Commander-in-Tweet: Donald Trump and the Deformed Presidency 3658339640, 9783658339647

Table of contents :
Contents
1: President
2: Foundations
2.1 “The Donald”
2.2 Waiting Room?
2.3 The Birther-in-Chief
2.4 The Polarized States
3: Campaigns
3.1 Media Victories
3.2 MAGA, America First
3.3 Flight 93
4: POTUS: President of the United States
4.1 Cabinet and Cabaret
4.2 Washington Apprentice
4.3 Media
4.4 The Twitter Presidency
4.5 The Takeover
5: The Post-truth Presidency
5.1 Political Style 2.0?
5.2 President Barron
5.3 A Bullshit Presidency?
6: Foxworld: Trumpland
6.1 Liberal Media, Liberal Reporting?
6.2 Fox News
6.3 Fox News, Tea Party, Obama
6.4 Presidential Channel
6.5 Association of Friends
7: The Substitute King (and His Framers)
7.1 #Right Matter? The Impeachment and Its Precursor
7.2 The Framers and the Impeachment
7.3 The (Public) Impeachment
7.4 Forever Impeached?
8: Crisis Communication
8.1 Dr. Trump, Phase 1
8.2 Crisis Perception
8.3 Before the Crisis Is in the Crisis
8.4 Crisis Campaign, Phase 2
9: The Deformed Presidency and Its Degraded Institutions
9.1 The Democratic Process (The Election)
9.2 Publicity and Social Integration
9.3 Polarisation and Integration
9.4 Legal Status
10: In the Age of Subversion

Citation preview

Klaus Kamps

Commanderin-Tweet Donald Trump and the Deformed Presidency

Commander-in-Tweet

Klaus Kamps

Commander-inTweet Donald Trump and the Deformed Presidency

Klaus Kamps Fakultät Electronic Media Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart Stuttgart, Germany

This book is a translation of the original German edition „Commander-inTweet“ by Kamps, Klaus, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in 2020. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. ISBN 978-3-658-33964-7    ISBN 978-3-658-33965-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4 © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Contents

1 President ������������������������������������������������������������������������  1 2 Foundations��������������������������������������������������������������������  9 2.1 “The Donald”����������������������������������������������������������  9 2.2 Waiting Room? ������������������������������������������������������ 12 2.3 The Birther-in-Chief ���������������������������������������������� 14 2.4 The Polarized States������������������������������������������������ 17 3 Campaigns���������������������������������������������������������������������� 23 3.1 Media Victories ������������������������������������������������������ 23 3.2 MAGA, America First�������������������������������������������� 26 3.3 Flight 93������������������������������������������������������������������  29 4 POTUS: President of the United States ���������������������� 33 4.1 Cabinet and Cabaret������������������������������������������������ 33 4.2 Washington Apprentice ������������������������������������������ 35 4.3 Media���������������������������������������������������������������������� 39 4.4 The Twitter Presidency ������������������������������������������ 42 4.5 The Takeover���������������������������������������������������������� 45 5 The Post-truth Presidency�������������������������������������������� 49 5.1 Political Style 2.0?�������������������������������������������������� 49 5.2 President Barron������������������������������������������������������ 52 5.3 A Bullshit Presidency?�������������������������������������������� 55 6 Foxworld: Trumpland��������������������������������������������������� 57 6.1 Liberal Media, Liberal Reporting? ������������������������ 57 6.2 Fox News���������������������������������������������������������������� 59

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6.3 Fox News, Tea Party, Obama���������������������������������� 61 6.4 Presidential Channel ���������������������������������������������� 65 6.5 Association of Friends�������������������������������������������� 69 7 The Substitute King (and His Framers)���������������������� 73 7.1 #Right Matter? The Impeachment and Its Precursor ���������������������������������������������������� 73 7.2 The Framers and the Impeachment������������������������ 77 7.3 The (Public) Impeachment�������������������������������������� 79 7.4 Forever Impeached?������������������������������������������������ 83 8 Crisis Communication �������������������������������������������������� 87 8.1 Dr. Trump, Phase 1�������������������������������������������������  87 8.2 Crisis Perception ���������������������������������������������������� 90 8.3 Before the Crisis Is in the Crisis ���������������������������� 92 8.4 Crisis Campaign, Phase 2 ��������������������������������������  96 9 The Deformed Presidency and Its Degraded Institutions���������������������������������������������������������������������� 99 9.1 The Democratic Process (The Election) ����������������100 9.2 Publicity and Social Integration������������������������������101 9.3 Polarisation and Integration������������������������������������102 9.4 Legal Status������������������������������������������������������������103 10 In the Age of Subversion������������������������������������������������105

President

On a gray and chilly day in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2017, on the steps of the Capitol Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 45th President of the United States. “Well, that was some weird s... ”1 commented George W.  Bush—not the oath or the drizzle, but The Donald's inaugural address. The nation had heard of a country that was down and out. Of abandoned industrial landscapes and barren fields. A junkyard, metaphorically spoken, that Trump would now take care of: back to old greatness. In the midst of his country's establishment, the new president offered a program of a particular quality—that had (his) style. A celebration of contrast. Weeks before, the very morning after the November election, the headlines were legend. No compliant murmur, but a stormy stir in the papers. Britain's Daily Mirror illustrated its cover story, “What have they done?”, with a drawing of the Statue of Liberty desperately slapping her hands in front of her face against dark clouds of a gathering thunderstorm. “Trump of the Will” entitled Germany’s Der Spiegel its lead story as creative as brutally associative: one man—one apocalypse. You have to manage that first. With Trump's victory, “insanity” celebrated a blithesome debut in the comment columns of Western media. Sims, Cliff (2019). Team of Vipers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, S. 58.

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© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 1 K. Kamps, Commander-in-Tweet, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4_1

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Months before, the very fact that the real estate entrepreneur and TV entertainer prevailed among the Republicans with his aggressive populism, with his campaign borne of invective and enemy images became the candidate of the Grand Old Party, had caused shock waves. With his exuberant rhetoric, incessant attacks on Hillary Clinton, the “swamp” in Washington and anyone who doubted him, he achieved maximum media attention. And an audience that (possibly to his own surprise) actually voted for him. Finally, on election night—as North Carolina was called for Trump, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania—doomsday sentiments slowly crept through the back doors of liberal America. It was going to be a noisy presidency: somewhere between drama, tragedy and comedy, depending on the form on the day. Any hope of Trump being caught up with the dignity of the powerful office quickly vanished. What began as a campaign of resentments somewhat consistently transformed into government communication. As it turned out, it was only a casual prelude when Trump had his spokesman, Sean Spicer, tell the press corps what no data showed: This inauguration was the greatest ever. Since this was met with a great deal of incomprehension in the face of evidence to the contrary, America immediately learned about “alternative facts”: a style-setting neologism by presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, who justified Spicer's words—with an approach to reality to which the United States now had to get used. Part of the country, nota bene. Because millions of Americans do not mind much. Apparently, they view Donald Trump as the clever person he likes to talk about (“I'm like a smart person”). An intelligent businessman who may go down unconventional paths—but who will get rid of the big government nonsense, the merely stupid political correctness of the East Coast metropolises and the decayed etiquette of Washington. Trump was to be their powerful voice. A man who would put an end to useless chatter, finally build a wall on the border with Mexico (and make the Mexicans pay for it), speak uncomfortable truths and do things the straight, the American way.

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For many of his compatriots, on the other hand, Trump personifies pretty much everything in the vocabulary of bad things: a barely concealed racist, a chauvinist; he isolates the USA, destroys democratic institutions and does not even secretly envy authoritarian rulers. He acts like a schoolyard bully who understands dangerously little about social interaction, the economy, state and society, he brutalizes the political culture with his vulgarities, further divides the country and puts himself above the law. In short, an immoral figure. To make matters worse, his narcissism and childish bravado made the nation look ridiculous. Embarrassingly enough, psychologists kept coming forward with their concerns. Trump—a person who simply does not belong anywhere near the White House. Thus, some say notorious villain, others savior: Trump’s presidency mirrors an irreconcilable country in which each side believes the other is capable of pretty much everything. This antagonism is not the consequence of Trump’s election. America has long been in search of the United States—and still is.2 In this respect, there is more to the already dramatic political and social polarization in the USA than a malaise focused on and through the person of Donald Trump. Trump's America First and his ethno-populism are based on several key developments in the history of the United States and are linked to a dispute over immigration policy that, against the backdrop of social alienation and demographic change, is virtually poisoning public discourse as tribal politics. The radicalization of large parts of Trump's supporters on the right-wing political spectrum can be traced back—at least—to the civil rights movements of the 1960s. At the same time, globalization with its negative social impact was a crucial factor in his election, as was the financial crisis of 2008 and a widespread disenchantment among the American middle class with Barack Obama's policies, which

Vgl. Bieber, Christoph, & Kamps, Klaus (2017). Nach Obama. Amerika auf der Suche nach den Vereinigten Staaten.

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Trump, with his special look back in anger, knew how to exploit consistently—and still knows how to do so. Conversely, America is being shaped by Donald Trump, his personality and his conduct in office. That, in itself, is quite conventional: all presidents influence the country's political culture. But with Trump, apart from controversial issues, his conduct stands out. The USA has yet to see this form of inflated self-promotion. And that is saying something. Trump dominates government communication through his every so often impulsive use of the short message service Twitter. There, the president presents himself as a market crier (prone to the historical superlative) on his own behalf and a creator of memorable sentiments. Euphemistically speaking. On some days there are dozens of messages in screaming style—nastygram tweets3: verbal jibes at the press or the opposition and people who have incurred his wrath. It is not uncommon for Trump's short messages to be in response to media coverage of him, especially on cable television. This in itself reveals a fundamental rational of this presidency. What you can count on—there may be only one issue in the USA, Trump. His standing, his ratings, his successes. Even the more formal interviews, preferably on Fox News, are mostly less about issues, more about attacks on Democrats or the Deep State: A supposed cabal of frustrated bureaucrats who conspire against his presidency and thus his America (as it should become again). With Twitter, Trump seems to have found a solution to a problem that has long plagued politics: Legitimation through communication. Democratic rule is justified not only through elections, but also through transparency and permanent publicity. Among other things, this is the basis of the “idea” of freedom of the press and freedom of opinion—but also the starting point of any kind of symbolic performance and perception control. Therefore, politics has always tried to use the media and their specific potentials for its own ends. Warren Harding first addressed his compatriots via the radio in 1922. Franklin D. Roosevelt invented something like Johnston, David C. (2018): It’s Even Worse Than You Think. What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America. New York et al.: Simon & Schuster, S. 6. 3 

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common listening—with the fireside chats: homey radio addresses that accompanied Americans through the economic crisis of the 1930s. John F.  Kennedy captured the nation with his youthful charm via television. Bill Clinton, demonstratively progressive, emailed astronaut John Glenn in June 1998 as he orbited the Earth on the Discovery. In 2008, Barack Obama set new standards with his social media campaigns and, later, the realignment of the White House communications. This is how presidents shape the country's political conversation. And, of course, there is an important strategic aspect to this: How do you catch the electorate or (larger) parts of it—as free as possible from any annoying contextualization by journalists? In this respect, communicative orientations are rather basal and more than incidental amendments to policies. Trump did not invent the rhetorical presidency that uses the media and symbols of its time. However, social media and their technologies transform the political discourse and the public sphere more than just gradually; they represent a new paradigm of how people (and organizations) interact with each other. Thus, Trump sells his use of Twitter as the modern presidency—which, in a very mundane sense, is not even that wrong. Traditional forms of information and news dissemination, while not obsolete, have lost their dominance in political communication. And that comes with a price. At least, Trump's version of “modern” government is characterized by a style of proclamation that places the emotional appeal to his base far above the routines of complex policy-making and policy-telling. Best practice decision-making procedures are being adapted to a subversive always-shouting style of what columnist Thomas Frank calls a “one-man right-wing propaganda bureau.”4 Post-truth politics: fact-based action has got no priority over the very particular economics of attention of this presidential performance. Truly, Twitter is central—and with some justification one may speak of a Twitter presidency. But the short message service is only one instrument among others in the media orchestra. On a Frank, Thomas (2018). Rendezvous with Oblivion. London: Scribe Publications, S. 7. 4 

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random day in May 2020 (on May 14, in the midst of the Corona crisis and the run-up to the election), Trump insulted a scientist from the Department of Health and Human Services who had dared to be critical of his crisis management. He fueled a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, who, as he said, should be subpoenaed by Congress. He made fun of his opponent in the upcoming presidential election, Joe Biden—who was “weak” and probably didn't even know “if he was alive.” At the same time, his campaign team released commercials on cable television and Facebook calling Biden a “Chinese puppet” and a case for the nursing home as his mental faculties were severely diminishing.5 All in one day: via Twitter and other social media, via brief statements at the Rose Garden and an interview to a devoted radio station. Accompanied by considerable follow-up communication on cable news and the front and back corners of the Internet. This is what America has become accustomed to, this is the standard of the not only dis-informed but deformed presidency. Probably one could find a colorful and sometimes entertaining, often brutal collage of “ideas,” attacks or self-praise on every day of Trump’s term in office. However, this priming of government communication comes along with subversive effects. The violation of every norm became the norm. The division of society cemented. At the end of the day, this presidency—like any other—will be judged by whether it lived up to the noble claim of the oath of office: “... faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States...”, it says. Such an oath is more than a generously granted promise. Embedded in it is the nation's expectation that the President leads in “good faith” and “civic virtue” and defends the Constitution with decency, righteousness, and the best of intentions.6 This symbolic appeal owes much to the fear of the Vgl. New York Times v. 15. Mai 2020, A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/politics/president-­ trump-­coronavirus-pandemic-response.html?action=click&module=Top%20 Stories&pgtype=Homepage. 6  Hennessey, Susan, & Wittes, Benjamin (2020). Unmaking the presidency: Donald Trump’s war on the world’s most powerful office. New York: FSG, S. 295. 5 

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Framers—as the Founding Fathers of the United States are called—that a demagogue would be elected to the presidency. This was one of the reasons why they wrote strict separation of powers, checks and balances, into the Constitution (and impeachment proceedings, too). Seen in this light, it is hardly surprising that many Americans are critical of their commander-in-tweet for more than just political style. There is more at stake than the fine arts of political decorum. After nearly three and a half years of Trump in the White House, the US presidency, political culture, and institutional framework are deformed at best. The ship of state—to dare an image—which Trump has borrowed comes in richly dented. Anchor lost, and the engine is howling. More than a few Americans are asking themselves what damage will be done and whether one day all this may be repaired. That remains to be hoped. When this essay examines the deformed presidency, it focuses less on the sometimes-dramatic events of this era—at least in the first place. There are dozens of reports on this, often very pointed, even from the inner circle of the White House. Nor are gun nuts, angry farmers or frustrated steelworkers dissected as Trump voters—somehow this crazy election has to make sense. Such analysis may indeed be an “exhausted genre.”7 Of course, much cannot be left out. However, the focal point of this essay is the occasional disturbing American soliloquy— whether on the web, on cable television, or in the columns of the New York Times or the Miami Herald. Are transparency, debate and argument just fading propositions of a yesterday's world? And why this person, Trump, of all people: with his penchant for ruckus and deception and his obvious demonstration of short-­ sighted vehemence that has little in common with the idea of civil conflict resolution? At the same time—hardly to be avoided—the thought resonates whether something is unfolding in America that will sooner or later reach Europe. The transatlantic gaze has always been a mirror gaze. Usually a fearful one.  Lütjen, Torben (2020). Amerika im kalten Bürgerkrieg. Wie ein Landseine Mitte verliert. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, S. 10. 7

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After a few weeks in office, President Donald Trump agreed to participate in a television documentary about the Constitution— The Words that Built America. In that documentary, Supreme Court justices and (former) presidents read passages from the Constitution. Trump chose Article 2, the section that specifies the power of the presidential office and distinguish it from the other branches of government. The one-time TV actor admittedly had trouble reciting the passage flawlessly—and found excuses by the dozen: light, clearing his throat, missing soft drink. Visibly annoyed, Trump explained that, after all, the language of the Constitution was really unusual. “It's like a different language, right? It's like a foreign language!”8 That was on March 1, 2017. At the time, perhaps, it could still be told humorously. Nearly three and a half years later, in the White House garden, Trump responded to the nationwide demonstrations denouncing racism and police violence with a threat: he would send the military if the governors did not keep the peace. “Many thousands of heavily armed soldiers.”9 Shortly thereafter, following a show of force by helicopters, rubber bullets and tear gas were deployed next door on Lafayette Square to clear the way for Trump and his entourage to take a photo shoot. We begin this essay in May 2002, when television producer Mark Burnett called Donald Trump at his 5th Avenue office. And since Burnett was about to film an episode of the TV show Survivor in New York City, there was nothing to be said against an impromptu visit.

Zit. n. Rucker, Philip, & Leonnig, Carol (2020). Trump. Gegen die Demokratie. Frankfurt a. M.: S. Fischer, S. 61. 9  Zit. nach Der Spiegel v. 2. Juni 2020, Trump spielt Diktator, https://www. spiegel.de/politik/ausland/fall-george-floyd-donald-trumpdroht-­­ demonstranten-mit-militaer-a-13f5abac-ecaa-424a-8a33-aa494e87cede. 8 

Foundations

2.1

“The Donald”

Mark Burnett did not invent “reality TV.” But with The Survivor, he put precursors like MTV's The Real World far in the shade: In the summer of 2000, around 50 million viewers watched the finale of the first season of the island show. Its winner, Richard Hatch, has since been considered the first reality TV star. Today, that is still worth mentioning because he is said to have fascinated his audience primarily with a great talent for backstabbing and scheming; sort of like the creep J.R.  Ewing in the 1980s ratings hit Dallas. In the spring of 2004, when Burnett met Trump in New York, he was planning a new format. The Survivor was getting a bit long in the tooth. A concept was in place, and what Burnett was still looking for was sort of a judge with Hatch-­qualities. The presentation apparently convinced Donald Trump immediately. The idea was a competition show—The Apprentice. Week after week, candidates would contest for a job, and Trump would decide who will have to leave the show. “You're fired” was to become a trademark. He probably realized at once the publicity potential of the suggestion. His private jet, clubs, hotels, casinos, and the opulence of Mar-a-Lago: episode after episode played out

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 9 K. Kamps, Commander-in-Tweet, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4_2

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in the Trump empire; and not at least, he himself would be fed to the really big public—an opportunity he could not pass up.1 “I'm the biggest real estate developer in New York” he later proclaimed in the show's opening scenes. The format was aired on NBC prime time and quickly became a success. Although it did not quite reach the ratings of The Survivor. However, about 20 million viewers followed the first episodes. From 2005 to 2015, a total of 14 seasons would be produced. Soon, the original plan was abandoned to cast other celebrities such as Richard Branson as bouncers. Trump as a cool judge proved to be a reliable crowed puller.2 The Apprentice turned a “swaggering Richie Rich”3 of New York, Trump, into a classic example of business-like elbow mentality that everyone in the country knew, The Donald. However, Trump had been prominent before the show; he made quite a few guest appearances on Sex and the City or The Prince of Bel-­Air, among others, graced the covers of various magazines (including Playboy), and injected glamour into the real estate business, which he could not escape through inheritance. Beginning in the early 1980s, he established a media profile with glitz and pageantry, primarily as, well, a scandal-monger on Oprah, Letterman, WrestleMania, and later Fox News.4 Like other celebrities, he apparently believed he was dead when nobody was talking about him. And so, he is said to have occasionally called New York magazines in a disguised voice as a PR agent in his own right to escape the silence around him. As a certain John Barron.5 Kranish, Michael, & Fisher, Marc (2016). Die Wahrheit über Trump. Kulmbach: Plassen Verlag, S. 302–310. 2  Green, Joshua (2017). Devil’s Bargain. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. New York: Penguin Press, S. 95. 3  Kranish, Michael, & Fisher, Marc (2016). Die Wahrheit über Trump. Kulmbach: Plassen Verlag, S. 312. 4  Vgl. insbesondere Poniewozik, James (2019). Audience of One. Donald Trump, Television and the Fracturing of America. New York: Liveright Publishing. 5  Kranish, Michael, & Fisher, Marc (2016). Die Wahrheit über Trump. Kulmbach: Plassen Verlag, S. 131. 1 

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Business-wise, The Apprentice was also a significant step forward, and not just for NBC. In the foregoing decade, Trump had had his hands full to overcome his bankruptcies and failures. Little more remained of his best-selling The Art of the Deal than the advice that people's fantasies needed to be fed with “truthful hyperboles”—truthful exaggerations. The book marked a transition: Trump shifted to becoming a brand entrepreneur in the 1990s. With The Apprentice his branding business took off. Soon his name adorned not only hotels, resorts, and golf clubs, but also ties, eyeglasses, wallets, chocolate, vodka, and more. The Donald was now indisputably a celebrity of the first order. Only few Americans have had more articles published about them. Even then, Trump was one of the few people whose ratings could rival those of the Kardashians. By the time he announced his candidacy in 2015, he scored a name recognition that many top politicians could only dream of. However, the Huffington Post, for example, initially reported on Trump’s campaign—consistently true to his brand—only in its Entertainment section. Trump himself later acknowledged the show's importance to his campaign. It had been sort of a “celebrity hoopla.”6 More consequential than the sheer attention, however, became the character he developed. Just as The Bachelor is basically a lonely person's idea of love, The Apprentice did not need a successful businessman. Only the vision of it. Trump merely needed to perform credibly, and he was able to do just that authentically (which distinguished him from a “real” actor). He learned, or was confirmed in, that “blunt speaking” and uncouth language not only came easily to him (he probably knew that), but could be a powerful ratings driver. Surprise, too, but always emotion, outrage, attack and pitting the shows' rivals against each other. Reality TV does not count on politeness. Manners, after all, are precisely the fake, unnatural. And since The Apprentice actually became the acted metaphor of the American dream, there were few winners and all the more losers. And one who was (seemingly) above it all.

