
Spicer is our onnagata here, a press obstructionist playing liaison, the liaison playing obstructionist. Any reading of Spicer helps Trump, as his inversion of the V-effect seeks to highlight the theater so effectively that it blinds the audience from seeing anything behind the theater. The more time Acosta spends stamping his foot on the White House lawn, the more completely the press briefing is exposed as a scripted farce. This is something larger than simple misdirection or distraction. If the White House briefing is boiled until it has no meaning but still remains in place, it acts as a bollard in front of the White House. This theater of security — which is also Spicer’s actual role, a thug protecting thugs — suggests there is something worth securing. All these layers — Trump playing Trump, Spicer playing cop — need only harden and delay those seeking to cut through them. Whether there is anything behind the layers matters only if those layers fail and the American theater of theater is still standing, all four walls intact.