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign was that by dispatching President Trump to private citizenship, we could all reclaim the time and energy we spent thinking about Trump’s appalling, destructive behavior. It’s a nice dream, but it’s going to be deceptively difficult to carry out. Trump is a gifted performer. And during his time in office, he has benefited from structural changes in the entertainment industry that made it all the more difficult for anyone or anything else to challenge his dominance of the public’s attention.”
“Trump’s administration has often been portrayed as an extension of his career in reality television, and for good reason. Invoking that genre is a great way to capture the drama, pettiness and ambition that have defined White House for four years — as well as the participants’ total inability to handle any serious real-world challenges. As someone who literally recapped the ‘Trump Show’ for months, I know how appealing that metaphor can be. Yet, it turns out that discussing the Trump administration as reality television undersells the precise nature and power of Trump’s media creation. The strength of Trump’s command of our attention comes from the way he effectively borrows not just from one genre or medium, but from many of them at once” – Washington Post.