Ebd. S. 313.

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2.2

Waiting Room?

In the summer of 2015, when Donald Trump announced his candidacy in the foyer of Trump Tower in New  York City, people were surprised—at least in Europe. America itself was rather amused. Trump, after all, had spent practically half his adult life threatening to enter politics. Now the time had come, and it was a roaring entrance. Until then, for Trump politics seemed to have been solely means to gain publicity. In 1984, he told the Washington Post that he would like to prove his skills in disarmament negotiations with the Soviets. Deals—his mantra even then—no one negotiates as well as he does. That, he said, is “an art that is practically innate. You either can or you can't.” He would acquire the necessary knowledge in “just under an hour and a half.”7 When 3 years later he took out full-page ads in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, the subject again was foreign policy. This time, he argued for reducing the country's deficit by making rich nations like Japan and Saudi Arabia pay for their defense. All it would take, he said, is a little “backbone.”8 In the fall of that year, he spoke at the local Rotary Club in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And since that was just a few months before the primary, speculation immediately arose that he would announce a candidacy. In Portsmouth, he was greeted with applause. The country could need some sort of an entrepreneur— but then the Rotary Club learned that he had no intention of entering politics: apparently just a PR stunt, given that “Trump—The Art of Success” was about to be published. In the years that followed, questions about his political ambitions kept coming up. Almost inevitably. For the entrepreneur Trump sought media publicity like few others. In the spring of 1988, he was a guest on Oprah and, true to form, expressed concerns about the state of the country. Well, he did not want to run for office. But if he did one day, he would surely win. A few Ebd. S. 392. Ebd. S. 391.

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2.2  Waiting Room?

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months after that, Larry King asked him on his CNN talk show on the sidelines of the Republican Party convention what he was doing there in the first place. “I want to see how the system works,” Trump replied.9 Shortly thereafter, he pitchforked himself to the center of a heated debate in New York City. In April 1989, a young runner had been brutally assaulted and raped in Central Park. Police arrested five teenage African-Americans who were later sentenced to long prison terms. Less than 2 weeks after the crime, Trump took out full-page ads in New  York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty and warning of marauding gangs of brutal criminals.10 In television interviews, he presented himself as an ordinary citizen who just had the courage to say what he thought. Years later, in 2002, it emerged that the five youths had not committed the crime and they were compensated by the city. Asked about this, Trump declared that the settlement was a “disgrace” and that the wrongly convicted boys had “certainly not been angels” in the past.11 Hard to estimate whether this story has hurt Donald Trump. In the aftermath, his political ambitions fluctuated. Of course, as a wealthy entrepreneur, he was also in demand as a sponsor—but he kept a low profile. Helping someone out financially on the campaign trail, however, was sometimes part of running the business.12 In 1999, once again on Larry King, he announced somewhat surprisingly that he was switching from the Republicans to the Reform Party. The party had achieved considerable success with Ross Perot in the two elections before. He wanted to find out whether it made sense to run for office now; after all, the United States had experienced a catastrophic era under Bill Clinton. When Larry King asked who he had in mind for vice president, Trump named Oprah Winfrey. Symptomatically for the country, this statement was read as a sign that the man was not to be taken seriously. Ebd. S. 394. Ebd. S. 396. 11  Ebd. S. 397. 12  Ebd. S. 411. 9 

10 

2 Foundations

14

Perhaps that is exactly what spurred him on. In January 2000, Trump presented a kind of manifesto: The America We Deserve, where he expressed the idea of running for president (one day). He had not been more specific until then. But that would always depend on the chances. And since they did not really get better, things got lost. It never came to real options, no real proximity to one of the two promising parties arose. Between 1999 and 2012, he changed his party orientation no less than seven times. And from 2004 onwards, he was occupied by The Apprentice anyway.

2.3

The Birther-in-Chief

In April 2011, Donald Trump was busy promoting the new season of his show, often on cable television talk formats. He had been mostly critical of Barack Obama's presidency; like many of his compatriots, he was especially opposed to Obama's health care reforms. But that did not really become his issue. Trump jumped on the birther debate: a conspiracy theory that was sparked on the online platform Yahoo Answers barely 3 months after Obama announced his candidacy. In May 2007, an anonymous user wondered how it could possibly be that Obama was running: After all, he was born in Kenya and not in Hawaii, as he claimed. For several months, the matter circulated in obscure Internet circles—until Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio host, became aware of it in a and lend the idea a larger stage: “This birth-certificate business—I'm just wondering if something's up. I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's popping up all over the place.”13 Interestingly, the story was heard, but initially not well received. Not even on Fox News, which has been extremely critical of Barack Obama since he took office. Glenn Beck called the birthers “idiots,” Bill O'Reilly “confused.”14 The voices of these 13  Zit. n. Marantz, Andrew (2019). Antisocial. How Online Extremists Broke America. London: Picador, S. 183. 14  Zit. nach Brock, D. et al. (2012). The Fox Effect. How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine. New York: Anchor Books, S. 252.

2.3  The Birther-in-Chief

15

hosts would have carried weight and helped the “theory” make a career. Obama—such a brazen fraud? That seemed a bit far-­ fetched (yet). Until March 2011, when Donald Trump appeared as a guest on the morning show Fox & Friends to promote The Apprentice. That was certainly legitimate, but it still needed to be punctuated. Like, with a political controversy. Trump had stumbled upon the birthers in search of a catchy soundbite (a quote that stuck). Soon he could not get past a microphone without doubting the president's origins. And if at the moment there was no microphone around, Trump fanned the flames of the issue via the short-messaging platform he'd just discovered for himself, Twitter. Now, Fox was skeptical; but with Trump and his cross-media marketing strategy, ratings rose. And Trump could “birther” like no one else. Quotes just fell out of his mouth: “Obama's family doesn't even know what hospital he was born in.”15 And on ABC's Good Morning America: “The reason I have little doubt—just a little—is because he grew up and nobody knew him.”16 With Trump and his persistence, an understanding Sean Hannity, also a Fox News host, aligned: the circumstances were, after all, “odd.”17 Why is the White House so reluctant to show the document? In the course of this, Trump flirted with a candidacy for the upcoming presidential election—a sure strategy to keep the attention of the US media. And at some point, the White House found itself called upon daily to comment on statements made by Trump or other birthers18: whether Obama had actually sworn on the Koran in the Senate at the time; or whether the African-American activist Frank Marshall Davis was his real father; and so on. 15  Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 16  Zit. n. Alberta, Tim (2019). American Carnage. New York: Harper-Collins, S. 96. 17  Zitiert nach Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 18  Pfeiffer, Dan (2018). Yes we (still) can. Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump. New York: Hachette, S. 119.

16

2 Foundations

The White House initially followed the development with some amusement.19 But when topics such as the Arab Spring got less to no attention in the news, they became annoyed. And the birther’s “suspicion” persisted for weeks: Somehow, there had to be a catch to this Obama. Even when the president asked the authorities to release the document (which they eventually did), the issue remained present. Then, at the end of April 2011, the White House recognized a “golden comedic opportunity”20: The White House Correspondents' Dinner was coming up, and in a kind of showdown with unforeseeable consequences at the time (a later powerful animosity), Obama, in the presence of Trump, tried to bury the matter humorously. To no avail. Trump still claimed years later that the document presented could be a forgery. Long live the subjunctive. Seven years later, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, had her DNA tested and the results published: Trump, by then president, had repeatedly questioned her genetic relationship to Native Americans (Cherokee), calling her—pejoratively—“Pocahontas.” A bizarre attack alone? A pattern, perhaps: after all, Trump once again claimed to question the ancestry of a political rival.21 There has been much speculation about whether Trump's obsession with reversing his predecessor's decisions can be explained by Obama's speech at the White House Correspondence Dinner. The immense vanity Trump unleashed during his time in office suggests that. The fact that he broke with tradition and no longer attended this very evening event as president may also have something to do with this meeting, which probably put the brakes on his vague thoughts of running for president in 2012. Two more points: First, with his tweets and retweets during this time, he learned that in the online world, he does not have to build Rhodes, Ben (2018). The World As It Is. A Memoire of the Obama White House. New York: Penguin, S. 123. 20  Pfeiffer, Dan (2018). Yes we (still) can. Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump. New York: Hachette, S. 125. 21  Lepore, Jill (2019). This America. The Case for the Nation. New York, London: Liveright, S. 110. 19 

2.4  The Polarized States

17

hotels to be heard. He does not have to go into studios, be made up, be lit up, and interviewed. Then later, with Romney's candidacy, Twitter became his well-rehearsed political communication channel and he is running an outright campaign against Obama. Around that and for the first time, he celebrated himself in a tweet as the best tweeter in the world.22 Second, on the power of digital networks, the birther debate gave him an idea of what taboo-breaking came with what attention premium—and how right-wing America got excited about it. Twitter was personal, and as a barometer, so to speak, of the political climate it gave him a sense of parts of the country that were less visible in the traditional media. A few days after Romney's defeat, he secured the right to use the slogan Make America Great Again.

2.4

The Polarized States

The fact that the birther “theory” was able to provoke such a debate at all was not solely due to Trump's persistence. It is understandable against the background of a political and social development whose influence on his later presidency can hardly be underestimated: The polarization of the USA—a stark rift across society. While the parties are of some importance, one should not think of it merely as political antagonism that is just difficult to bridge. The polarization of the United States unfolds extremely multifaceted. Political scientists place its origins in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.23 The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were followed by a realignment of the American party system. Graber, Doris A., & Dunaway, Johanna (2018). Mass media and American politics. Washington: CQ Press, 10. Aufl, S. 38. 23  Vgl. beispielsweise Mickey, Robert, Levitsky, Steven, & Way, Lucan Ahmad (2018). Ist Amerika noch reif für die Demokratie? Warum den Vereinigten Staaten ein Rückfall in autoritäre Verhältnisse bevorstehen könnte. In Patrick Horst, Philipp Adorf, & Frank Decker (Hrsg.), Die USA—eine scheiternde Demokratie? (S. 17–32). 22 

18

2 Foundations

Whereas until then the South had been dominated by the Democrats (Lincoln was a Republican), this changed. “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come”—feared President Johnson after signing the laws.24 Minority politics with its affirmative action programs played an important role in this realignment, but so did economic policy as well as the Republicans' law-and-order positions, which sharpened these years. In addition, there were the protests against the Vietnam War, which exposed and exacerbated the discrepancy between a conservative, traditional America and a progressive, liberal one. Besides, the parties had further opened up their primaries and made the (preliminary) selection of candidates for many political offices subject to universal suffrage. What was explicitly intended to limit the power of party officials, however, promoted a tightening of internal party positions: Among other things, in view of low voter turnouts, the support of the more active members became even more important in the pre-election campaigns—and they tended to hold more pointed opinions.25 In addition: With the gerrymandering, the redrawing of constituencies, over the years more and more “strongholds” emerged, that is, winning an election was often enough only a matter of winning the primaries— precisely with a particularly strict agenda with sharp distinctions from the political opponent. Today, moderate political positions and candidates have become a rarity in Congress as well as in the political public. The ability to compromise and the willingness to seek consensus are almost impossible to discern. This comes along with a popular perception of problems shaped by partisan bias, and it includes not only controversial issues such as the abortion debate, but also classic questions such as tax policy. For example, data from a 2019 PEW Research Center poll26 show that Democrats and 24  Zit. n. Klein, Ezra (2020). Why We’re Polarized. New  York, USA: Avid Reader, S. 30. 25  Ebd. S. 178. 26  https://www.people-press.org/2019/12/17/in-a- politicallypolarized-era-­sharpdivides-in-both-partisan-coalitions/.

2.4  The Polarized States

19

Republicans have wildly divergent views on just about everything that concerns US politics. Some 31% of Republican partisans think stricter gun laws are needed—compared to 86% of Democrats. Only 17% of Republicans believe climate change may be a bigger problem, compared with 73% of Democrats. About half of Democrats think white Americans enjoy advantages in US society more than Americans of color; only 7% of Republicans feel the same way. The list could comfortably be written on. The PEW poll combined a total of 30 such attitudinal dimensions and found an average difference of 39% points. Now, this trend of the last two generations does not represent a linear development. It depends on key issues, the balance of power in Congress, and individual politicians in key offices. In his opposition to Bill Clinton, for example, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, had spoken of the Democrats as “the enemy” of decent and common Americans.27 At the time, Gingrich advised young Republican congressmen not to settle in “D. C.” in the first place, but to commute: So that they would not run the risk of being identified with the capital. Because that was the other America, the elitist, snobby America of the Democrats. Around this time of semantic armament, a decade-long “laboratory experiment in social disintegration” began.28 Sociologist Bill Bishop described this in his book The Big Sort as the geographic separation of political groups through internal migration. About 4–5% of the US population move from one county to another each year29—and also align with political milieus in these communities. As a result, neighborhoods have become separated from one another over the years, so that people with different views are less likely to meet at community events, in schools and social institutions, during leisure time, or even just while shopping. 27 Frank, Thomas (2004). What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. New York: Picador. S. 13. 28  Lütjen, Torben (2020). Amerika im kalten Bürgerkrieg. Wie ein Land seine Mitte verliert. Darmstadt: Theiss, S. 24. 29  Zit. n. Klein, Ezra (2020). Why We’re Polarized. New  York, USA: Avid Reader, S. 41. 124 Anmerkungen.

20

2 Foundations

This trend towards partition, then, was visible on the political maps. Around the millennium, it became increasingly clear that the East and West Coast regions were firmly in Democratic hands (the blue states), while the heartland leaned toward the Republicans (red states). In 2016, about two-thirds of Americans lived in landslide counties: electoral districts where there was at least a 20% difference between the parties in the last election. This represents a doubling from the 1980s30 and in turn promotes the polarization of political programs, since in homogeneous groups of voters, often enough not the more moderate prevail but the more “extreme” candidates. Of course, this has consequences for any cooperation on controversial issues. Because personal contact is particularly important for the willingness to compromise. And so, more and more Americans have a problem with their neighbor leaning toward the other party. Parents develop new forms of horror when their child starts a relationship (or even wants to marry)—and the potential new member of the family follows the wrong flag.31 Hardly surprising, thus, now there are online partnership agencies that take party affiliation into account, or even focus on it in their recommendations. Such demarcations not only over class and ethnicity but over lifestyles are in turn mirrored in political strife. A Republican television ad about Democrat Howard Dean from the 2004 campaign is considered to be a style-setter: “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-­ eating, Volvo-driving, New  York Times-reading, bodypiercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.” Admittedly, in retrospect, the election of George W. Bush has made the polarization more and more apparent. But at the time, despite all the political differences, the country still dealt with each other in a comparatively peaceful manner. Things were different by the time Barack Obama captured the White House in 30  Lütjen, Torben (2020). Amerika im kalten Bürgerkrieg. Wie ein Land seine Mitte verliert. Darmstadt: Theiss, S. 57. 31  Vgl. Sunstein, Cass R. (2018). #republic. Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press, S. 10.

2.4  The Polarized States

21

2008. And this is to at least some extend due to Fox News (see Chap. 6). When the station advanced to the top of the American news media in 2003, it was developing Heartland, a program that became a prototype of identity journalism. Remarkable, how a news medium put on a show in the style of a culture war—the real America against the East Coast establishment. In Obama's Chicago victory speech on election night 2008, he was still appealing to America's common ground: “We are and always will be the United States of America.” With an emphasis on “United.” To no avail. When Donald Trump was elected to office in 2016, the states were more divided than ever. Empirically, by the way, this is not absolutely true, but all the more so for those Americans who are politically engaged. And it is then precisely this front-lining that makes many Republicans accept Trump and his policies. He may be a villain. Fair enough. But he is their villain.32 32  Lütjen, Torben (2020). Amerika im kalten Bürgerkrieg. Wie ein Land seine Mitte verliert. Darmstadt: Theiss, S. 72.

Campaigns

3.1

Media Victories

In October 2008, barely a month before the presidential election, at a town hall meeting in Minnesota, a citizen confronted John McCain with her reservations about Barack Obama: “I can't trust Obama. I have read about him. He's an Arab.” McCain responded, “No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”1 Thereby the senator buried the rural event instead of calming tensions; any attempts at factual discussion failed. In retrospect, that episode appears touchingly anachronistic: not that much the fairness of McCain (who was to become a key Republican adversary of Trump in Congress), but the actual astonishment in parts of America and the shock at the blossoms that polarization was already sprouting. Two legislative sessions later, the country was far more used to it, and the Minnesota incident looked like a casual lead-in. By the end of Obama's presidency, it took heftier positions to be heard by the American public. Enter Trump.

1  Zit. n. Alberta, Tim (2019). American Carnage. New York: Harper-Collins, S. 36.

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 23 K. Kamps, Commander-in-Tweet, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4_3

3

24

3 Campaigns

When The Donald announced his candidacy in the lobby of Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, one remark about Mexico and its migrants in particular stuck with him: “They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.” Probably this part of the otherwise structureless speech caused the most irritation over Trump's appearance: Did he really mean that? If all was not mistaken, America's entertainment-­ oriented public was also interested in Trump staying in the race long enough to spice up the boring campaign season. However, it quickly became clear that the rhetoric, style and posturing had already been laid out in this announcement: Trump's campaign was shaping up to be more outrageous than any in a country richly experienced in outrageous campaigns. Three weeks after the June appearance, CNN's Don Lemon asked Trump in an interview, “Why did you have to say they're rapists?” His response: “Well, somebody is doing the rapping.”2 His path to the White House may be hard to top for arbitrary adversarial descriptions and threatening verbal jibes that dwarfed all known forms of negative campaigning—and cast doubt on the candidate's character. And while the Republicans long puzzled over whether Trump, with his attitude and his sometimes-clownish style, might be a political impostor, he began to dominate the campaign day after day. With a vulgar mixture of blustering racism, misogyny and nationalism. Around Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016, he dominated the race for Republican delegates—and the news cycle. At that time, television networks began broadcasting not just snippets of his speeches, but the events in their entirety. Occasionally, this even included the empty stage when Trump had the crowd (and TV) waiting for him.3 One little facet, sure, but it brings to mind how effective he was with his provocative strategies and content. While Hirschfeld Davis, Julie, & Shear, Michael D. (2019). Border Wars. Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration. New York, USA: Simon & Schuster, S. 27. 3  Sides, John, Tesler, Michael, & Vavreck, Lynn (2019). Identity Crisis. The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, S. 47. 2 

3.1  Media Victories

25

other candidates had to strain to attract media interest, Trump was newsworthy without any discussion: always shrill, subversive, destructive, scandalous. A kind of fire-eater—according to Lawrence Lessig: “Capturing the eyes of those passing by because they just can't help but watch.”4 To focus on Trump became an economic question. Disinformation and fake news flourished on the web; and in the traditional media, ratings reached unimagined heights. In February 2016, Leslie Moonves, the head of CBS, opined in an interview, “It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS.” The unconventional candidate gave the news media a rating boom. With high frequency, Trump engaged his opponents in nasty feuds and identified them with immoral positions. He violated standards of decency and the rules of truthfulness. During subsequent outrage episodes, his radicalism (from the beginning the binding moment of his campaign) transformed effortlessly into media attention. And to top it all, any insistence on the rules of the game bounced off him—which in turn outraged in its own right and generated renewed resonance, offline and online. Early on, it became apparent: his polling data correlated with his media presence.5 During the primary campaign, Trump gained more media attention than his Republican rivals combined. To be sure, simple causal inferences are forbidden. But given that it is precisely in the primaries when voters increasingly turn to the media, Trump's rise in the Republican party was likely aided by the hype surrounding his political show. In the critical phase of the campaign in April 2016, he was reported about three times more frequently than Hillary Clinton and about sixteen times more frequently than Bernie Sanders.6 Earned media, in other words: By the very nature of his political style, Trump got considerably more publicity than his political opponents. 4 Lessig, Lawrence (2018). America Compromised. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, S. 91. 5  Sides, John, Tesler, Michael, & Vavreck, Lynn (2019). Identity Crisis. The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, S. 51. 6  http://tyndallreport.com/yearinreview2016/.

3 Campaigns

26

It might have helped that over the last two decades US political journalism has been exposed to enormous commercialization pressure. As a result, a trend has intensified towards under-­ complexity, sensationalism and controversy. A trend that Trump did not initialized, but embraced perfectly: Campaign coverage has long been less oriented toward the social implications, more toward the personal and emotional side of the campaign, and toward the game frame: speculations of who is currently ahead in the race.7 Without being able to quantify it precisely, the commercialization of the American media system, in both traditional and online media, accommodated Trump's political behavior. And not just by mirroring his daily bouquet of nastiness and neglect of political analysis.8 In addition, the outrage at Trump's rhetoric and posturing was read by his supporters as confirmation that these liberal journalists simply could not and would never understand him and his language—“fresh, unadulterated, realspeak.”9

3.2

MAGA, America First

Donald Trump has little in common with Barack Obama. But his campaign slogan—Make America Great Again—resembles Obama's Yes, We Can from the 2008 campaign: both are vague, but not too vague, and a bit nostalgic. Obama had delivered Yes, We Can in different contexts in his campaign speeches, and the slogan always carried the twist for the good: One would overcome the challenges at hand. That was America's DNA: to tackle problems and find solutions. Trump's Make America Great Again offers similar room for interpretation. The gun nut may find Graber, Doris A., & Dunaway, Johanna (2018). Mass media and American politics. Washington: CQ Press, 10. Aufl, S. 430. 8  Pickard, Victor (2018). When Commercialism Trumps Democracy. Media Pathologies and the Rise of the Misinformation Society. In Pablo Boczkowski, & Zizi Papacharissi (Hrsg.), Trump and the Media (S. 195–201). Boston: MIT Press. 9  McEnany, Kayleigh (2018). The New American Revolution. The Making of a Populist Movement. New York, USA: Simon & Schuster; S. 220. 7 

3.2  MAGA, America First

27

h­ imself in it, a classic law-and-order-Republican, and of course someone with a glorified view of the US society of the 1950s. As mentioned, early in 2013 Trump filed to trademark Make America Great Again. The Republican Party just had to cope with the defeat of Mitt Romney, who had done exceptionally bad among Americans with a Latin American background. At that time, internally, a strategy had been discussed as to whether the Republicans should set themselves up as a “Big Tent Party”: As a party that reaches out to minorities. But this met with resistance due to a powerful faction which could hardly be dissuaded from its position that illegal migrants had to be deported immediately. This was the situation when Donald Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2013. And, of course, he referred to his newly acquired motto: “We have to make America strong again and make America great again.” That, he said, the Republican Party could do by simply addressing the immigration issue properly: “Because when it comes to immigration, you know that the eleven million illegals, if given the right to vote, ... every one of those eleven million people will be voting Democratic.”10 With the immigrant issue, Trump was referring to a kind of ethnic panic: Demographic trends indicate that by 2040 at the latest, white Americans with European roots would make up barely half of US citizens. “MAGA” thus has an ethnic component and a political perspective. During this period of Obama's second term, Trump was frequently invited to speak at Republican Party conferences, such as the Iowa Freedom Summit, Citizen United, and the Texas Patriots.11 Learning from the audience's reactions, he developed the argument for a border wall with Mexico: “I will build a wall. Nobody builds like Trump.”12 While such phrases could still be read 10  Zit. n. Green, Joshua (2017). Devil’s Bargain. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. New York: Penguin Press, S. 109. Zu Kapitel 4: POTUS 125. 11  Hirschfeld Davis, Julie, & Shear, Michael D. (2019). Border Wars. Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration. New York, USA: Simon & Schuster, S. 24. 12  Green, Joshua (2017). Devil’s Bargain. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. New York: Penguin Press, S. 111.

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3 Campaigns

humorously—a real estate entrepreneur as border guard—the slogan to restore the country to its former greatness is historically far more profound: America First was a fighting term against President Roosevelt and his New Deal in the 1930s. In 1940, the America First Committee was formed: Initially a broad rallying point for isolationists and pacifists, it soon became an openly xenophobic and anti-Semitic platform that sought to prevent the USA from entering a war against Hitler-Germany. This historical reference is no detail, but was every now and then questioned during Trump’s campaign. However, a completely different perspective prevailed, which linked “Make America Great Again” to the American founding myth—and thus on the American Dream, a concept developed in 1931 by the historian James Adams in The Epic of America. The formula “From rags to riches” reflects this idea metaphorically: the promise of unlimited opportunities for advancement, the belief in progress free of social and governmental constraints. This idealistic perspective is followed by the idea (as optimistic as practical) of a social contract according to anyone working hard enough can be successful in America. An enormously influential idea. And America First is simply the means to reanimate this dream. Alone—hope was fading. At the millennium, around two-­ thirds of Americans still believed that their children would be better off than they themselves were. Almost 20 years later, that figure has fallen to just one-third.13 These numbers certainly reflect the financial crisis of 2008 and short-term economic trends. But in the long run, the gap between rich and poor America had also widened noticeably: While the wealth of a small class increased, the real wages of the middle class and lower incomes have been stagnating or even falling for two generations. This comes along with a decline in vertical social mobility: fewer and fewer Americans succeed in the economic advancement promised by the American Dream. Lammert, Christian, Siewert, Markus B., & Vormann, Boris (2016). Fremde Vertraute. Traditionelle Leitbilder und neue Herausforderungen der US Politik. In Dies. (Hrsg.), Handbuch USA (S. 1–12). Wiesbaden: Springer VS, hier S. 5. 13 

3.3  Flight 93

29

America beyond the coastal metropolises in particular has been hit by economic globalization. Here, Trump's candidacy could be sold particularly well as a dream: more than just a nostalgic thought. People were and are very concretely interested in getting the community running again, curbing drug abuse and crime, and finally spending less on ration cards. For, the USA undeniably suffers from social problems as a result of the economic decline of several industrial regions. Just one comparison: there were around 72,000 deaths from drug overdoses in the USA in 2019—increasingly in rural areas. This has caused life expectancy to fall in recent years, which is very unusual in Western industrialized countries.14 And seen in this light, the MAGA campaign, with its reference to a better past, reminded Americans that they do indeed have reason to fear the future. And with millions harboring an already traditional distrust of Congress and its representatives, the state and its bureaucrats, a figure and outsider like Donald Trump could at least expect to be heard. Was there something to lose?

3.3

Flight 93

With Trump, a candidate was running who would finally give a voice to the “forgotten America”—according to a central narrative of his election campaign: he spoke for the silent majority (loosely following Richard Nixon), for the hard-working Americans who were not being heard by the country's leadership. As an aside, this America was not really that “silent” at all. The social conflicts and also the idea of a culture war between a progressive and a right-­ wing conservative America accompanied Obama's presidency loudly and right from the start. This has many historical roots and facets. In 1978, for example, John Leboutillier, now a political commentator, published a book called Harvard Hates America. The message: Harvard manifests the arrogance of (Democratic) intellectual America, which Fukuyama, Francis (2019). Identität. Wie der Verlust der Würde unsere Demokratie gefährdet. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, S. 112. 14 

30

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looks down snootily on “Main Street Americans,” conduct useless analyses, consumes shallow entertainment films, and will probably one day ban the Bible. Not a trace of work ethic. Or, another example: Gordon Liddy, who as an employee of the Nixon administration experienced the Watergate affair at first hand, writes in When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country: “There exists in this country an elite that believes itself entitled to tell the rest of us what we may and may not do—for our own good, of course. These left-of-center, Ivy-educated molders of public opinion are concentrated in the mass news media, the entertainment business, academia, the pundit corps, and the legislative, judicial, and administrative government bureaucracies.”15 Polarization is linked to lifestyles, as has already been mentioned, and it is always about values and morals. American values, in fact. During the Obama administration and under the impression of economic uncertainties after the financial crisis, white workers and middle-class employees in particular turned more and more to the Republican Party. A significant part of their fears is linked to the migration issue. The question of job security plays just as much a role as the question of an American identity.16 In addition, over the past 10 years or so analyses of voter behavior show that a larger part of the American working class now perceives a difference between the parties in their “conservative stance,” in the question of the extent to which African-Americans should or should not be supported by social programs. Such controversies— makers vs. takers—with their racist undertones are not particularly new in US politics. But apparently, they have gained in importance for recent elections.17 A central factor that ultimately paved the way for Trump is the high degree of rejection of the political elites by larger parts of the electorate—and indeed the elites of both parties. Trump is ­initially Liddy, G. Gordon (2002). When I was a kid, this was a free country. Washington: Regnery Publishing, S. 26–27. 16  Sides, John, Tesler, Michael, & Vavreck, Lynn (2019). Identity Crisis. The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 17  Ebd. 15 

3.3  Flight 93

31

identified not so much as a Republican, but as a reality star and authentic antithesis to party professionals. And in hindsight, his campaign presented him and his political program as a logical sequel of The Apprentice anyway: he simply fired all the Republican candidates first, one by one. And then the one candidate from the other party. One thing led to another: For if it was precisely this outsider position that was a central strength, then a strategy intuitively served by Trump himself: Subvert every expectation and simply be different on all counts. What Trump said and rumbled may have been outrageous—if you judged him as a politician. He called George W.  Bush a lousy president. About John McCain, who was actually a national hero, he expressed something like displeasure. After all, McCain had been captured in Vietnam. And tortured, too. And Romney was “probably the dumbest and worst candidate in the history of the Republicans.”18 When Trump appeared in the Republican debates, it was a call to arms with “Lyin' Ted” (Ted Cruz), “Little Marco” (Marco Rubio) “Low-­ Energy-­Jeb” (Jeb Bush)—and later, in the presidential debates of course, “Crooked Hillary” (Hillary Clinton). Isolated and “direct” in this way, Trump exuded a certain charm of original bullshit. What would have been career-ending for “real” politicians pushed his poll numbers. Although Trump did not take control of the party overnight, he surprised the Republican establishment with an unexpected result in New Hampshire; later, when he dominated the primaries in the southern states, his presidential candidacy was unstoppable. The traditional conservative appeal of Cruz, Rubio, and Bush proved to be noncompetitive. He had turned the internal contest for a candidacy into a tribal campaign: he hammered into his supporters that they—not the others—would embody true conservative America. And he could and would speak out for them because he shared their anger, knew their fears and was, of course, not a ­politician.

Zit. n. Klein, Ezra (2020). Why We’re Polarized. New  York, USA: Avid Reader, S. 191. 18 

32

3 Campaigns

It became a forced marriage between party and candidate, and then a Flight 93 election: the bizarre argument that Americans simply had no other choice but voting for Trump; they didn't really know what to expect. But with Hillary Clinton as president—ruin and destruction were certain.19 (In macabre reference to the fate of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after it was hijacked by terrorists and passengers tried to regain control of the plane). Shortly after his nomination at the party convention in Cleveland, a report of the National Review cited two dozen Republican strategists, warning that Trump was not only the person he was, but the exact opposite of what candidate the Republicans had been envisioned in 2012 to save the party after Romney's defeat.20 In the end, two issues dominated the campaign. Trump was fiercely confronted with character issues, but politically associated with migration policy—which reads factually, but was borne of stereotypes, xenophobia and prejudice, of fears for the future and uncertainties. Hillary Clinton's issue that stuck was the email affair: on the one hand a home-grown issue of the use of an (insecure) private server during her tenure as Secretary of State; on the other hand, the hacking and successive publication of scandal-­ ridden Democratic Party emails at the height of the election campaign. One could also mention various allegations of corruption against the Clinton Foundation or the Lolita Express: an ugly pedophilia accusation against the Clintons in the internet and by the right-wing media complex. Finally, just under 80,000 voters in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin made the difference—and Trump president after all, somewhat unexpectedly. Sims, Cliff (2019). Team of Vipers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, S. 13. Vgl. https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/08/29/.

19  20 

POTUS: President of the United States

4.1

Cabinet and Cabaret

Picture-perfect for all who were also somehow entertained by Trump's presidency, a finally complete cabinet gathered at the White House on June 12, 2017, for its first meeting. It had taken some time, after turbulent weeks, the opportunity was to present the government as a business-ready entity. Of course, such public meetings at the White House are part of the business model, not just since Trump. However, this event in particular marked a cabinet meeting for the ages. It began rather unspectacularly: for around 10 minutes Trump declared himself the most successful president of all time. Then, he asked the members of his cabinet to introduce themselves in turn—and a degree of hymn-like adulation followed that is quite unknown to Western democracies. Vice President Mike Pence thanked for the “greatest privilege of his life”: “to serve him.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta were similarly honored. Minute by minute, the room filled with “privilege,” “honor” and “eternal gratitude.” Only Intelligence Director Coats and Defense Secretary Mattis diverged, instead saluting their departments' employees. Speaking of which, Secretary Elain Chao—Transportation—reported her administration's enthusiasm after Trump's visit days before. Reince Priebus,

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 33 K. Kamps, Commander-in-Tweet, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4_4

4

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who once tried heartily to prevent The Donald from being the party's nominee, found himself “blessed” as the White House chief of staff. Billionaires, officials, military men with combat and leadership experience—formed as a circle, they surrendered to the solemn moment once the president laid his eyes on them. As far as not being entirely devoted to the state of the USA, Trump’s first year in office became a high time for political amusement. On Saturday Night Live, Melissa McCarthy shone as Sean Spicer and Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, lead the show to its highest ratings in 20 years with their sketches about strange press conferences and a president who wants to arrest aliens for illegally crossing the border. Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, John Oliver (among others): Rarely have times been more inviting for political satire. And to make sure that no one in liberal America misses the highlights of the previous day, the New York Times set up its own “best of” online. By having a ball, one half of America recovered—as best it could—from the shock of the November election. And Trump delivered: the range of oddities extended from a post-literate president who does not read (but eats vast quantities of cheeseburgers in front of the TV, watching Fox News) to lonely foot patrols in the White House in the evening (which was immediately denied as fake). Debacle, éclat, chaos: at the same time, the vocabulary of the news media developed into its own Trump philology.1 Countless leaks reported on the fiasco of the transition phase and a senseless frenzy of activity in the first months. And of how parts of the White House were constantly busy trying to prevent the worst from happening, such as the president breaking the law. One had to be very focused on Fox News to miss how problematic the Trump style developed. It may be an exhilarating facet that the president does not read briefing documents while written submissions are conveyed in morsels to avoid overstretching his attention span. However, it was at least irritating when notes of Trump's first meeting with top Cohen, Robert (2019). Abwendbarer Abstieg der Vereinigten Staaten unter Donald Trump. Das New Yorker Tagebuch. Göttingen: Wallstein. 1 

4.2  Washington Apprentice

35

US military officials became public: The president (himself without any military service) had berated the assembled generals and admirals for not winning any more wars: “You're nothing but a bunch of pussies and babies.”2 Secretary of State Tillerson is said to have tried to soothe the officers (when Trump had left): “He is a f... moron”—a complete idiot, or milder: a simpleton. Even then, that did not sound reassuring. And that is just one anecdote among many. If the transition of power was already chaotic, things did not get better the following months. In lengthy analyses, shortly after the election, liberal newspapers like the Washington Post nurtured the hope that the dignity of the White House and the professionalism of its officials would change the unconventional candidate for the better. Thus, one would just have to live with an unusual president. By the fall of 2017 at the latest, the first professionals began to give up. And sometime in the summer of 2018, the “last adult” (a common phrase in the US media) had left the government.

4.2

Washington Apprentice

Donald Trump picked up where he left off before announcing his candidacy. The burn rate of high-ranking staff was higher than ever: in the first year of his presidency, 43% of the senior staff left the White House or the government, or were fired. By comparison, that rate was 9% for Obama during the same period, and as low as 6% for George W. Bush. It is hard to capture the confusion of the first 12 months more vividly: By the end of 2017, Washington experienced a major firing, or voluntary withdrawal, every 9 days on average.3 Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor, had to resign in February after only a few weeks because he had lied within the government about his contacts to the Russian 2  Zit. n. Rucker, Philip, & Leonnig, Carol (2020). Trump gegen die Demokratie. »A Very Stable Genius«. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Verlag, S. 180. 3  Vgl. Boot, Max (2018). The Corrosion of Conservatism. Why I Left the Right. New York: Liveright Publishing, S. 98. 126 Anmerkungen.

36

4  POTUS: President of the United States

a­ mbassador. The termination of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 also falls into the “Russia” context. Trump boasted afterwards to the Russian ambassador, who happened to drop by, that he had fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, he said. And a nutcase.4 No words of approval, too, followed the departure of Attorney General Jeff Sessions (in November 2018, after the congressional elections). He had long been publicly slammed by Trump and his supporters for declaring himself biased in the Russia affair and leaving oversight of the investigation to his deputy (see Chap. 7). A key personnel issue for the White House organization itself became Reince Priebus. The former chairman of the Republican National Committee had to leave office as early as July 2017. Priebus, as insiders reported, had no backing in the minefield that the White House apparently was in those weeks. Especially Jarred Kushner and Trump's daughter Ivanka were at odds with him and allegedly pushed for his replacement. Priebus was followed by John Kelly—and, on his very first day, Kelly fired Anthony Scaramucci, called The Mooch: a dazzling “communications adviser” who had access to the West Wing for a record-breaking low of 11 days. Scaramucci had gotten the hang of giving an interview to the New Yorker. An “operetta of drunkenness and press insults,”5 in which he railed (vulgarly) about Steve Bannon, among other things. He had given himself bad advice there. In general, the communications department was a difficult site of its own. The unhappy Sean Spicer virtually fled when Scaramucci was hired. Counting transitional occupancies, Trump shuttered seven communications directors by early 2020. Mike Dubke, Trump's first Director of Communication, stayed in the White House for just 3 months. Strategic communications under Trump—difficult. At best, it remains micro-managing by the Oval Office; at worst, Trump, who has always placed importance on his public appearance, takes out his frustration over criticism on the 4 Zit. n. Rucker, Philip, & Leonnig, Carol (2020). Trump gegen die Demokratie. »A Very Stable Genius«. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Verlag, S. 89. 5  Wolff, Michael (2019). Unter Beschuss. Trumps Kampf im Weißen Haus. Hamburg: Rowohlt, S. 277.

4.2  Washington Apprentice

37

communication department. They were simply not up to his professional standard. One of the most politically significant resignations may have been that of Gary Cohn. He left the administration in March 2018 amid a dispute over Trump's protectionist trade policies. Cohn, formerly a Goldman Sachs investment banker, could not sway the president from his line of imposing punitive tariffs on friendly nations. Around the same time, Rex Tillerson was fired—via tweet. Tillerson had just enough time to leave his State Department office before Trump lashed out at him in an interview: “I couldn't get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy to no end.”6 Also, still in March 2018, security adviser Herbert R. McMaster, considered a moderate, left the White House. Allegedly, his briefings had bored the president. McMasters then had his moment—a dinner speech at the North Atlantic Council, his last appointment as a representative of the Trump administration: “Would you rather be part of an exclusive club of autocrats who hold their meetings alternately in Moscow, Tehran, Damascus, Havana, Caracas, and Pyongyang, or would you rather belong to a club of free peoples who recognize state sovereignty, individual rights, and the rule of law? I think our club is the better one.” Into the raucous applause of the audience, North Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempe thanked for this “unmistakable voice of clarity.”7 As said, it was McMaster's last appearance. Some less prominent cases piled up by the end of December 2018, including the already controversial Scott Pruitt having to resign his post as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a series of personal scandals. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke left plagued by investigations into the legality of various policy decisions. Health Secretary Tom Price stumbled over an expense affair. Just before Christmas, two notable demissions: first, John Kelly, who had succeeded Priebus in cleaning up the organization’s mess in the White House, had to vacate his p­ osition. 6  Zit. nach Zit. n. Rucker, Philip, & Leonnig, Carol (2020). Trump gegen die Demokratie. »A Very Stable Genius«. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Verlag., S. 411. 7  Zit. n. Rucker, Philip, & Leonnig, Carol (2020). Trump gegen die Demokratie. »A Very Stable Genius«. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Verlag, S. 297.

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4  POTUS: President of the United States

He had demonstrated too much independence from his president—and publicly corrected him. And secondly, Secretary of Defense James Mattis: he could not stand Trump’s lone decision to withdraw US troops from Syria and abandon allied Kurdish units. In Bob Woodward's terminology, Mattis was not only the “last adult” leaving the government but also the last “nanny.”8 Washington Apprentice—Jared Kushner and the First Daughter remained. They personified Trump's rational: loyalty. And since loyalty cannot be demanded at gunpoint, a family substructure of the official organigram was an obvious choice. While one may be able to somewhat understand Ivanka Trump's advisory role, Trump’s sonin-law is more controversial. Trump entrusted him with special duties: To Israel, Saudi Arabia—and then to the delight of the Chinese with their country. For, Kushner acts without recourse to the diplomatic corps or the intelligence services. His role in the Corona crisis will be mentioned later (see Chap. 8). Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey is also said to have been “inspired” by Kushner. The “dumbest decision in recent history” commented Stephen Bannon in an interview at the end of 2017.9 Bannon, ultra-conservative adviser and member of the National Security Council, fired in August 2017, is still among Trump's better-known ex-employees, together with his successor John R.  Bolton, fired in September 2019. The ranks of reasonably prominent alumni else include Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary. She failed to implement Trump's strict migration policy, or Alexander Acosta, Labor Secretary, who stumbled over the Jeffrey Epstein case. The list could go on if one includes the executive levels of agencies that are important to the US government. The turnover in the Trump administration is unabatedly high. Washington Apprentice, then? That is somewhat exaggerated and relative, of course. However, Trump is certainly playing 8 Woodward, Bob (2018). Fear. Trump in the White House. New York, USA: Simon & Schuster. 9  Vgl. Der Spiegel v. 24. Dezember 2017, Steve Bannon zieht über Ivanka Trump her, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/stephenbannon-nennt-­ ivanka-trump-koenigin-der-leaks-a-1184880.html.

4.3 Media

39

the cards of his organizational power to the full, ensuring that ministers, advisers, directors know that they are his ministers, advisers, directors.

4.3

Media

If the first weeks of the presidency had fostered the creative entertainment industry of late-night shows, the same holds true for the news media. Trump’s time in the White House features rising ratings and subscriber numbers—a “stimulus package”10 for the traditional media. Fair enough: during the campaign, Trump had called the media “sick,” among other things; and reporters covering his campaign were frequently attacked (not always just verbally) by his supporters.11 However, Trump's relationship with the news media was amply fierce when the president placed a style-setting tweet at the very beginning of his term on a February morning in 2017: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @AbC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”12 At one time or another, just about every US president has been in a clinch with the media, railing against them or taking offense at inaccurate or misleading reporting. Occasionally even complaining vehemently: In September 2000, George W.  Bush called a New York Times reporter a “major league asshole.”13 The bar was high, but Trump nevertheless took media bashing to new heights—easily, and almost as a manifesto of his presidency.

10 Pfeiffer, Dan (2018). Yes we (still) can. Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump. New York: Hachette, S. 46. 11  Vgl. Boot, Max (2018). The Corrosion of Conservatism. Why I Left the Right. New York: Liveright Publishing, S. 130. 12  Ebd. 13  Vgl. Washington Post v. 5. September 2000, Bush Gaffe Becomes Big-Time News, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/technology/2000/ 09/05/bush-gaffe-becomes-big-time-news/09b0d5fa-4660-4f9d-­9 598038882d2e47d/?itid=lk_inline_manual_61.

40

4  POTUS: President of the United States

The fact that he resorted to the vocabulary of Stalin and the fascists initially shocked even Fox host Chris Wallace, who expressed deep irritation and demanded moderation from the president. To no avail, as we know. Outbursts toward media and individual journalists became standard. But Fox was reassured, the president usually named and still names the respective “enemies.” As it would turn out, the approach had an enormous appeal: Trump's “media critique” immediately migrated as a gubernatorial narrative. Advisers such as ministers, press spokespersons and communications directors joined in the chorus, the family anyway, and then at some point also Republican members of Congress and conservative media (see Chap. 6). Hardly anyone in right-wing conservative America seems to think about the concrete democratic function of the media. For all the conceivable and understandable criticism of negativism, the penchant for sensationalism, careless research, etc., independent media are a necessary condition for transparent discourse in a modern, open and democratic society. Given their own history, Americans should know. Journalism in the USA has a close link to the American Revolution: local newspapers were central to the criticism of British colonial and fiscal policies. It is hard to underestimate the role of the media in spreading the idea of the republic itself. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are therefore formulated, not coincidentally, in the First Amendment. The press as the “fourth estate” or the metaphor of information as the “currency of democracy” (Thomas Jefferson) are ideas, but also very practical mechanisms. Today, such an understanding seems to be nostalgic. While Trump's attacks on the appearance, intelligence, demeanor and organization of individual reporters initially caused outrage, even among Republicans. Such voices have increasingly fallen silent. “Lamestream,” “Failing xy,” “Fake News”: pure presidential routine. “Democracy dies in darkness”: the Washington Post’s new slogan, and the New York Times ran a commercial at the 2017 Oscars with the message “The truth is more important now than ever.”

4.3 Media

41

Trump's “attitude” toward certain media was immediately reflected in the routine of White House press conferences. M ­ arginal, that he and his media department broke with conventions and, for example, no longer called the Associated Press for the first question; or when background interviews were conducted with Breitbart News, while liberal media remained excluded as a matter of course. Interesting, the evolution of the Washington press corps' daily briefing. For one thing, Trump's appearances in the press room itself: They became increasingly rare. The president preferred to grant homey interviews on Fox News or One America News Network. Or, of course, he “briefed” the American public directly via Twitter. Which occasionally led to misunderstandings when the spokesperson had just announced contrary positions. In the summer of 2017, when Sean Spicer was replaced by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press corps was hoping for some relief. Because Sanders was actually known for her even-tempered nature. However, that quickly changed when it became obvious she considered herself an extremely loyal adviser to the president. She once told a Christian television station, “God wanted Donald Trump to become president.”14 And accordingly, she obligingly repeated and supported everything the president said. Even the name-calling. Thus, the press briefing as a routine of the US government communications and political journalism was badly tarnished after just 1 year. Effectively killing that institution was Stephanie Grisham, who was appointed to succeed Sanders in June 2019— and gave no press briefings at all. If Grisham contacted journalists, it was in television interviews with friendly anchors on Fox News or One American Network News. Formal briefings, at least, are not necessary at all. The president would communicate everything important via Twitter anyway. Vgl. Washington Post v. 31. Januar 2019, Sarah Sanders tells Christian Broadcasting Network, https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/ 01/30/sarah-sanders-tells-christian- broadcastingnetwork-god-­wanted-trumpbe-president/.

14 

42

4.4

4  POTUS: President of the United States

The Twitter Presidency

The Twitter profile @realDonaldTrump was created in March 2009 by a public relations manager at Perseus Books Group and run in his name to promote Trump's book Think Like a Champion. Intended primarily as a PR tool, the account posted excerpts from the book, announced autograph signings, or Trump's appearances on Larry King, for example. And, of course, there was a focus on Celebrity Apprentice. Until 2011, Trump's profile remained apolitical and with rather low follower numbers. On January 27, 2011 Trump's first political post: “The people at shouldtrumprun.com have got it right! How are our factories supposed to compete with China and other countries (...) when they have no environmental restrictions! America's workers need us.”15 Shouldtrumprun? A PR stunt possibly, a self-initiated page probably, speculating about his 2012 presidential candidacy. In particular, as mentioned above, it was the birther debate about Barack Obama that Trump not only extensively used to promote his own show, but also brought him closer to the short message service Twitter and caused his follower numbers to rise sharply. With this debate, he significantly increased the frequency of his (now personal) tweets; in February 2013, a first peak was reached—almost exclusively with criticism of Obama. Later, Trump's Twitter activities dwindled; 2015, with his candidacy, he started using the platform more. In 2016 he averaged around 200 posts per week. He maintained this high rate (contrary to some expectations) after the election. This makes him probably the head of government worldwide who uses the short messaging services most intensively. There are a few peculiarities that stand out. For example, he basically uses Twitter as a TV personality, viewer and critic: A significant portion of his tweets relate to things he watches on Television, critical points or arguments he likes. And then, he comments on the shows as a television producer: he judges drama,

Vgl. hier und im Folgenden zu den Original-Tweets: http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/.

15 

4.4  The Twitter Presidency

43

aesthetics, performance of the hosts or protagonists. He occasionally even rants about things he does not even want to know: Saturday Night Live, for example, though he claims not to follow the show—“I don't watch.” And he knows how to pair: the more some cable channels moved to treat his tweets as breaking news, the more finely tuned his posts address in the need of the editors and hosts. And then he reacts on the TV comments on his tweets. Trump regularly went on the rampage on the basis of his immunity: Until recently, his posts on Twitter were generally not covered by guidelines against hate, incitement, insult or lies— because he was to be judged as a politician. And he made some use of this approach: about half of his posts attack people or organizations. We are not talking about a few dozen or even a few hundred. The New York Times has analyzed this: 3 years in office, Trump subsequently came up with 5889 posts aimed at insulting or exposing political opponents or institutions.16 No other content category comes close. And even that is emblematic of his presidency: second are tweets (1159) about immigration and building the wall on the border with Mexico. However, other policy areas such as tax, health, security or foreign policy are also served. Trump's Twitter behavior is strongly characterized by antagonistic, aggressive communication. But there are always policy-oriented posts in which he takes a more or less sober stance. If one compares his Twitter activities with other communicative modalities, such as press statements, interviews, speeches, it becomes clear that it is precisely news, announcements and the likes that are reserved for Twitter. Consequently, the service is also his personnel office: The nation (and sometimes the person himself) first learned of the demission of around two dozen top officials or top advisors via @realDonaldTrump. There has been much speculation, especially given the sheer mass of posts and re-tweets, as whether someone else might be Vgl. New York Times v. 2. Nov. 2019, How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/ politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html?action=click&module=Top%20 Stories&pgtype=Homepage Zu Kapitel 5: Die Post-Truth-Präsidentschaft 127.

16 

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4  POTUS: President of the United States

involved in this busy production. Apparently, he is indeed supported during office hours. But Trump always gets the last word. This is not only socially interesting but also formally—because the White House has now declared the president's tweets as official statements of the US president. Accordingly, they have to be documented and archived. That includes the post in which he reminded North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that he, too, had a button with which he could operate nuclear weapons. “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” This tweet exemplifies the political dimensions of his Twitter presidency. For one thing, there is the bypassing of journalists, already traditional for media orientations of modern politicians. This is the most straightforward function. Obviously, the public or a specific addressee can picture opinions, plans, concerns and the like without any mediating body (and without context). Albeit in a highly abbreviated form and with an attention premium for emotional or humorous tweets, probably also for attacks and bullshit. Secondly, it is a power gesture with which more complex political decision-making processes are undermined. The tweet manifests the president's power directly and for all to see. The media scholar Nick Couldry of the London School of Economics once described this as a contemporary form of fiat, the royal decree with which the ruler establishes things without any discussion. And by which all others are obliged to orient themselves, of course. “We're getting used to Trump's way of not just maintaining a political campaign, he's making policy that way. We wake up to news about the next states, companies, institutions or people to get caught in the crossfire of his tweets. Companies and investors are setting up, 'Twitter response departments' and 'Twitter triggers' in case the next tweet is directed at them.”17

17  Couldry, Nick (2017): Trump, the wannabe king ruling by ›twiat‹. In: The Conversation, 5. Februar 2017. Online unter http://theconversation.com/ trump-the-wannabe-king-ruling-bytwiat-72269.

4.5  The Takeover

45

A special form of this rule-by-tweet is then the digital pillory, which, as said, makes up about half of his posts. Without this instrument of newfangled fiat, the most important project of his tenure would not have been possible. The takeover of the Republican party.

4.5

The Takeover

One day after the majority of the Republicans in the Senate had acquitted Donald Trump in the impeachment, the president received some guests in the East Room of the White House for a prayer breakfast—a Bible study. What was planned as a peaceful, decent get-together quickly gave way to a booming reckoning. Trump took on his political opponents. Unsurprisingly, but a little unusual in this vocabulary: “bad,” “dirty,” “horrible,” “evil,” “sick,” “corrupt,” “scum,” “leakers,” “liars,” “vicious,” “mean,” “lowlifes,” “non-people,” “stone-cold crazy” and “the crookedest, most dishonest, dirtiest people I have ever seen.” In fact, no one in the room seemed to be irritated. On the contrary, cheerful understanding was the prevailing sentiment. If the proceedings in Congress had emphatically demonstrated the nation's political divide, the morning after was an extremely memorable demonstration of the takeover of the Republican party by Trump. This was not necessarily foreseeable: During the primary campaign, many Republicans had still fought The Donald fiercely—and certainly not just for tactical reasons. Ted Cruz called him a “pathological, immoral liar,” Rand Paul found the phrase “garrulous orange face, a piece of bacon more competent,” Rick Perry saw in him a “cancer in American conservatism,” and finally Marco Rubio warned against leaving “the nuclear codes to such a guy.”18 Whatever one may think of Donald Trump—he has to take a lot, too. Once in office and after a phase of consolidation and professionalization, the party followed him. For quite different reasons Zit. n. Klein, Ezra (2020). Why We’re Polarized. New  York, USA: Avid Reader, S. 177. 18 

46

4  POTUS: President of the United States

and motives, but nevertheless as a backing. A small typology could look like this: There are the “true believers”19 (Stephen Bannon, for example): those who backed Trump from the outset and expected him to pursue a (very) conservative agenda: An extremely minimalized state and a bureaucracy that administers only what is necessary. This is also where all those individuals and groups gather who secretly or openly want to fuel an ethnic-nationalist agenda. After some time, a larger group of opportunists came to terms with Trump and his behavior, seeking and finding reasons to trust their president. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham, initially an opponent of Trump, he quickly sought his proximity to influence. In his case, especially on American foreign policy. Which makes him a perfect example of the disappointed opportunist: Trump's policy on Syria, the Kurds, Saudi Arabia and Russia, for example, corresponds on only a few points to Graham’s ideas. A growing group of Republicans over the course of the presidency is likely to follow Trump out of sheer respect—“respect” for his tweets and Trump's base in their constituencies back home. Remember, the House of Representatives is elected every 2 years (as is one-third of the Senate), and people are correspondingly wary of a president who likes to threaten dissenters or critics with the support of an intra-party opponent. With thunderous tweets, that is. The list of examples would be far too long for the planned scope of this essay. Then you still find a smaller group of Republicans trying to rationalize Trump's behavior—somehow. “He really shouldn't tweet so much” would be typical. Otherwise they confine themselves to rather quietly making the best of the situation in Congress. They are just one small step short of the now final group: retirees. Republicans like Jeff Flake; he announced in 2018 that he would not run for the Senate again: He had too little in common with a president who could not rein in his impulses even to members of Congress from his own party if they did not Vgl. zu diesem Abschnitt insbesondere Wilson, Rick (2018). Everything Trump Touches Dies. A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever. New York, USA: Free Press, S. 45–47.

19 

4.5  The Takeover

47

c­ onstantly praise him in public. And who at the same time did not want to or could not represent this president before his voters. Another example: Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; he was once even considered for vice president. Corker told reporters in early October 2017 that he was glad for Mattis, Kelly, and Tillerson; without them, the country would be in chaos. Corker had already announced he would not run again in 2018, but then had to endure a series of tweets in which Trump claimed the senator was only not running for re-­ election because he, Trump, had denied his support. And Corker, he said, had been practically begging. To Trump, everything is personal. Even politics. An important mechanism for the president to control the party became the right-wing conservative media public. On Fox News in particular, he can keep a very close eye on which member of Congress is supporting him and with what vehemence (see Chap. 6). And the members of Congress know, of course, that their appearances on Hannity's and Ingraham's shows are registered at the highest level. Rewards are then given by means of a tweet or even a presidential visit to the constituency. It's not clear yet which is more valuable. Moreover, if the president gets ever disoriented, Fox et  al. immediately flag dissenters and intra-party critics. The Lives of Others—as a US remake on ultra-­conservative cable television. Which is only to be briefly hinted at: Trump’s strong support in the party is certainly not based on policies alone. For example, a powerful dislike of Democrats, that is for sure. But real policy successes are limited and ambivalent. Perhaps most important: the nomination of not one but two justices to the Supreme Court (and lots more to the federal courts), is a central argument for many Americans and religious groups to support him. The repeal of Obamacare: a failed attempt. De-regulation in environmental and consumer protection: happily, accepted by business. Building a wall to Mexico: still a construction site with no funding secured. But many like to notice the signals. And besides, small changes have made legal migration to the US more difficult. Visas are more difficult to obtain, and the naturalization period has doubled. Tax reform: expensive and lopsided with no bonus for Mainstreet

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America. Guns? Nobody's going to change that anyway. And his protectionist trade policies apparently won't be punished by the party base (as long as offsets keep coming in); as a contradiction to the traditional Republican position, they are nonetheless controversial. Basically, one thing remains: a shirt-sleeved, self-­ confident ethnic nationalism that cares little for the country's international isolation.

The Post-truth Presidency

5.1

Political Style 2.0?

On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published an opinion piece1 that caused quite a stir in the country and in the White House. Under the title “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” an anonymous staffer reported on the decisionmaking chaos in the Trump White House. The president's management style was “impetuous, aggressive, narrow-­ minded and inefficient.” Not to mention many of Trump’s legally questionable ideas. So “heroes” (like himself) would “secretly resist” all the unreasonableness in the White House and try to do “what's right.” While in the USA the article immediately fueled the deep state theory (according to which Obama's holdovers and Never Trumper in the bureaucracy turned against Trump), in Europe, if all is not mistaken, it was received with barely concealed gloating. Months earlier, similar leaks had lit up the stage, underscoring the perception that amateurism was loose in America: a significant problem for and within the international order.

1  New York Times v. 5. 11. 2018, I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-­ house-anonymous-resistance.html.

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On the other side, up to that point that was no new experience. For example, at Trump’s first G-7 summit in Taormina, Sicily, in May 2017, France's ambassador to the USA at the time, Gérard Araud, reported that European governments and staff had been prepared by US diplomats not to patronize “him,” to sprinkle in compliments, not to anger “him”—as “he” has influence, after all. “So, you've got six adults who are striving not to upset him, and they're dealing with someone who knows no restraint and no boundaries. Giving the adults in the room means putting up with the child's tantrum and not taking it seriously.”2 The list of similar anecdotes about Trump, his appearances nationally and internationally, seems endless. Already history how he loudly considered acquiring Greenland and cancelled a visit to Denmark over it: Meanwhile, he had ordered (“hereby ordered”) American companies to leave China (which he retracted a few days later) and for once declared the head of the US Federal Reserve—and not the press—“the enemy of the people.” The line is honest and obvious: Trump does and says whatever comes to mind. Detached from procedure, expertise, advice and strategy. At the summit with Putin in Helsinki, July 2018, he embarrassed his own intelligence services over the Russian interference in the presidential election. “My people came to me (...) and said that in their view it was Russia. I have here President Putin. He just said: Russia is not. I say to that: I don't see any reason why it should be Russia.”3 This was hard to take even for Trump’s supporters in Congress. The president, as well as the relevant committees, had been presented with evidence to that effect by all US intelligence agencies. Former CIA Director John Brennan called Trump's remarks “unreservedly treasonous.”4 Apart from that, the instance shows that Trump's political style and his positions are unpredictable, detached from the matter at hand and always geared towards his image.

Zit. n. Rucker, Philip, & Leonnig, Carol (2020). Trump gegen die Demokratie. »A Very Stable Genius«. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Verlag, S. 19. 3  Ebd. S. 348. 4  Ebd. S. 349. 2 

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51

Tellingly, when the following week Trump's agreement with Moscow was taken apart, he turned around on the spot and didn't want to have said what he had said. Or, almost better, he had actually meant to say “I don't see any reason why Russia should not be.” Trump just sneaked in a new denial. A double negative, in other words, that he couldn't get his act together. Now in a free society, eloquence doesn't really need to be a minimum requirement for political office. But perhaps consistency: not only Trump's positions are incalculable; his statements cannot be trusted beyond the night. Occasionally, a lot of indignation about the president's maneuvering follows—for example in view of the radical right-wing demonstrations in Charlottesville in mid-August 2017, when a counter-demonstrator was killed by a right-wing radical and it took the president a whole 2 days to distance himself from the neo-Nazis. Only to row back and talk about “fine people” on both sides.5 Another example: After the El Paso and Dayton shootings in early August 2019, Trump initially spoke of the need to tighten gun laws. Just days later, he deemed background checks sufficient. The problem, he said, was solely “mental.” And after a phone call with the head of the gun lobby NRA, it was all about the “un-American Democrats” who wanted to deprive honest, free Americans of their (gun) rights. For Trump—and this shapes his political style—the presidency is a single rally, a permanent campaign. At its core, this is nothing new: previous presidents, too, were constantly looking for support (and analyzed the respective data on a daily base). Trump, however, takes campaigning literally. Basically, he continued to campaign after inauguration. He may also be fleeing know-it-all Washington and a Congress that didn't immediately spur the way he envisioned: The president is visibly most comfortable at MAGA events in Arizona or Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the Virginias. Vgl. z. B. Der Spiegel v. 15. August 2017, Amerikas Geisterstunde, https:// www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-unddie-neonazis-amerikas-­­ geisterstunde-kommentar-a-1162866.html.

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Most importantly, at those events he does not have to pretend anything. In July 2018, at a speech in Greenville, North Carolina, he attacked four non-white Democratic congresswomen. They might as well go back where they came from. To their “totally degenerate and crime-infested places” (three of the four congresswomen had been born in the country, the fourth naturalized as a child). “Send them back,” echoed his base. When Trump was accused of racism (again), it didn't seem to faze him at all. He continued to agitate and doubted the loyalty of Jewish Americans, insofar as they would support such Democrats.6

5.2

President Barron

In the years of Trump’s presidency, people became accustomed to daily doses of escalation. The range is colorful, from lambasting the London mayor, insulting football players who kneel in protest during the national anthem, bashing judges who stop his decrees, intelligence agencies he refused to believe, offending countries like Puerto Rico or cities like Baltimore or Chicago, to re-­tweeting conspiracy theories, praise for despots and authoritarian rulers, threats against treaty partners and allies and democratic institutions of his own nation, mockery of his predecessor, derision of Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And such “positions” are then added to the president's unwillingness to consider rational processes and practices in policymaking. What is central to his communication style, however, is a rather relaxed approach to the truth. At this point we may thank the Washington Post for the record it keeps in its Fact Checker.7 (Which, by the way, has been around since 2007.) Just as this manuscript closed in July 2020, Donald Trump passed the 20,000 thousand mark for “false” or “misleading claims and assertions” during his presidency. That averages out to about 16 claims per 6  https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/donald-trumpgreenville-rally/ index.html. 7  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trumpclaims-­ database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inlinemanual_81.

5.2  President Barron

53

day (and approximately five lies for every line of this essay). The president began his first weeks with a comparatively innocuous average of about five claims. Then, he picked up the pace mightily. Especially, when one of the aforementioned campaign speeches is on the agenda, dozens “problematic” remarks might be added in one fell swoop. The Post differentiates and categorizes, for example by assigning “Pinocchios.” The fund of this archive is easily accessible and leads to individual topics via a filter system. The effort put in is immense—every critical remark and its classification is commented on. Debatable self-descriptions such as “stable genius” are not included, by the way. On the other hand, it is all about insinuations, outright lies, invented statistics or misrepresented correlations, etc. (The price of precision and care? The Post can hardly keep up.) But no matter how one differentiates, Trump indisputably has a problem: he not only lies; he simply shows no interest in the truth.8 Somewhat consistent, then, is a mode of narrative quite peculiar to heads of government in Western democracies. It seems, the president remembers things as it suits him. Things that never existed. One can be sure, formulas like “a lot of people say” usher in outright fabrications. Trump also uses what communication scholars somewhat awkwardly call “opportune witnesses”: people who would have said this and that about him (i.e., could attest to his greatness). The president of Mexico, for example, had called him and praised him. Or else the top US Boy Scout, Michael Surbaugh, who found his speech “fantastically inspiring” (what he immediately denied, the boy scout).9 In which category actually falls Trump's backstage maneuvering that he should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize—only to claim on the front stage that there were a lot of people who thought he deserved it? More than anyone?

Vgl. auch https://www.republik.ch/2018/10/30/die-macht-derluege-in-der-­­ politik. 9  Vgl. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/boy-scoutstrump-apology/ index.html. 8 

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Conversely, and this is part of the bigger picture: Trump never retracts or corrects false statements. Other personalities may be bothered by having made mistakes. Or being caught lying. Not Trump. And virtually every time he talks about Fake News, he is wrong. And once through, say, insufficient research, a journalist makes a mistake, you can be sure Trump and his allies will post Fake! in screaming style, even after the fault has long since been corrected. Interestingly, this “free” approach to reality actually “works,” at least to some extent. If one differentiates according to party affiliation, Americans have very different opinions about the media's ethical standards: around 40% of Trump supporters have virtually no trust in the media; among Democrats this figure is 5%.10 And when Trump talks about Fake News, about two-thirds of Republicans believe he just flags inaccurate reporting as a reading guide, so to speak. Eighty seven percent of Democrats, by contrast, understand it to be solely politically motivated and insubstantial.11 As a result, polarized America is a country with very different approaches to political reality. According to a Washington Post poll from August 2017, 47% of Republicans believe Donald Trump also won the Popular Vote, that is, the majority of absolute votes—which is not true. Sixty eight percent of them are certain millions of illegal immigrants would have voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. And somehow consequentially, more than half of Republicans still think about postponing the 2020 election if one cannot handle a voter fraud problem.12 Subsequently, last point, Trump's “false claims” and “misleading claims” have led to a subjugation effect within the political system. At least to the extent that Republican members of Congress or moderators see misrepresentations as a kind of loyhttps://www.journalism.org/2019/12/12/trusting-the-newsmedia-in-the-­­ trump-era/. 11  https://today.yougov.com/topics/economist/survey-results 128 Anmerkungen. 12  Zitiert nach Kakutani, M. (2018). The Death of Truth. Notes on Falshood in the Age of Trump. New York, S. 27. 10 

5.3  A Bullshit Presidency?

55

alty test, repeat or reinforce them, thus side with Trump—and then (have to) defend everything, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because that is the path they have chosen.

5.3

A Bullshit Presidency?

At a time when Donald Trump was struggling with declining ratings on Season 5 of The Apprentice, Princeton University philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt published a little booklet called “Bullshit.” In it, Frankfurt distinguishes the “bullshitter”—let us say “BS” for brevity's sake—from the liar. The liar, Frankfurt says, knows the truth, or at least suspects it. For he deliberately disregards it, that is, he knows he tells the untruth. The “BS,” on the other hand, simply doesn't care about such distinctions. He has no respect for truth. He simply asserts whatever benefits him at the moment. We guessed it: Trump is a talented “BS.” That gives him an advantage in the attention society: bullshit is often the more forceful story. It may even be what Trump calls “truthful hyperbole.” A mild form of hyperbole, that is allowed and is meant to intrigue people.13 When Putin had hundreds of U.S. diplomats expelled, Trump tweeted something like: great, that will save on personnel costs. Just a “joke”? A recurring problem, perhaps: that the “BS” is taken too seriously. For example, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager, once told reporters who were puzzled by Trump's backing, “You guys just took him too literally. The American people didn't.”14 And the “BS” follows other moral criteria—and strategies, because in the end the biggest nonsense can still be straightened out as humorously meant bullshit. The “healthiest president” ever? Bullshit, but catchy. Fake news awards? Won't happen, but could make sense. And from that perspective, even his golf stories can be categorized: That apparently indomitable drive to win at all times, of course; he cheats until the irons bend. It is said that his Sims, Cliff (2019). Team of Vipers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, S. 41. Zit. n. Kakutani, Michiko (2018). The Death of Truth. Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump. New York: Duggan, S. 60. 13  14 

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golf nose has become so long (Pinocchio alert!) that he can putt with it.15 Now this perspective does not make Trump a truth fanatic, nor a satirist, nor a humorous charmer. But it may add to the picture. What comes with his presidency as a new quality of the current communication climate in the United States is the dwindling influence of facts over perceived truths. It is one thing if the presidential communication style exhibits an unusually relaxed approach to factuality. It is another when the idea becomes entrenched in the country that it always deals with two truths: one purely technical and one that fits harmoniously with one's own biases and ideas about how things could be or should have been. Everything, at least in politics, ultimately has its own perspective, is tailored and portioned. Whether liars or “BS”—that may then be an academic discussion to some extent. With the Trump presidency comes a postmodern relativism of “alternative facts.” Rudolph Giuliani, for example, radically summed up this attitude when he argued on Meet the Press (on NBC and at the time of the Russia investigation) that the president should absolutely not testify and thus risk perjury based solely on “somebody's version of the truth.” To which an astonished Chuck Todd, the host, retorted, “Truth is truth!” Giuliani, in turn, restated it precisely for the ages: “No, it isn't truth. Truth isn't truth.”16

15  Reilly, Rick (2019). Commander in Cheat. How Golf Explains Trump. London: Headline, S. 10. 16  Vgl. Poniewozik, J. (2019). Audience of one. Donald Trump, television, and the fracturing of America. New York: Liveright Publishing, S. 249.

Foxworld: Trumpland

Teile dieses Kapitels beruhen auf Kamps, Klaus (2019). Ein Präsident und (s) ein Sender: Donald Trump und Fox News. In regierungsforschung.de, https:// regierungsforschung.de/ein-­praesident-­undsein-­sender/ sowie Kamps, Klaus (2019). Die Einflüsterer des Präsidenten: Fox News und Donald Trump. In Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 10/2019, S. 69–78.

6.1

Liberal Media, Liberal Reporting?

In January 2018, in the midst of the longest government shutdown in American history, Donald Trump visited Hidalgo County, Texas. On the banks of the Rio Grande, a photo opportunity had been prepared just across the river from Mexico to put the beleaguered president in the spotlight: confiscated narcotics and border agents vividly marked Trump's claim to build a border wall. What journalists noticed right away when they were allowed to enter the camera-ready scene was the one person that had already been there—Sean Hannity, Fox News anchor, chatting familiarly with government officials behind the barriers. Fox: part of Team Trump.1 Few were really surprised. When Trump took office in 2017, no one in the USA seriously asked whether Fox was reporting in a partisan way. In the 1990s, the channel had openly set out to Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 1 

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counterbalance the liberal media—an ideological battle call at the time, based on the idea that the mainstream media would support the Democrats. This view is traditional and can be traced back to the 1930s and the opposition to the New Deal of the 1930s. Roosevelt's economic plans were demonized in conservative circles as an illegal intervention of the state. And since the dissemination of a (political) idea was as important as the idea itself, the Chicago Tribune or the New Republic, for example, positioned themselves at the time as explicitly conservative press corporations. By the 1960s, a good dozen media companies had been founded which, through magazines, books, journals, radio and later television, sought to provide a network-like corrective explicitly to the “distortions” of the liberal media. In doing so, they followed no guideline of journalistic impartiality from the outset. The editors of Human Events, for example, declared that they would primarily take up topics and positions that the liberal media neglected. They openly claimed to report from a partisan point of view—which would not contradict usual journalistic standards, because their world view was “correct” (and therefore professional distance was not necessary).2 In view of the radio, however, this was difficult at first. The Radio Act of 1927 marked the beginning of what was to occupy US media policy for decades as the Fairness Doctrine. At its core, the doctrine is based on the idea that rules in broadcasting are required because of a comma, a public interest (in addition to economic motives). First and foremost, the doctrine was intended to ensure that the radio (and later television) does not serve merely as entertainment or was even misused as propaganda instrument of one party, religious group or government. Especially in terms of political conflicts, the stations had to report in a balanced and fair manner. To European ears, that sounded rather reasonable. In America, it was quickly read as governmental coercion. This way, the doctrine served for decades as proof of bureaucratic nonsense. In parVgl. insbesondere Hemmer, N. (2016). Messengers of the Right. Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, hier S. 33.

2 

6.2  Fox News

59

ticular, the key concept of “fairness” remained largely fuzzy. How could it be measured? How exactly was it to be guaranteed? A nightmare in the day-to-day business of news journalism. Another problem became apparent at the end of the 1960s, when the complaints from politics became louder and louder (and party managers compared the appearances of their people with the stopwatch): the stations avoided controversial topics. And therein lay a potential disadvantage, depending on what was removed from the agenda. After quite a bit of disputing, the doctrine was abolished in 1987 as part of Ronald Reagan’s de-regulation policies. It arguably would not have had a direct impact on Fox News (because it did not extend to cable television). But this process was part of the context of the station's founding.

6.2

Fox News

With the Fairness Doctrine gone, conservative talk radio entered the scene. Rush Limbaugh started a local call-in show in Sacramento in 1984 and went national early 1988. The format veered between anti-state monologue and aggressive “dialogue” with callers tuning in. At the height of his popularity, in the early 1990s, Limbaugh reached some 20 million listeners a week, distributed over around 600 local stations—with a show, that thrived on exuberant emotion, on hefty provocations that accentuated arch-­conservative positions in very unique ways.3 It was at this time, in 1996, that Rupert Murdoch founded Fox News: modelled on the tabloid press he had built up in Australia and England, the US news channel CNN, which he had failed to take over, and Limbaugh's talk radio: the idea was to c­ ounterbalance the mainstream media. Roger Ailes, the first president of Fox, brought a decidedly conservative perspective into play.4 Lütjen, Torben (2016). Partei der Extreme: Die Republikaner. Über die Implosion des amerikanischen Konservatismus. Bielefeld: transcript, S. 117. 4  Hemmer, N. (2016). Messengers of the Right. Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, hier S. 265. 3 

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Apparently, Murdoch pursued a competitive strategy of “specialization”; but Ailes played the partisan political card and developed a program that factored in the fragmentation of the news audience and whose broadcasts would therefore serve the worldview of their conservative audience—rather than maintain journalistic distance and cover “both sides of the story” for a broader audience. In short: product differentiation through political ­identity. Fox understood and still understands news reporting as a competition of different narratives. “We are American, and we are taking sides.” However, it was not so much this patriotic and conservative orientation that made the channel novel. Rather, it “discovered” for television the appeal of explicitly emotional politics. Journalistic restraint went on the shelf at the latest after “9/11.” A former Fox News editor, for example, reported to the New Yorker: “The single phrase I heard over and over was 'This is going to outrage the audience!' You inflame the viewers so that no one will turn away. Those were the standards.”5 In the meantime, “empathic media” has become a buzzword for the strategic orientation of media formats to the emotional side of political conflicts. Initially, Fox News, like the other cable stations, struggled with a shrinking audience market. As recently as the 1970s, the evening primetime news on terrestrial broadcasting had reached about 90% of (adult) Americans. And in 1993, about two-thirds— after all—said they regularly tuned in to cable news; but by 2004, that number had nearly halved.6 2002, Fox ousted CNN at the top of the cable television ratings. Its programming strategy turned successful. A year earlier, moreover, Fox's The O'Reilly Factor had taken over the top spot among all US cable shows. Around 2004, the figures show an incipient polarization of viewers: Republican supporters now turned to Fox News and at the same time began to ignore other stations.7 To this day, studies Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 6  Morris, J.  S. (2005). The Fox News Factor. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 10(3), S. 56–79. 7  Ebd. S. 66.Zu Kapitel 6: Foxworld: Trumpland 129. 5 

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show that trend again and again: Americans who identify with the Republican party rely more than others on one news channel—in Fox they trust. Currently, the network realizes nearly three billion dollars in annual profits. The best ratings are delivered by the shows that define the conservative core of the channel: Fox & Friends in the morning, The O'Reilly Factor in the evening, and today Hannity, Ingraham or Carlson. These programs point to the difference to CNN: In the primetime formats, CNN predominates reportage and interview, while Fox reports person-oriented, often openly biased, scandal- and conflict-oriented. “NASCAR news” is also said in reference to the American Motorsports Association: loud, fast and always with the mythical American heartland in mind. Consistently, Hannity and broadcasts of a similar nature are understood by the station as entertainment shows. This immunizes: “Normal” journalistic rules do not apply there. No wonder the Democrats don't like the station much: “Simply put, Fox News is not a news outlet. It is a Republican propaganda machine masquerading as a news outlet that exists to elect Republican politicians and promote their positions—whatever they are at the time.”8

6.3

Fox News, Tea Party, Obama

Fox, while leaning toward Republicans from the beginning, did not immediately have a reputation as a propaganda outlet. With the presidency of George W. Bush, however, the station was seen as firmly aligned with a conservative agenda. Proper momentum was added to the relationship a few years later with the opposition to Barack Obama. He “inherited” the Tea Party with the 2008 financial crisis: a vibrant Republican platform ideally suited to anchor emotional news coverage in the conservative milieu. Murdoch and Ailes did defend themselves against criticism, asserting that they did not support any party, including the Tea Pfeiffer, Dan (2018). Yes we (still) can. Politics in the Age of Obama,Twitter, and Trump. New York: Hachette, S. 145. 8 

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Party. But that was soon taken seriously only by their own clientele, if ever. Limbaugh and Hannity seemed to have adopted the movement outright. This was extremely important to the Tea Party's initial success (especially in the 2010 midterm elections). Events like the March on Washington in September 2009 were discussed—and advertised—in detail, giving the protests a high media profile. A Los Angeles Times media journalist: “Fox has been building up to the protests with Super Bowl-style intensity. Promos promise 'powerful' coverage of an event that will ‘sweep the nation.’”9 It was quickly realized; the Tea Party delivers top ratings and opens a lucrative advertising window. Of course, other conservative networks had positioned themselves accordingly. But on Fox, in addition, the Tea Party was downright mobilized. The station ran at times under the motto “Party Like It's 1773”—nearly in a literal sense10: Under the Liberty Tree in Boston (something like the holy ground of American democracy) Hannity found historical fundamentalism and adopted the Founding Fathers. “It took more than 200 years, but it now looks like we are headed back to where we started.”11 Government, he argued, was more than just “bad” or “interest-driven.” It was tyranny. And Obama? George III, asking the “real” Americans to pay up. With Obama, the network shifted to political opposition in journalistic news formats. Main tenor: The near demise of America, which Washington was responsible for (liberal Washington, of course). There were many connections to this in practically every political field, for example that of the eco-­ terrorists, who simply cost jobs with their despotism of renewable energy.

Zit. nach Brock, D. et al. (2012). The Fox Effect. How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine. New York: Anchor Books, S. 112. 10  Lepore, Jill (2010). The Whites of Their Eyes. The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, S. 5. 11  Ebd. S. 8. 9 

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Nor did it take much of a run-up to identify the core of all evil with Barack Obama in the White House. A few days before Obama's inauguration, Rush Limbaugh had given the guideline: “I hope he fails.”12 On day two, a “disappointed” Hannity saw nothing of the promised change: “Socialism has failed.” Day three made Laura Ingraham realize that the country had not become one bit safer. Day four saw the false report that Obama had officially ended the War on Terror. On weekend one, Mike Huckabee sighed over whether this was really the change the country had chosen. Finally, on Sunday, Brit Hume gave the 1-week-old administration a piece of advice of historic magnitude: “You can't break all your campaign promises.” Such, the country was teetering toward collapse. Obama's policies were not just bad for America. He himself was simply not American. A socialist, for example. More and more, the criticism focused on the health care reform, a central project of Obama's administration. Which was not particularly surprising, since from a conservative point of view the reform had all the hallmarks of big government: paternalism of free citizens, regulatory frenzy and redistributive policies. Glenn Beck spoke of an “endgame,” a “fundamental transformation of America.”13 Certainly, viewers who relied on Fox in such matters sometimes harbored completely false ideas. A peak of distorted perception of Obama's health care reform was triggered by a Facebook post by Sarah Palin, which Fox picked up on and did not let go quickly: government commissions would soon decide in health-critical circumstances, if and when vital equipment was to be turned off or important medication was to be withheld. These so-called death panels dominated the discussion for months. About three-quarters of Fox viewers stuck with this idea.

Hier im Absatz alles zit. nach Brock, D. et al. (2012). The Fox Effect. How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine. New  York: Anchor Books, S. 92. 13  Ebd. S. 140. 12 

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One could cite a long list of similar events, such as the coverage of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in the fall of 2012—which haunted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into the election campaign. Not to mention Glenn Beck's accusation (July 2009) that Obama was a hateful racist: “This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over again, who has a deeply-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”14 In short, during Obama's presidency, Fox was not “just” a critical, conservative broadcaster, but pursued political ambitions itself. The New Yorker quoted Ailes in a background report at the time: “I want to elect the next president.”15 Over the course of Obama's two terms in office, the political television audience settled into an island paradise. Barack Obama himself spoke of a “Balkanization”: people kept to tune in stations, which confirmed their worldview.16 Empirically, that is somewhat exaggerated. But what tended to develop was indeed a polarized news world. At some point, around 2012, Fox had something like exclusive rights over the (arch)conservative America that Trump later played on. And with arrangement, Republican politicians could be (relatively) safe: They would not face unpleasant criticism at Fox—if the positions are sharp enough, that is. By the 2014 mid-terms at the latest, it became obligatory for Republicans with ambitions to be invited onto Fox's talk shows and opinion formats. The network became a kingmaker of sorts. Dick Morris, a political consultant, came up with an almost historic mnemonic on Fox & Friends: “You don't win Iowa in Iowa. You win it on this couch.”17

Zit. nach Brock, D. et al. (2012). The Fox Effect. How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine. New York: Anchor Books, S. 143. 15  Zitiert nach Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 16  Niederberger, W. (2016). Trumpland. Donald Trump und die USA. Zürich, S. 183. 17  Zit. nach Hemmer, N. (2016). Messengers of the Right. Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, S. 273. 14 

6.4  Presidential Channel

6.4

65

Presidential Channel

In November 2018, Sean Hannity memorably demonstrated how Fox News had overstretched its bias journalism. A day before the congressional elections, the Fox host announced the president's upcoming campaign speech in Missouri—not from an on-site media booth, but on the speaker's stand, enthusiastically, effusively. Right after Rush Limbaugh, who had warmed up the MAGA audience, Hannity appeared and put an exclamation mark on his first statement (his 5-min eulogy): “By the way, all those people in the back are fake news.”18 And that wasn't even meant to be funny. Later, however, he had to apologize—to employees of his own station who were standing next to the “people in the back” and were obviously indignant. Some 3 years earlier, when Trump announced his candidacy, he was initially suspected even among Republicans of running a marketing strategy for his company. Fox was also suspicious. Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal positioned itself decidedly against Trump early in the primaries. They favored Marco Rubio. However, they also observed very closely how much excitement The Donald generated in a very short time in the right-wing conservative sector of the Internet; in particular, the website Breitbart generated enormous click rates and advertising revenue with Trump and his very special campaign style. By the time Trump won the Republican nomination, Fox had lost all restraint. Even during the pre-election campaign, Hannity (by his own admission) had spoken to the candidate on the phone practically every day and advised him on media issues. The endorsement became part of the network's philosophy. Crossing the line? “No problem,” he told the New York Times, he had never claimed to be a journalist.19 Fox's “coverage” of Trump's presidency was correspondingly faithful to the flag. Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung on Hannity, and his, well, Nibelung loy18  https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/06/media/trump-rally-missourihannity/ index.html. 19  Hier zit. n. Wilson, R. (2018). Everything Trump Touches Dies. New York et al.: Free Press, hier S. 208.

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alty—it is hard to put it better: “If Trump appointed a horse to the Supreme Court, that would be the occasion for Sean Hannity to praise the president's extraordinary wisdom.”20 Early on, Hannity traded among White House Staff as “Shadow Chief of Staff.”21 There is indeed a function associated with this relationship: consulting. However, it is not as clear as one might think who is giving whom a hand, the broadcaster the president or vice versa. Hannity, but also Fox & Friends or Ingraham Angle and Carlson Tonight supported the president in different ways— and were occasionally even critical (which has led to entertaining relationship crises). While one may see in Fox News a partisan of the president masquerading as journalism, the network is more than a subservient propaganda organization. It acts as a sui generis political actor. Classic forms of adulation can be found on Fox & Friends, the morning show. Those who voted for Trump can have it officially confirmed over breakfast that they have done nothing wrong. Here, Democrat-bashing is followed by maudlin Trump celebrations, or at least polite forms of parroting. No wonder the show is considered the president's TV favorite. Coupled with a very unique facet: nearly every day, Trump picks up on topics and viewpoints being tossed back and forth on the couch there and comments on them via Twitter. That, in turn, is fed into the show with patriotic certainty by the hosts—which brings us to the rather basal moment of the Mouthpiece: They just repeat everything the president says. What unfolds here as a sometimes entertaining political-media loop, is in fact more. The president meets with his security advisers every day, as far as the agenda allows, at eleven o'clock in the morning. Now, there's something to be said for a briefing at least as significant a few hours earlier: on Fox & Friends.22 Matt Gertz of Media Matters investigated such reactions by Trump to what he 20  Zaschke, C. (2019). Zur Sache, Schätzchen. In Süddeutsche Zeitung v. 7. 2. 2019. 21  Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 22  Ebd.130 Anmerkungen.

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sees and hears on Fox in the morning.23 For example, from August 2018 to March 2019—roughly 240 days—the president responded with tweets about 200 times to things brought up on the air. And that is just for breakfast time. Two examples from early in his presidency: in mid-February 2017, shortly after his inauguration, Trump made a surprise reference to Sweden’s refugee policy. “You look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden! They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible.”24 Shortly before, a dystopian film had been shown on Fox about Sweden as a model of failed refugee policy in Europe—a country riddled with no-go areas. Tucker Carlson had expressed shock at the naivety of Europeans who simply did not want to see the correlation between rising crime rates and Muslim immigration.25 Similar action then, different topic, on March 4, 2017, Trump tweeted: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”26 Shortly before that, Fox & Friends had looked at the “National Security Establishment,” and the idea came up in an “expert talk” that Barack Obama's administration might have had wiretapped Trump's campaign team. Whenever Trump announces some form of nonsense—there is often a talk on Fox News prior to it.27

Vgl. hier und im Folgenden die Beispiele unter https://www.mediamatters. org/donald-trump/trump-has-referenced-fox-news-43-his-recent-tweets-­ about-mueller. 24  Hier zit. n. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/world/europe/sweden-­ i m m i g r a t i o n -­n a t i o n a l i s m . h t m l ? a c t i o n = c l i c k & m o d u l e = To p % 2 0 Stories&pgtype=Homepage. 25  Bennett, W. L., & Livingston, S. (2018). The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions. European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 122–139. 26  Zit. nach Benkler, Y. et  al. (2018). Network Propaganda. Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press; hier S. 153. 27  Pfeiffer, Dan (2018). Yes we (still) can. Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump. New York: Hachette, S. 164. 23 

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One might lump such things together into a category bullshit presidency. However, the Fox intervention in the context of the government shutdown at the turn of the year 2017/2018 shows that it can often be about political decisions with tangible consequences for millions of Americans. At that time, the network had taken a political line, encouraging the president to reject all compromises—advocating for his audience. When then, according to Vice-President Mike Pence, a bipartisan “deal” was as good as done, it was still rejected by Trump to the surprise of his own people: after the compromise had been extensively “problematized” on various Fox platforms.28 (Ann Coulter: “An unreserved president in a wall-less country.”) The president must have listened, so he corrected his vice president. What is emerging here has been described as a propaganda feedback loop29: Fox relies—in the wake of fierce economic competition—on clearly marked content in order to retain a regular audience in a politically exquisitely polarized environment. By its own words, the station wants to give a voice to a “silent majority.”30 To this end, it takes an unmistakable position, avoids complicated analysis, emotionalizes (e.g. by addressing resentment) and, this is the central point, follows a strict ingroup-outgroup thinking (us against them). This approach rewards—with stalwart attention— not sober facts and critical distance, but exaggeration and emotion, including anger. Trump and Fox, in other words, pursue similar goals and are similar in their means. How multi-layered this relationship can be marketed quite incidentally may again be shown by Ann Coulter; the titles of her last books: “Adios America—The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole” and “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome”—telling enough. When photos of 28  Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 29  Benkler, Y. et al. (2018). Network Propaganda. Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press; hier S. 79. 30  Cohen, R. (2019). Abwendbarer Abstieg der Vereinigten Staaten unter Donald Trump. Das New Yorker Tagebuch. Göttingen: Wallstein, S. 200.

6.5  Association of Friends

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crying toddlers were seen in the media in the summer of 2018 in the context of the highly controversial separation of children of illegal migrants from their parents, she pleaded for a zero-­ tolerance policy and addressed her point directly to the camera, directly to the president: “These child actors weeping and crying on all the other networks 24/7 right now, do not fall for it, Mister President.”31 Child actors? As an aside, contact and staff intertwining are mainstays of Trump and Fox's relationship. For example, from July 2018 to March 2019, Bill Shine, Fox's former deputy president, was White House Director of Communications (and also deputy chief of staff).32 John Bolton was a Fox commentator, as was his short-­ lived deputy, Kathleen McFarland, before Trump appointed him national security adviser. Bill Shine's predecessor, Hope Hicks, moved to the public relations department at the 21st Century Fox in early 2019. Countless former White House staffers are invited on the Talks as pundits. To the extent they have not been tainted with Trump, of course.

6.5

Association of Friends

In the US history, partisan media and those that support particular politicians are not uncommon. Along with other conservative media or personalities, Fox News has considerable defining power over what constitutes American conservatism. Fox and its special relationship with Trump are certainly central, but only one factor in a multidimensional structure. It encompasses new journalistic platforms beyond the traditional media and its online offshoots. Breitbart News is now regarded as the best-known right-wing conservative online publication—setting the style for a militant

Zit. n. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/anncoulter-fox-news-trump-immigrant-childrenchild-actors-zero-tolerance-­ policy-­a8405631.html. 32  Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 31 

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stance for a right-wing America that supports Donald Trump and his policies in the forums and on the news pages. Today there are about 3500 such tribal news or similar formats in the USA, online as well as via traditional distribution channels. Trump's enormous presence on Twitter and other Social Media (co-)determines the news cycle in this sphere to a large extent. Inherent in this cycle between Fox, the White House, parts of the Republican Congress and other right-wing media is a moment of radicalization: it is precisely those polarizing topics and arguments that are mirrored in or taken up by the political space and media landscape that guarantee attention from a right-wing conservative audience—up to conspiracy theories and paranoia. This media coalition pursues communication strategies that can be described—roughly—something like this. The mouthpiece has already been reported; it is basal: everything the president says is repeated and praised in its historical context. To this end, one must occasionally resort to the twist, the strategy of blunt double standards: what with Obama was the syndrome of socialist politics is with Trump an indication of foresight and genius. For those who might like to take a closer look at this shift in perspective, we recommend a nearly 4-min video on that Now This News published in April 2019: a compilation of critiques—of Obama.33 A (very) small excerpt: he, Obama, spends far too much time on the golf course (which costs taxpayers' money), is far too active on Twitter (unworthy of a US presidency), criticizes his predecessors against all customs, regularly uses an inappropriate tone, can't talk, divides society, behaves like a dictator with his decrees and—this nice twist at the end—even has the audacity to accuse Fox of double standards. Arguably the most effective communication strategy of Trump supporters, however, is the counter-narrative. It takes one aspect of an issue and offers a different way of reading it. For instance, Fox does not talk about immigration statistics being at a 15-year low. Rather, an invasion is imminent. Alike, Fox cannot ignore the Mueller investigation into the Russia affair, of course. But it can

https://www.youtube.com/user/nowthismedia.

33 

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sell the investigation as evidence of the deep state. And that does not mean the TV show, but the “idea” that intelligence agencies and other bureaucrats are conspiring to impose their will on Trump. The counter-narrative ideally offers sufficient potential for follow-up communication (which is enormously important in the attention economy)—e.g. the discrediting of the special investigator's staff as well.34 It is not Trump who is corrupt, but those who stalk him so penetratingly. The counter-narrative also offers alternatives: The only collusion there had been with Russia, it argues, was a Clinton affair: Crooked-Hillary, as Secretary of State, had sold nearly one-fifth of America's fissile uranium to Russia in return for fantastically large donations to her foundation. And this US nuclear sellout would be covered up by the other media; that was the tenor on Hannity one evening. By the way: In a typical pick, Trump referred the topic a little later: “Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn't want to follow!”35 In such an environment, positions harden. Moderate arguments are not rewarded by a social premium. Hannity, for example, formulated sort of a revenge reflex when Trump felt exonerated after the publication of the Mueller Report (which was to be repeated after the impeachment proceedings): “We will hold every official of the shadow state who abused his power accountable. (...) We will hold every liar in Congress accountable.”36 Now, Americans have been developing a critical attitude toward the media for decades. This trend is being accelerated in the current presidency. Since Trump took office, Americans' trust in the media's role as the fourth estate has declined significantly— Benkler, Y. et al. (2018). Network Propaganda. Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press; hier S. 39. 35  Zitiert nach Mayer, J. (2019). The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, 11. März 2019. 36  Zit. n. Spiegel online, 27. 03. 2019, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/ donald-trump-startet-rachefeldzug-nach-muellerbericht-a-1259813.html Zu Kapitel 7: Der Ersatzkönig 131. 34 

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primarily among Republicans. Only 38% of them trust “the media” to fulfill a critical role, compared to a still respectable 82% among Democrats: By far the largest difference ever measured by the PEW Research Center between the parties' supporters on the media “trust issue.”37 A concrete analysis by format and channel reveals a picture that we might expect. Republicans trust Fox News and Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or the Drudge Report: formats that Democratic partisans view with clear distrust. They, in turn, lean toward the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN, or, for example, the Daily Show—all networks, newspapers, and formats that Republican partisans reject.38 This is followed by an ideological “firmness” of political attitudes, which is also called reinforcement: Those who are polarized anyway avoid the other opinions—and stabilize their dislike. However, this does not apply to all segments of the population. People who are particularly interested in politics at least tend to perceive some opposing opinions and positions.39

https://www.journalism.org/2018/09/25/partisans-remainsharply-divided-­ in-their-attitudes-about-the-news-media/. 38  https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/10/ Political-­Polarization-and-Media-Habits-FINALREPORT-7-27-15.pdf. 39  Benkler, Y. et al. (2018). Network Propaganda. Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press; hier S. 80. 37 

The Substitute King (and His Framers)

Teile dieses Kapitels beruhen auf Bieber, Christoph, & Kamps, Klaus (2020). Das Impeachment um Donald Trump. Eine Momentaufnahme des polarisierten Amerikas. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

7.1

 Right Matter? The Impeachment and Its # Precursor

In mid-September 2019, it became known in Washington that an anonymous whistleblower from the ranks of the US intelligence services had triggered an internal whistleblower procedure: in a phone call in June, Trump allegedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selinskyi to open an investigation against Hunter Biden (Joe Biden's son). The president may have withheld aid money—money that had already been approved by Congress— until Ukraine publicly announced an investigation on (corruption allegations). Immediately, the implication was that Trump had abused his office and pressured a foreign government to gain a personal advantage in the 2020 election. The phone call itself was not in dispute. Trump spoke of a “nice” conversation; later it was always “perfect.” And of course, there was no trace of pressure on Selinskyi.

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 73 K. Kamps, Commander-in-Tweet, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4_7

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The Democrats instantly voiced the opinion that the president had finally corrupted his office and should be fired. This idea of removing him from office through a formal impeachment has been around from the beginning of this presidency. However, we have seen this before from a number of presidents: with every (apparent) scandal, the other part of the polarized states calls for impeachment. The corresponding history for Trump reads impressively (for example under #TrumpImpeachmentParty). In fact, he had to survive a crisis early on that would probably have led to a trial in Congress sooner if the majority had been different—the Russia scandal and the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. That investigation began in the first weeks of his term. The context was Russia's attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election through cyber activities and disinformation campaigns, apparently with the aim of discrediting Hillary Clinton. At least, this was the conclusion of all US intelligence agencies: CIA, NSA and FBI. In the course of initial investigations, Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, had to vacate his post (and was later indicted) for lying about his Russia contacts. To make matters worse, Jarred Kushner, Paul Manafort and Donald Trump Jr. had met with an obscure Russian lawyer in New York during the 2016 campaign. Arguably, to get incriminating material on Hillary Clinton. “Someone should have called the FBI,” Steve Bannon commented, somewhat stunned.1 What might have been dismissed as the scandals of impartial amateurs, Trump himself promoted to a full crisis when he fired the director of the FBI, James Comey. A few weeks earlier, Comey, by his own account, had been told by Trump to let it go with Flynn. He is a fine fellow, he said. “Let this go.” Also, Trump had demanded “loyalty”2 from Comey. Apparently, the director had not been able to reassure the president. His dismissal was followed by the appointment of special investigator Robert Mueller. Zit. n. Wolff, Michael (2018). Fire and Fury. Inside the Trump White House. London: Little Brown, S. 213. 2  Comey, James (2018). A Higher Loyality. Truth, Lies, And Leadership. New York: Flatiron Books. S. 255. 1 

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This early crisis united many happenings, shenanigans and people. There was Jeff Sessions, attorney general. He had immediately declared himself biased, but Trump refused to accept his withdrawal, which is why he regularly snubbed him publicly. He fired him after the 2018 mid-terms. And there is Mueller and his team, of course; they were attacked non-stop by Trump and his media allies and vilified as the Democrats' stooges. Across the board, Trump did not exercise restraint, campaigning on Twitter against the investigation as a “witch hunt” (a recurring narrative). Broadly seen, an episode in Helsinki also belongs to the Russia affair. After the summit in mid-July 2018, Putin and Trump gave a joint press conference, and both appeared united in saying there had been no Russian interference. When questioned by reporters, Trump explicitly declared that he did not believe Russians hacked the Democrats' computers. Shortly before, his intelligence agencies had presented him with just that. And Mueller had also already brought charges against twelve suspected Russian agents. Trump, however, did not condemn the Russian intrusions. Rather, he agreed with Putin, saying it was all nonsense. “It's scary,” Germany's Der Spiegel wrote. “A better ally [Putin] can hardly wish for.”3 After all, the investigations had led to indictments; in addition to the agents mentioned, against Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, among others. And above all, the investigations dragged on: almost 2 years would pass before the report was announced in March 2019. In this time span, Trump exacerbated the issue by permanently trying to influence the investigation. According to the Mueller report, worse seemed to have been prevented only because White House officials simply ignored Trump's instructions. Needless to say, the New York Times and Washington Post were heavily attacked by the White House and Trump on Twitter and 3 Der Spiegel, v. 27. März 2019, Trumps Rachefeldzug, https://www.spiegel. de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-startet-rachefeldzugnach-mueller-berichta-1259813.html.

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hit with Fake News accusations when they reported on the investigation or analyzed a detail or two. By the time the Mueller report confirmed many of the allegations in the spring of 2019, the country had heard it all. Therefore, it was not the report but the textbook perception control by Attorney General William Barr that became the real sensation. Barr used the options of his office to turn parts of the report unrecognizable to the public—and to publish a summary favorable to Trump in advance. Since Mueller could not prove any targeted, strategic collusion or even a conspiracy, Barr saw Trump exonerated across the board. That Mueller sprawled for pages on how his investigation was obstructed, how witnesses had lied and information was withheld, how intensively Trump associates sought contacts with Russians—all that Barr did not mention. Nor did he comment that the report specifically emphasized that the investigation could not have cleared Trump of charges of obstructing justice. And hardly surprisingly, either, the president, his advisers, and the media that supported him attacked the deep state immediately after Barr's summary was published. Rudy Giuliani, without any official power, threatened to punish the masterminds of the “Russia allegations.” And Sean Hannity confidently announced on his show that he would “hold every liar in the fake news media accountable.”4 Certainly, the country was accustomed to a lot when the first reports about Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president became public. And when within just a few days, there were growing indications that the president might have risked American security interests for personal reasons, the Democrats felt “historically” obliged to investigate, at least, whether the phone call had been misunderstood or whether it had been a case of reckless shadow diplomacy. On September 24, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, announced a preliminary investigation.

Zit. nach Der Spiegel, v. 27. März 2019, Trumps Rachefeldzug, https://www. spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-startetrachefeldzug-nach-mueller-­­ bericht-a-1259813.html. 4 

7.2 The Framers and the Impeachment

7.2

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The Framers and the Impeachment

On November 1, 2019, Nancy Pelosi was a guest on Stephen Colbert's Late Show and recalled an anecdote from the nation's founding days: After the Constitution was signed, Benjamin Franklin, as he was leaving Independence Hall, was stopped by a citizen and asked, “What do we have, Mister Franklin? A monarchy? Or a republic?” Franklin's famous reply, “A republic. If we can keep it.” A republic, then. If we can keep it. Democrats seemed to feel the weight of history. And the divide could hardly have been greater: While Republicans could detect at most a venial sin of Trump, Democrats sensed nothing less than a danger to the nation (if the president got away with his scheming). At the cradle of the USA stood a pronounced distrust of abuse of power. The question of how to design a system of government protected from evil characters occupied the American founding fathers (the Framers) for a long time and at length. After all, they had just gotten rid of a reasonable despot, King George III of England. The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia ultimately arrived at the formula of checks and balances.5 Also, the Impeachment is to be placed in this context: What the Framers were concerned with is deeply woven into the DNA of the United States: The liberation from the British monarchy. Arbitrary behavior and dereliction of duty, the misuse of power and tyranny were to be prevented. In particular, one feared a kind of hard-to-digest surrogate King—a demagogue, perhaps. After studying the history of law, the US constitutional fathers resorted to a British clause from the 14th century: the impeachment. It gave Parliament the right to hound the King’s ministers out of office. And how to get rid of a terrible king or president? Civil war? Backstabbing and assassination? That made the Impeachment they were reading about appear a bit more civil.6 Vgl. hierzu Schreyer, S. (2018). Präsident Trump, der Kongress und das System der Checks and Balances. In Horst, P., Adorf, P., & Decker, F. (Hrsg.), Die USA—eine scheiternde Demokratie? (S. 151–168). 6  Vgl. Lepore, J. (2019). The Invention—and Reinvention—of Impeachment. In The New Yorker v. 21. 10. 2019. 5 

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But the new constitutional order in which a president took the place of the monarch (but wasn't allowed to be one) did not take only precautions to replace corresponding characters prematurely. On the one hand, it seemed dangerous to simply wait for the next election. On the other hand, impeachment should not be instigated for short-sighted reasons virtually on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, as for other far-reaching decisions (such as foreign policy treaties or constitutional amendments), a qualified twothirds majority was written into the constitution for impeachment proceedings. However, only for the actual judgment in the Senate. The opening of the impeachment by the House of Representatives requires only a simple majority. Thus, the US Impeachment has two faces. It is easy to bring up in the House, harder to decide in the Senate: An instrument meant to be used cautiously. Given that a two-party system has developed in the USA via the electoral system, a certain bipartisan consensus is needed to throw the president out of the White House. In doing so, the Framers cultivated a broad understanding of what might be understood as grounds for impeachment. Of course, decisions that had little effect, were not perceived as “bad” by those affected, or because conduct violated common manners. On the other hand, however, everything comes into consideration which neglects the special duties of the office—not only punishable acts in the sense of the respective current code of law. Thus, the Constitution speaks of “treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors” as a prerequisite for the effort of an impeachment. So, all just a question of interpretation? In 1970, with regard to a dispute over a Supreme Court justice, Gerald Ford answered the question of what an “impeachable offense” might be: “(...) whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”7 This was already considered cynical in Ford's day. What becomes clear: The historical references during the discussions about Trump were not an academic discourse. It was meant to help frame the president's behavior within the somewhat vague constitutional formula. According to the Hier zitiert nach Lepore, J. (2019). The Invention—and Reinvention—of Impeachment. In The New Yorker v. 21. 10. 2019. 7 

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p­ revailing opinion, all this is an abuse of power, which hurts the national interests of the USA and undermines confidence in the American republic. In essence, this also means that there is no sphere in which the president can do what he wants, no sphere in which he does not have to answer for his actions.8 The president could be accused of things in his office that a criminal code does not know precisely because quite extraordinary circumstances and possibilities go hand in hand with the office. “The President has powers that only a President can exercise, or abuse. Were these powers beyond the reach of the people's power, impeachment would be a dead letter.”9 In other words, when US President Donald Trump “asks a favor” of the President of Ukraine, it is different than when The Donald does so.

7.3

The (Public) Impeachment

From the beginning, Republicans in Congress unanimously followed Trump's line of total obstruction and, fueled by tweets from the White House, presented themselves as largely united. After all, Trump—the main argument went—had not been caught with a smoking gun. The accusations were based on rumors, and were neither substantive nor justiciable. Rather, the Democrats' actions resemble a coup. Accordingly, the real scandal is an attack on the American nation by the deep state of those sinister bureaucrats who stab the elected president in the back.10 In contrast, the Democrats were never tired of emphasizing the historical significance of this impeachment: An almost desperate effort to convince the public of a coûte que coûte—the Democrats had to seek impeachment out of responsibility to the nation; there was no alternative. So, while Democrats pointed to the historic Tribe, Laurenc, & Matz, Joshua (2018). To End a Presidency. The Power of Impeachment. New York: Basic Books, S. 61. 132 Anmerkungen. 9  Lepore, J. (2019). The Invention—and Reinvention—of Impeachment. In The New Yorker v. 21. 10. 2019. 10  Vgl. New York Times v. 31. 10. 2019. A Divided House Endorses Impeachment Inquiry Into Trump. 8 

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danger America faces, Republican congressmen rallied behind Trump and his central line of defense that it was nothing but a witch hunt. Supporting Donald Trump in this situation was not merely a question of loyalty or affection, but day-to-day business in the permanent election campaign. For on November 3, 2020, America will not only vote on the presidency. The entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be newly elected. And how one had positioned oneself in the course of the investigation in Congress (or in the media), that would certainly be watched by the Republican base in the constituencies. Not to mention any comments from the president himself. Right from the start, it was also the conservative news networks, most notably Fox News, that provided their audiences with the Republican counter-narrative to what was becoming public in the investigations. In doing so, they in turn signaled to (possibly doubting) Republican senators a faithful following of the president. At the latest, the November public hearings opened the so-­ called outside game: Whereas the inside game refers to the political debate in the parliaments (and government agencies), in the outside game such persons or organizations take over the conduct of the conflict who are actually “only” observers. That two worlds unfolded on cable-TV is hardly surprising: on the day of the first hearing, Rachel Maddow opened her prime-time segment on MSNBC by saying Trump had been “caught doing something illegal” contradicts the nation's interests. Sean Hannity, on the other hand, simultaneously greeted his audience with: “a great day for the United States, for the country, for the president—and a lousy one for the corrupt, radical, extreme, socialist Democrats and their allies, better known as the media mob.”11 Interestingly, the Republicans involved in the hearings—that is, insiders—were relatively “soft” on the diplomats who testified compared to previous events; they focused on dismissing their testimonies as unreliable “hearsay”. By contrast, Fox, the outsider, was far less restrained: the network took a massive approach Hier zit. n. New York Times v. 16. 11. 2019. In Prime Time, Two Versions of Impeachment for a Divided Nation. 11 

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to witnesses like Colonel Vindman. “Experts” and hosts openly doubted his patriotism and insinuated espionage—parallel to the non-public hearings. Trump mirrored this frame in familiar fashion, repeatedly calling Vindman a “Never Trumper” on Twitter. By the time US envoy to Ukraine William Taylor testified that there was an obvious link between the disbursement of military aid to Ukraine, already approved by Congress, and an official announcement by the Ukrainian government that it was investigating Hunter Biden. Trump's overstretching of the country's security policy was hard to deny. This was followed by the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, who corrected earlier remarks and claimed to understand a quid pro quo; the former US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, and other diplomats and White House aides, all of whom reinforced the impression that the president, in conjunction with some of his advisors (including his lawyer, Rudolph Guiliani), had initiated a personally motivated shadow policy. At the heart of the Republican argument, on the other hand, was an idea that is controversial in US jurisprudence: what the president had done was no misconduct; Trump's phone call and the signals he sent to Ukraine may have been clumsy— “inappropriate” was often heard. But he could not be removed from office for that. At the same time, they were demonstratively confident of victory. And Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's lawyers in Congress, actually put forward the thesis that the president could not be impeached for a very simple reason: any action that would help Trump's re-election would be in the nation's interest and therefore could not be impeached: “If the president does something that he thinks will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”12 Somewhat consistently, Trump, forced into an unfamiliar bystander role, joined the outside game in the first week. The most vgl. New York Times v. 29. Januar 2020, Anything a President does to stay in power is in the national interest, Dershowitz says, https://www.nytimes. com/live/2020/impeachment-trial-live-01-29#anything-a-president-does-to-­­ stayin-power-is-in-the-national-interest-dershowitz-argues. 12 

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spectacular interrogation at the time was possibly that of Marie Yovanovitch, who in a nearly 6-hour-long testimony described in clear terms how Trump, Giuliani and their associates had tried to intimidate her via a character assassination campaign before the president removed her from her post as US ambassador to Ukraine. Even before that questioning, Donald Trump Jr. had called Yovanovitch a “joke.” Now, during the meeting, the president himself disparaged her. Live on Twitter. The US electorate was of course interested in the impeachment—as many polls13 underlined—but not particularly “moved.” It is a well-known phenomenon on the world's stock exchanges that even dramatic developments can cast their shadows in advance and that share prices do not jump because surprises have already been “priced in.” It was apparently similar with the impeachment: America was used to and expected a lot. Trump was “priced in.” The investigations into his possible impeachment did not cause any significant fluctuations in US public opinion. When the Senate finally had to judge, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, completely unimpressed by what was to be heard from the House of Representatives, had long since set the course and announced to close the proceedings as quickly as possible without admitting new evidence. As might be expected, this was immediately commented on as a cover up.14 Especially, since McConnell added that the impeachment could of course only end in an acquittal. That it would end that way, even if there was further testimony, Nancy Pelosi was well aware. “Regardless of the outcome, Mr. Trump will be impeached for life.”15 That sounded a bit tortured. And possibly frustrated, vgl. z. B. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/public_approval_ of_the_impeachment_and_removal_of_president_trump-­6957.html. 14  vgl. New York Times v. 7. Januar 2020, McConnell Says He Will Proceed on Impeachment Witness Deal, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/us/politics/impeachment-trial-witnesses.html?action=click&module=Top%20 Stories&pgtype=Homepage. 15  vgl. New York Times v. 15. Januar 2020, House Delivers Impeachment Charges to Senate, Paving the Way for a Trial. https://www.nytimes. com/2020/01/15/us/politics/impeachment-managers. html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage. 13 

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because even before they swore an oath to a bipartisan process, nearly every single Republican senator had announced into the microphones of the conservative media that he or she saw no reason to condemn Trump. He will have heard. When Mitch McConnell was formally presented with Trump's impeachment, he said: “This is a difficult time for our country, but this is precisely the kind of time for which the framers created the Senate. I'm confident this body can rise above the short term-ism and factional fever and serve the long-term best interests of our nation. We can do this and we must.”16 This flowery statement can also be read as part of the veil that the Republicans put over the Senate. Without hearing any new witnesses, on February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted the president on the two charges—abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Almost exactly along party lines; only Mitt Romney voted with the Democrats.

7.4

Forever Impeached?

Once upon a time in America, there was etiquette and virtue and a reflection on what the country (should) expect from its political leaders—poise, respect, fairness and clarity of purpose. “It's disgusting,” on the other hand, resounded just hours before the Senate was to acquit US President Trump in the impeachment trial. On the subject of style and dignity had spoken: Kellyanne Conway (presidential adviser) on Fox News (presidential television). “We expect more from our leaders.” Conway did not refer to more pressure on Ukraine, but more decorum from Nancy Pelosi, who the night before had expressed her personal impression of Donald Trump and his State of the Union by tearing up a copy of the speech. Camera-ready in the closing applause. “What happened to Nancy Pelosi?” wonders the on-air Conway, and of course had the answer ready: “She lost control,” this “third-grade politician,” the “level of frustration” was too high. Not (only) because of the upcoming vote in the Senate, but because she simply could not stand the successes of the president.

Ebd.

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At the State of the Union, the tribute to Rush Limbaugh, whom President Trump “spontaneously” awarded the highest civilian medal in the USA, may have left a particularly bad taste in the Democrats' mouths. In this context, “civil” is nothing but irony: Nadeam Elshami, Pelosi's former chief of staff, reminded MSNBC of all the things Limbaugh has said over the years about Nancy Pelosi in particular and the Democrats in general. To give him such a medal at the State of the Union? Unworthy! On Fox, however, it was precisely this tribute that was the emotional climax (“I cried”; “I was so touched”; “everybody should be standing up”). A production that had to be acknowledged as masterful “stage craft”: Reality TV star Trump had delivered. Still under criticism, on the other hand, was Pelosi. By ripping up the speech, she had insulted all those people Trump was mentioning in the State of the Union. And Mike Pence added the fine thought that she had basically torn up the Constitution. Nice frame, this volte-face, given what was on the Senate's agenda a day later. The Senate acquitted Trump, and press secretary Stephanie Grisham immediately guessed on Fox & Friends what was on Trump's mind now: “I think he's going to also talk about just how horribly he was treated and that maybe people should pay for that.” Witnesses, for example? If Republican senators had really believed that Trump had learned something from the impeachment (lessons learned), they were taught otherwise the morning after the acquittal at the Bible study that has already been mentioned (see Chap. 4). Nancy Pelosi? A terrible person, vicious, deceitful. Adam Schiff right along with her. And Romney had only used his religion as a justification for his vote: “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.” Apparently, no one was surprised, nor did anyone need to be, because one constant of this presidency has been and remains Trump's covering up his political opponents or even fellow campaigners who have proven to be useless with gloating, insults and threats. It took the White House less than 2 days to remove the highly decorated Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and the US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, from their posts. Both had answered the House subpoena and testified. Funny only for a

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moment, the tweet of President's son Donald Trump Jr., who thanked Sondland, after all, his testimony had laid open who else would have to be fired. Apparently, as a result, the career path was blocked of about a dozen other officials who had made “difficult” comments about Trump's behavior in the wake of the impeachment.17 Lessons learned? Most certainly. But just as certainly not the lesson that one or two Republicans might have thought of. Perhaps there had been a bit of uncertainty before the proceedings. Now Trump “knew”: congressional Republicans will stand by him, regardless what he does. That ranges from calling his opponents names to the sheer nonsense he occasionally spouts, undermining the democratic institutions of the country he pretends to make great again. “The real crimes were on the other side,” Trump tweeted on February 12, 2020—all busy getting worked up over the indictment of his old companion Roger Stone. Three weeks earlier, Covid-19 had hit America. Vgl. New York Times v. 11. Februar 2020. Trump’s War Against ›the Deep State‹ Enters a New Stage.

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8.1

Dr. Trump, Phase 1

On March 6, 2020, President Trump visited a health center in Atlanta; after a facility tour, he expressed being impressed with the testing procedures. They were not only “beautiful,” he said, but as perfect as his phone call the other day (to Ukraine). There was little sign of concern about the pandemic that was just gaining momentum. Instead, Trump discovered something new—his own personal insightfulness. Dr. Trump: “I like this stuff. I really get it. (...) Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability.” Lastly, he asked a Fox News reporter how good the ratings of the news show had been the night before.—Amazing how this works: a presidency in six sentences. Donald Trump was elected president with the “appeal” of being entirely free of any office experience. In rejecting the cool rationality of the Washington bureaucracy, one thing—in addition to his own form of public performance—helped shape his presidency: The confidence that he could manage complex procedures at the drop of a hat. Briefings exclusively spread bad moods in the Oval Office and his team defined itself with every “you-are-fired” round visibly about loyalty or the declared will to finish off the radical-left Democrats for all time. There was a common sense in the White House, a kind of real-life ideology of the pragmatism of the American heartland. © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 87 K. Kamps, Commander-in-Tweet, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33965-4_8

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In Atlanta, when Trump discovered the doctor in himself, alarm bells could already have been ringing. However, one might still understand that on January 22, when the president was apparently told about the first Covid 19 case in the USA, he first of all wanted to reassure. “We have it totally under control. It’s going to be just fine.” But as more and more details of China's precautions emerged within days, and more and more US experts publicly advised swift responses—that's when the country would have needed a clear address of the threat, and arguably one decision or two in health care logistics. Although even the intelligence agencies spoke of risks early on, Trump downplayed the threat for days. He claimed “successes” in fighting the virus and blamed Barack Obama (of course) for all the trouble to come. Even on January 30, when the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an urgent warning (“public-health emergency of international concern”), he maintained his “it-will-all-work-out-fine” stance. The following day on Fox News, he reported that they had severely (though not entirely) restricted travel to China. When asked if the government needed to do more (such as lifting regulations to increase test production), appeasement followed: This virus would only affect America slightly and soon disappear—at the latest when the warmer April weather sets in. The fact that the relatively low numbers up to that point should not be relied upon, because the testing procedures were uncertain, was not mentioned by Trump; if he was even aware of this problem. In the last week of February, the WHO reported a dramatic increase in almost three dozen countries worldwide. The president, on the other hand, remained unmoved. But then stock prices moved—down -, and the White House developed two calming strategies. First, the miraculous disappearance: “It's going to disappear. One day—it's like a miracle—it will disappear.” (February 27) The 3.4% mortality rate reported by the WHO was exaggerated and was less than 1%—according to Trump, his “intuition” (March 6). Moreover, a vaccine would soon be available (“very quickly”; February 29), the number of people affected would drop drastically (“very substantially,” March 6), and what the government was doing was “the most aggressive actions taken by any country” (February 29). Second attack: CNN and MSNBC and

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the liberal media anyway would unsettle the people and therefore the stock markets with unnecessary scaremongering. In addition, the “Do Nothing Democrats,” above all “Cryin' Chuck Schumer,” politicized the virus in the worst way. Faulty testing procedures were solely Obama’s fault. In March, the comparison was added that the virus was not nearly as dangerous as the flu, rather milder. Trump and the White House were not alone in this assessment. Who knows who inspired whom in a feedback loop: on Fox News, a medical expert, Mar Siegel, claimed on March 6: “At worst—worst case scenario—it could be the flu.” And the next day, “Judge” Jeanine Pirro commented: “All the talk about coronavirus being so much more deadly (than the flu) does not reflect reality.” The Covid 19 pandemic and the question of how to fight it became a political issue in late spring, not only in the USA. But a very exclusive US perspective—almost indicative of the state of society—was found by Fox Business presenter Trish Regan as early as mid-March: “This is yet another attempt to impeach the president.”1 Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham spoke of “scaremongering,” of mass hysteria spread by the liberal mainstream media. (As if their own station was known for cool information dissemination.) Weeks earlier, Ingraham had presented photos of Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer next to an oversized Corona molecule, commenting, “How sick that these people seem almost happiest when Americans are hurting.” Us-vs.-them thinking that was subsequently echoed by the president's son, Don Jr., who took it to new heights; he accused Democrats in all seriousness of virtually wishing millions of Americans would die just because they could not stand how much his father was “winning.” This was still at the time of the first pandemic wave in the USA. However, a master frame emerged at the time, a kind of central philosophy: the argument and notion that this administration, the Trump administration was predestined (building walls, banning entry) to stop all evil at its borders. “The virus remains low-risk Vgl. New York Times v. 13. März 2020, Fox Business Benches Trish Regan, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/business/media/trishregan-fox-hiatus. html.

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domestically because of the containment actions taken by this administration since the first of the year”—said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere to The Daily Beast on February 26. The alien virus and the USA (an island on the edge of the world).

8.2

Crisis Perception

Always at the president's side: Fox News and other pro-Trump media. After the first cases of Covid-19 became known in the USA, they essentially weighed in: What the country had to expect was hardly more dangerous than a late-autumn flu epidemic. From the Drudge Report to Rush Limbaugh, hosts and pundits were amused by the panic of the Democratic whiners: “The apocalypse is imminent and you're going to all die, all of you in the next 48 h. And it's all President Trump's fault. Or at least that's what the media mob and the Democratic extreme radical socialist party would like you to think.”2 Sean Hannity opened his broadcast on February 27 in such vivid terms. It all just fell into place: The so-called science, the mean-spirited Democrats, and their naïve, anxious fellow travelers. Polarization at its best. Another story line put the danger posed by the virus into perspective by focusing on people who were infected but had no symptoms. In one particularly “humorous” episode, Rush Limbaugh interviewed an elderly couple who were said to have been infected: “Let me ask you a question. Did you two die, and you are speaking to me from beyond the grave?”3 Cynicism and doubt made up the first phase of the right-wing conservative media's broadcasting the crisis. And even if the virus was malignant. There are other things that are, after all. Snakebites, for New York Times v. 1. April 2020, Alarm, Denial, Blame. https://www. nytimes.com/2020/04/01/us/politics/hannity-limbaughtrump-coronavirus. html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Politics Zu Kapitel 8: Krisenkommunikation 133. 3  New York Times v. 1. April 2020, Alarm, Denial, Blame. https://www. nytimes.com/2020/04/01/us/politics/hannity-limbaughtrump-coronavirus. html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Politics. 2 

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example. This was a questionable strategy—as was to become apparent—insofar as at some point the social, human and economic consequences of the pandemic could no longer be ignored. As said, partisan spectacle dominated. Joel Pollak, one of the editors of Breitbart News, seized on a doctor's warning and the scientist in her: She was, after all, the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general known from the Russia investigation. In that respect, distrust was only natural. Stephen Bannon also played along, establishing a special format of his podcast War Room: Pandemic—and lecturing on an out-of-control virus and Chinese bioweapons research. In other episodes, he attacked the WHO or speculated about a possible military confrontation in the South China Sea. This rhetoric was picked up and further fueled in the (very) right-wing conservative media. Rush Limbaugh, in late March: “Nothing like the destruction of the entire US economy by a threat from China, right?”4 On March 15, the White House changed its strategy. “A bold, new precedent is being set, the world will once again benefit greatly from America's leadership. (...) The federal government, state governments, private businesses, top hospitals all coming together, under the president's leadership, to stem the tide of the coronavirus.”5 American Leadership, announced by Sean Hannity. A few hours earlier, after weeks of downplaying, Trump had recognized for the first time that the virus was indeed “a very bad one” and “not under control,” which was why he was now declaring a state of emergency. What had moved him to do so? Probably the Dow Jones, which experienced a historic crash that day. ­Possibly, too, the disinfection measures that paralyzed Mar-aLago for days.

Zit. n. Die Zeit v. 28. März 2020. Rechte US-Medien: Waffenbrüder. https:// www.zeit.de/kultur/2020-03/rechte-us-medien-coronavirusberichterstattungstephen-­bannon-tucker-carlson. 5  Vgl. Washington Post v. 16. März 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ lifestyle/media/on-fox-news-suddenly-a-very-differenttune-about-the-­ coronavirus/2020/03/16/7a7637cc-678f-11ea-9923-57073adce27c_story. html. 4 

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Finally, recommendations were issued, for regional and municipal officials and also for the citizens themselves. The following day, he even praised the scientists and health experts—whom he had previously been quite suspicious of. Moreover, the press relations had not been really good: “We've done a poor job in terms of press relationship.” Whoever was worried about Trump's soul here, he came right back: “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” Fox's Hannity also felt compelled to make such a “clarification” on March 18: “This program has always taken the coronavirus seriously and we've never called the virus a hoax.” Nine days earlier he had done just that, literally.6 The administration's new approach was probably due to a bogeyman strategy that Tucker Carlson had been promoting on Fox News for some time: that the virus was a direct result of globalization and the Democrats' neglect of a “Chinese threat.” The crisis as an opportunity to finally make America First real. “I think we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot. This crisis has highlighted the importance of having strong borders and a robust manufacturing sector”—Trump said at a press conference in mid-March.7 Now the president “felt” like a war president and spoke of a threat to life and economy from a Chinese virus. A crisis that could possibly last into the summer after all. About 8 weeks had passed since the first known case on US soil.

8.3

Before the Crisis Is in the Crisis

A brief reminder of Scott Pruitt. During Barack Obama's presidency, as an oil industry lobbyist Pruitt sued the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dozens of times in order to undermine environmental protection measures and regulations. Pruitt was appointed by Trump in 2017 to head the EPA—and everyone in Vgl. New York Times v. 17. März 2020, Trump Now Claims, https://www. nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html. 7  Vgl. Die Zeit v. 28. März 2020, Die Waffenbrüder, https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2020-03/rechte-us-medien-coronavirus-berichterstattung-stephenbannontucker-­carlson. 6 

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Washington understood the signal. Environmental protection, science, research? Under Attack: according to an internal directive, the phrases “climate change” and “global warming” were no longer to be used; studies and data on Earth's climate disappeared from the agency's web site; and as late as the end of 2018, an estimated half of the EPA's leadership positions were still open.8 At the federal level overall, in Trump's first year in office, 46 senior agency posts to which scientists were to be appointed only 16 were actually filled.9 This may be about streamlining what is perceived as a bloated bureaucracy. But an appointment like Pruitt's was immediately read as anti-intellectualism: A now-traditional suspicion among Republicans of any expertise. In conservative common-sense America, thus, since the 1960s, it reads as a “joke”: The country would be run by professors who knew how to fight a war in Vietnam but could not decently park a bicycle.10 Trump’s idea of a lean state rests upon this distrust. In August 2019, at a Republican gala, he said: “It's nearly impossible to fire a federal worker. But by simply saying to people, ‘You know what, we're going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven of Washington, D.C., and move you out into the real part of the country,’ and they quit. What a wonderful way to sort of streamline government and do what we haven't been able to do for a long time.”11 During the transition, the anecdotes piled up: At the Department of Energy, Rick Perry took over, a person with close ties to the oil and gas industry. His first order was to find out which people had Vgl. Die Zeit v. 23. Januar 2019, Endlich ein schlanker Staat! https://www. zeit.de/2019/05/usa-haushaltsstreit-shutdown-rueckbau-staatregierung-­­ donald-trump. 9  Johnston, David Cay (2018). It’s Even Worse Than You Think. What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America. New York u. a.: Simon & Schuster, S. 138. 10  Vg. Lütjen, Torben (2016). Partei der Extreme: Die Republikaner. Bielefeld:transcript, S. 60. 11  New York Times v. 28. Dezember 2019, Science Under Attack, https://www. nytimes.com/2019/12/28/climate/trump-administration-war-on-science.html ?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article. 8 

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worked on the consequences of carbon or had participated in climate conferences—only to transfer these people to insignificant posts.12 The Department of Health and Human Services was stripped of $7 billion in its first year; the EPA's budget was cut by $2.5 billion, a slashing 23%.13 At the Department of Homeland Security, itself only acting head for months, 20 of 75 top posts have gone unfilled so far in Trump's tenure. And those are just a few examples. The state apparatus has been systematically hollowed out. Incidentally, the “Pandemic Working Group” in the National Security Council has also been dissolved. Among other things, Trump's leadership style is characterized by the rejection of any complex decision-making procedures. The White House staff quickly got used to this: Submissions that required weeks of analysis and preparatory work were simply not read or shrunk down to key words in oral briefings. Trump apparently considers career civil servants superfluous—unless he appoints them himself.14 And unlike Barack Obama, who was also interested in details of (scientific) advice, he prefers short memos.15 If anything. By the time Covid-19 set foot on American soil, the USA had long been contaminated. Of course, Washington was not left without any expertise either. For working in such an environment, the bureaucracy knows a motto: “Live to fight another day.” Carry on and endure bad policies until you can correct them later. Among the experts Trump has called on in the pandemic, Anthony S.  Fauci has become the face of the scientific approach to fighting the virus. Lewis, Michael (2018). The Fifth Risk. Undoing Democracy. New  York: Penguin. 13  Kakutani, Michiko (2018). The Death of Truth. Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump. New York: Duggan, S. 38. 14  Vgl. Hennessey, Susan & Wittes, Benjamin (2020). The Unmaking of the Presidency. Donald Trump’s War on the World’s Most Powerful Office. 134 Anmerkungen. 15  Johnston, David Cay (2018). It’s Even Worse Than You Think. What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America. New  York, USA: Simon & Schuster, S. 140. 12 

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Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Among others: Trump appointed Jared Kushner, his son-in-­ law, to head a task force to ensure the supply of medical equipment and other necessities to hospitals. In light of this appointment amid a serious crisis in the making, The New York Times wrote, “Kushner has succeeded at exactly three things in his life. He was born to the right parents, married well and learned how to influence his father-in-law. Most of his other endeavors (...) have been failures.”16 And he was also to act unfortunate in the Covid crisis. For example, he accused the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, of advising a friendly phone call to Donald Trump if he really cared about the 350,000 Covid test kits.17 But that was only in passing. Far more serious was the fact that Trump, with his distrust of any expertise and his imperturbable trust in his own instincts, was prepared neither for a scientist like Fauci nor a pandemic. From the early days of the crisis, Fauci has been far more pessimistic about the presumed course of the Covid-19 outbreak, and has been correspondingly critical of premature relaxations of protective measures. It certainly did not help the director's relationship with his president when Fauci expressed some frustration in an interview with Science magazine in March: “you just have to say things twice in the White House before anything gets done.”18 The whole problem of a polarized America cumulated on March 20, when Trump jokingly referred to the State Department as part of the deep state, and Director Fauci could be seen in the background rubbing his forehead in embarrassment. At least the gesture was read accordingly by Trump’s supporters. What fol16  New York Times v. 2. April 2020, Putting Jared Kushner In Charge, https:// www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/jared-kushnercoronavirus.html. 17  Vgl. New York Times v. 18. Juli 2020, Inside Trump’s Failure. https://www. nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/politics/trump-coronavirusresponse-failure-­ leadership.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage. 18  Vgl. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/i-m-goingkeep-pushinganthony-fauci-tries-make-white-­house-listen-factspandemic.

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lowed was a prime example of the hyper partisan information flow that currently characterizes America: a massive campaign, offline and online, a bouquet of conjectures about an “agenda not aligned with the people” and more to discredit Fauci and all the other know-it-alls right along with him. Fauci—downright proof that there can be no expertise without party-political motives? From then on, in retrospect, it is no longer possible for the United States to discuss the fight against Corona objectively and on the basis of scientific analysis and logic.19 And from then on, it is apparently possible for the president, without any warning, and without doing any major damage to his image and reputation, to recommend to swallow as a precautionary measure a fluid that otherwise serves to clean the floor. At the latest with the decision in April to leave the question of the lockdown and the guidelines to the individual states, Trump went back to his realm—and campaigns.

8.4

Crisis Campaign, Phase 2

By January 2020, the White House had cut press conferences to the bare minimum. But with the Corona crisis it is back in the daily business, as a “ratings hit,” as Trump boasted.20 Since every rally had to be cancelled (for the time being) from early April at the latest, the Nation Briefing was moved to the small room in the West Wing. It was immediately clear to the president's communications advisors that this was an opportunity: “Donald Trump is the dominant player in, and he is leading that conversation. Even visually, you still have Trump on your TV screen, in front of the White House logo in the briefing room, flanked by his advisers. Leggewie, Claus (2020). Doctor Faucis Faupax. In: Der Spiegel, v. 30. 03. 2020, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/corona-donald-trump-undanthony-­fauci-wie-politische-paranoiafunktioniert-a-d1ecd9bf-92d1-49a4-­ aed4-­e2b6b1b5c94c. 20  Vgl. Die Zeit. v. 7. April 2020, Tödliche Fehler, https://www.zeit.de/2020/16/ corona-krise-usa-gesundheitssystem-donald-trumppandemie/komplettansicht. 19 

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And then you have Joe Biden very small on your computer screen, having a Zoom conversation with Al Gore.”21 However, these daily press conferences were not as statesmanlike and ratings-rich as Trump thought and advisers hoped. Nor as exciting as one might have expected given the critical situation. Mostly, Trump read a few minutes of a pre-written statement announcing recent decisions or recommendations. Then he went into free campaign mode, ripping on Biden: the “sleepy guy in a basement.” It was like a season of Breaking Bad—getting used to the moral and social breakdown bit by bit. Romney in quarantine? How sad, of course. At the end of April, the New York Times took a closer look at the briefings of the last 6 weeks.22 After all, he appealed to national unity about 160 times—but congratulated himself and his administration about 600 times. The Washington Post, which also analyzed the briefings, ranks the behavior by minutes: Trump spoke of and about the victims of the pandemic for a full four and a half minutes. On one day alone, he spoke twice as long about a miracle cure (which medical experts immediately advised against). Self-­ praise dragged on for long 46 min. Of the 346 questions he was asked, he attacked 113. And nearly a quarter of all statements contained false or misleading information—adding up to 47 min.23 Trump, who at first did not perceive the virus as a danger, but then wanted to campaign against it as a “war president,” appeared visibly bored day after day and left it to the “toppers,” the ­accompanying experts, to answer concrete questions about the items on the agenda (“tops”). From mid-April onwards, one could Vgl. Washington Post v. 26. April 2020, 13 hours of Trump, https://www. washingtonpost.com/politics/13-hours-of-trumpthe-president-fills-briefings-­ with-­attacks-and-boasts-but-littleempathy/2020/04/25/7eec5ab0-8590-11ea-­ a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html. 22  New York Times v. 26. April 2020, »260,000 Words, Full of Self-Praise, From Trump on the Virus. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/26/ us/politics/trump-coronavirus-briefingsanalyzed.html. 23  Washington Post v. 26. April 2020, 13 hours of Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/13-hours-of-trump-the-presidentfills-briefings-with-­ attacks-and-boasts-but-little-empathy/2020/04/25/7eec5ab0-8590-11ea-­ a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html. 21 

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get the impression all this was none of his business. He is also said to have hardly ever taken part in the briefings within the White House in which this crisis situation was discussed. Instead, he shifted to identity politics. On April 16, he fired back in a series of tweets against the Democratic governors of Michigan and Minnesota. Just minutes earlier, Fox News had featured a lengthy report about demonstrations in those states—demonstrations against the stay-at-home orders, or curfews. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” Trump yelled on Twitter. The day before, his administration had released guidelines on how individual states—on their own authority—could reopen the economy and their communities. And just as if he couldn't forget something important, he followed up: “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” At the latest, Covid had arrived in US party politics. And it was not going to go away from there anytime soon. As the “second wave” of the virus led to rapidly rising infection rates in the US from mid-May onwards, it became a matter of political identity to wear a mask in public or not, social distancing or not. Trump, who had probably hoped that rapidly ramping up the economy would preserve his re-election chances, shifted to tribal campaign again. Political escalation followed biological e­ scalation.

The Deformed Presidency and Its Degraded Institutions

In the spring of 2016, as it became increasingly likely that Donald Trump would win the Republican presidential nomination, Robert Kagan published an article in the Washington Post with the ominous title “This is how fascism comes to America.”1 The conservative Kagan took a wide swipe, coupling the Founding Fathers' fear of a disenchanted mob surrendering to a demagogue to Trump—his “style” and his “resentments.” Any approach to Donald Trump's presidency arguably cannot avoid adopting a similar perspective. For if there is an overarching question, a kind of meta-theme to this administration, it is the question of the stability of the democratic institutions in the United States. Of course, there is neither a conclusive nor a short answer. In such complex social contexts, subjunctives abound. But for one's own understanding of the events in the USA, it nevertheless seems useful to condense what has been said so far, in order to arrive at a cautious assessment. All of this should remain strictly focused on the USA—although the thought may resonate what all this means for modern democracies in general.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascismcomes-to-­­ america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html.

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The Democratic Process (The Election)

Less than three weeks before the election 2016, in the final televised debate, Donald Trump responded to a question about whether he would concede if he lost: “I will look at it at the time. I will keep you in suspense.” Needless to say, there was plenty of excitement about that answer. Especially, if you were Hillary Clinton. However, the answer may not be the sole problem, but the question itself, too. Apparently, candidate Trump had already given cause for concern in the run-up to the debate. Yet, the issue of voter fraud has been discussed in the USA for generations. It is nothing new, per se. Moreover, for decades lawyers and political scientists have also been engaged in election law reform, including the abolition of the Electoral College. Since voting rights have a strong federal component, such reforms are, after all, quite unlikely. Conceivable, but difficult. Regarding the question to Trump: It was probably asked in anticipation of a defeat of The Donald. Given the polls at the time, that was likely. In this respect, the question aimed more at the behavior of Trump and his supporters in the face of a victory by Hillary Clinton. Possibly they were worried about public uproar, protests and the like after a (very) hard-fought election campaign in which Trump had constantly threatened to lock up Hillary Clinton. Trump being president, the question of the acceptance of election results arises from a completely different perspective. There are problematic issues to be mentioned. In the tradition of overt but subtle election interference, this presidency saw an attempt to use the census to influence the possible realignment of electoral districts. This can only be hinted at, especially since it does not directly affect the upcoming presidential election. What is becoming exceptionally significant, however, is the question of the legality of absentee votes. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, there are considerations and measures in many states to expand absentee voting and to facilitate access. This is being fought vehemently by the Trump administration—but so far unsuccessfully in the state

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courts. Republicans see absentee voting as a structural disadvantage, as it is more likely to make it easier for potential Democratic voters to go to the polls. That being said, it may be these changes to the absentee ballot that a losing candidate could use to challenge the election in November 2020. What is striking about Trump himself is that his administration has not only permanently denied that there was any Russian interference or even manipulation—it has also not taken any precautions to prevent (or at least make more difficult) any future interference or manipulation. The fact that Trump seems to have no problem in principle with being supported by a foreign government needs no further mention in view of the impeachment.

9.2

Publicity and Social Integration

The social philosopher Karl R. Popper once said with regard to democratic debate: “If there were no Babel, one would have to invent it.” Generally speaking, modern societies are characterized by a high heterogeneity of values and political ideas. Deliberative democracy absorbs this by means of a culture of tolerance that allows disagreement but does not demonize different opinions. Deliberation requires access to information and analysis, public platforms for reflection of viewpoints. An extremely pragmatic notion, an arch-liberal “idea” of the Enlightenment: any absolute claim to “truth” is replaced by diverse publicity and peaceful debate. For the United States, this sounds like a relic of philosophy. And it's not just Fox News that needs to be thought of. Political communication in the USA is characterized only to a small extent as a kind of soliloquy of society (which may be controversial). Rather, tribal talk predominates: reading, listening, watching, broadcasting and thinking along party lines. This is encouraged and even forced by a fragmentation of the audience and by the high degree of commercialization of the media system itself. This was not invented by Trump, but it has not harmed him either. On the contrary: his presidency is based on the polarization of the American public. However, this is precisely what gives

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r­eason for hope. For unless everything is deceptive, more and more advertisers (and corporate employees) are putting pressure on, say, cable channels or online platforms to take measures on radical political positions. This is not a broad movement, but it is a development nonetheless: explicitly with an eye on Trump and the very specific mechanisms of “his” public sphere.

9.3

Polarisation and Integration

Of course, there is no reference in the Constitution to “decent behavior” or anything like that to be expected of the president. Probably this is true of all constitutions around the world. They are not supposed to be that specific (and personal). However, larger as well as smaller societies and communities usually assume the validity of informal norms that are neither written nor up for individual disposition. Apart from the purely political surprise, the worries about Trump's presidency was probably (also) due to his disregard of such codes of conduct. He could only act so under the special conditions of the disunited States of America. Polarization has been addressed in this essay in some detail. What has not yet been mentioned: In the USA itself, there is a growing willingness to bridge the gap between the parties. This is especially true of the less extreme-­ minded segments of the population. For example, all over the country reach-out meetings are being organized in which people with different party affinities get together explicitly on the understanding that they will hear something from “the other side.” This is of course difficult—especially since, as has been discussed, polarization is an exceptionally social and emotional phenomenon. In this respect, there is certainly a trend towards reflection on this problematic situation, but overcoming it is not easy and, above all, will take a great deal of time. Moreover, a larger part of the nation seems to be quite entrenched in its political attitudes. Racism plays its own role in this context and is a deep-seated problem that is difficult to overcome. The question of polarization, the power of integration and the cohesion of society must then be assessed ambivalently: On the

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one hand, it could well be that, under favorable conditions, a moderate president will integrate society bit by bit; on the other hand, it is equally conceivable that a less moderate politician could have learned from Trump's presidency and drive the nation further apart through strategically disintegrative policies. Possibly to a degree where democracy itself is up for grabs. But this point must remain somewhat blurred.

9.4

Legal Status

Shortly before Donald Trump took office in January 2017, his predecessor Barack Obama was asked on how he would handle comments about Trump. After all, the new president was expected to reverse many of the decisions he made while in office (which he did). He would, Obama said at the time, only speak out if fundamental values of America were in jeopardy. And indeed, he kept a low profile—somewhat surprisingly, as Trump did everything to revise Obama's policies. In addition, he never missed an opportunity to attack his predecessor. Not just on the merits, but personally, too. Then, in mid-May 2020, Obama did finally criticize Trump: after the Justice Department decided to drop all charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. A move that made clear, Obama said, that the basic consensus on the rule of law in the USA was in jeopardy. “That's the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic—not just institutional norms— but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”2 As is well known, the construction of the US system of government provides for a mutual check and balance of the powers of the state. This does not merely aim at assigning to each branch a clearly delimited sphere in which they can (under certain conditions) do what they want. Rather, the powers relate to each other—hence, checks and balances. In order to shape this relationship (and to suppress particularistic claims to power), ­informal 2  Zit. n. Washington Post v. 10. Mai 2020, Obama says end to Michael Flynn case puts rule of law at risk. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/09/obama-michael-flynn-call/.

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norms have been established alongside formal norms (and this over some 250 years of maintaining relationships). It is common, for example, for the government not to exert influence on the Department of Justice and subordinate agencies, that is, not only to respect but to protect their independence. This informal space has been invaded by Trump, with the support of Attorney General Barr, not only in the Flynn case. And with the support of Congress. Because it is comprehensible in the chronological sequence how this understanding of personal justice first emerged in the course of Trump's presidency. With the Russia affair, which Trump himself initially believed would cost him his presidency, and then even more so with the acquittal in the impeachment by the Senate, Trump became more and more confident that he could use the institutions of the rule of law to his own ends without any resistance. Supported, as said, by William Barr. Barr was asked by a reporter in early May 2020 how he thought future generations would judge the release of Michael Flynn, how they would assess the process that cleared Trump's former national security adviser. “History is written by winners,” Barr answered. “So—it largely depends on who's writing the history.” The New York Times framed this as a perversion of justice.3 Drastic words—but carefully chosen: It is such procedures and processes and the “ideas” of power and justice behind them that probably pose the greatest danger to the American democracy.

Vgl. New York Times v. 9. Mai 2020, William Barr’s Perversion of Justice, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/opinion/sunday/michael-flynn-­ william-­barr-justice-department.html.

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Mission Accomplished: On May 1, 2003, when George W.  Bush declared the end of the Iraq war on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, some miles off the coast of California, few Americans were impressed. Even when it became known that the carrier had made an expensive 180-degree turn to ensure a camera-­perfect exposure to light, no one doubted the point of the exercise. Rite and staging are a traditional part of the US presidency. However, history not always follows the purpose: George W. Bush with his all too hasty proclamation on the aircraft carrier—an historic symbol of the disaster of US foreign policy in the Iraq. On June 1, 2020, as if inspired by Bush, Donald Trump delivered an image with similar implications. A photo of tremendous self-exposure. St. John's: a scene that would transmit something like spiritual power to the beleaguered president? What was meant to be a demonstration of his law-and-order position laid bare without any twist: He takes a dim view of law unless it benefits himself. Shortly before Donald Trump was pictured with a determined facial expression in front of the small “Church of the Presidents,” the police in Lafayette Square had enforced the expansion of the protective zone around the White House with tear gas. After a thorough analysis of the event, it was not just church officials protesting; everything indicated that the rights of the protesters were being violated so that the president could show strength—by

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holding a Bible up to the cameras for 2 min. As if it was about to burst into flames, the Bible.1 After all, Defense Secretary Mark Esper was relatively quick to distance himself. And his predecessor, James Mattis, warned in a guest editorial in The Atlantic that the president was once again dividing the country, and doing so “willfully.”2 Three years of Trump had done “serious damage” to the country, he said. Frankly: America was used to it—warnings about Trump lacking a moral compass, about the consequences of his policies. Probably more thought-provoking was a remark by Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country's highest-ranking military. Milley was part of the entourage that accompanied the president on his photo shoot. Because he wore field uniform when he booted through the just-cleared Lafayette Square, he had taken some nasty criticism. Milley apologized—and added, as if it was to be mentioned, the US military would of course continue to stand on the ground of the Constitution. On July 4, 2020, Trump went all-in. He put all his eggs in one (campaign) basket at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota: on National Day, he ranted about the “radical left, Marxists, and troublemakers” who wanted to eliminate America's freedom and loot it under the “banner of justice.” He attacked the Black Lives Matter movement for being “power-hungry” and trying to erase the “American heritage.” They would be defeated, just as “American heroes” had “defeated the Nazis” in the past.3 “Even for Trump, this was a radical speech, a thinly veiled declaration of war on one part of the population, in a place of national unity.”4 Vgl. Washington Post v. 15. Juni 2020, New questions about Trump’s ugly Bible stunt hint at some dark truths, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/15/new-questions-about-trumps-uglybible-stunt-hint-some-­ dark-truths/. 2  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-­ denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/. 3  Vgl. z. B. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/trumpspraesidentschaft/ wahlkampf-und-eigenlob-trump-holt-am-4-juli-gegen-seine-gegner-­ aus-16846518.html. 4  Die Zeit v. 8. Juli 2020, Der Abstieg. https://www.zeit.de/2020/29/donald-­ trump-­us-wahlkampf-black-lives-matter. 1 

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Trump's Clash of Civilization: he picked up where he left off in the summer of 2015. Aggression, enemy images—despite the Corona crisis and even in the face of nationwide anti-racism protests that grew into the largest demonstration movement in US history. Once again—another constant of his presidency—observers puzzled over what kind of person he actually is, what kind of character: That Trump lacks important qualities believed to be a necessity for a head of government of a democratic state. Since 2017, the “Field Manual” of the US Army has been cited on various occasions, with relish. Trump apparently lacks all the qualities listed there as premise for officers: “Trust, discipline, critical thinking, self-awareness, empathy.”5 Over the years, countless comparisons and expeditions into the depths of his personality have been added. From himself, too. In April 2020, the president came under renewed criticism when, in the midst of the Corona crisis, he claimed his authority was “total” and, in the same breath, dismissed governors who hold other opinions as “insurgents.” In a tweet, he advised Democrats among them not to mutiny. As refreshing as that could be from time to time, he said: at the end, they wanted something from him (medical supplies, for example). Remarkably, even after more than 3 years in office, how Trump framed this blunt threat: The Mutiny on the Bounty was one of his favorite movies, and the captain was not to be trifled with either. So Trump compared himself to the brutal Captain William Bligh. Whom his crew put into a lifeboat in the South Pacific in 1789 and wished him no good. Possibly just evidence of Trump's ignorance? After all, the mutiny on the HMS Bounty (in the movie) was caused by the captain's tyranny. Perhaps something like self-understanding touched the president? The idea of his Johnston, David Cay (2018). It’s Even Worse Than You Think. What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America. New York u. a.: Simon & Schuster, S. 258. 5 

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presidency? Fear was the title of Bob Woodward's first book about this administration. In the spring of 2016, Trump as a candidate had revealed to him: “Real power is (…) fear.”6 It's not far from that quote to questions of a vulnerable democracy. Whether and how democratic institutions have been damaged by the Twitter presidency has been debated. Given the aggressive friend-enemy coding of the political world by Trump and his supporters, one occasionally finds comparisons to fascist regimes. Looking at Trump's idiosyncrasies, his even non-­political oddities, a different comparison seems at least intriguing. Trump resembles Kaiser Wilhelm II, the pre-modern German monarch who had to be permanently prevented by his staff and advisers from making any major nonsense. The Washington Post drew this striking parallel after only a few months. Josef Joffe picked it up for Die Zeit, Dirk Kurbjuweit for Der Spiegel, and Torben Lütjen wonderfully explored it in detail in his latest book on America. Only Trump does not derive his legitimacy from the divine tradition of his “house” but from the people. In other respects, he only lacks the Prussian spiked helmet. Otherwise—president like emperor: without any inner peace, morally as well as politically freelancing, unrestrained, self-satisfied and downright addicted to applause, uniqueness and (military) appearance. Diplomatic incidents, scandals and affronts in a row, and both made use of the media of their time: what Twitter is for Trump, telegrams were for the emperor. Both were, or are, nervous rulers with every indication of being completely overwhelmed with their respective times.7 6 Woodward, Bob (2018). Fear. Trump in the White House. New York u. a.: Simon & Schuster, S. xiii. 7  Vgl. Washington Post v. 1. Mai 2017, Germany used to have a leader like Trump, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/germanyused-to-have-aleader-­like-trump-its-not-who-you-think/2017/05/01/0dd9cce8-2e88-11e7-­ 9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html; Die Zeit v. 16. Mai 2019, Wilhelm II. der USA, https://www.zeit.de/2019/21/136 Anmerkungen donald-trump-­ wilhelm-­ii-parallelen-vergleich; Der Spiegel v. 27. 06.2020, Was Donald Trump mit Wilhelm II. verbindet. https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/was-donald-trump-mit-wilhelm-iiverbindet-a-1bd8bff6-f7dc-­46be8992-­daa3d0834c55; Lütjen, Torben (2020). Amerika im kalten Bürgerkrieg. Wie ein Land seine Mitte verliert. Darmstadt: Theiss, S. 174–186.

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Certainly, such historical parallels are to be read rather metaphorically. Anyhow, the emperor only went into exile in Doorn, the Netherlands, after the First World War and the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century, which he had amply fueled. Although indignant about his people who deposed him, he did so peacefully. We will see what happens in Washington in November 2020: When Trump will lose the presidency. (Let's imagine that for a moment). At Fox, all dams are likely to burst: In March 2019, Glenn Beck had described his vision of a post-Trump era to Sean Hannity: “If the Republicans don’t win in this next election, I think we are officially at the end of the country as we know it. We may not survive even if we win, but we definitely don’t if the Republicans lose with Donald Trump.”8 The end of the country? Presumably it will be far less emotional than feared. It is conceivable that Trump will leave the White House insulted but upright—only if Biden wins in a landslide. If it is close and important states were captured by only a few votes, Trump is unlikely to accept defeat. He would most certainly seek the courts, #GreatestElectionFraudEver, and just stay at the White House until January 20, 2021. #OccupyWhiteHouse. And probably then, with everything focused on the steps of the Capitol, he will skip Joe Biden's inauguration and demonstratively stroll across the street (which has been cleared for him) to check in. At the Trump International, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Vgl. Frum, David (2020). Trumpocalypse. Resoring American Democracy. New York: Harper, S. 75.

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