HOW MY BRAIN LOCATED DONALD TRUMP ON GILLIGAN’S ISLAND
On the assumption that confession is good for the soul, here goes: I was a fan of Donald Trump’s reality television show, The Apprentice. I have many excuses: my wife and I were trapped at home with small children who had to be in bed early to get ready for school the next day; before Netflix there wasn’t a lot to choose from on cable TV; I was laughing at Donald Trump, not with him.
But truth be told, for several years I made the cartoon-like contestant show a part of my weekly television ritual. Watching Donald Trump and his clownish entourage of would-be entrepreneurs proved a deliciously frivolous way to wind down at the end of a stressful day.
The Apprentice appealed to the same part of me that once upon a time liked the show Gilligan’s Island. As a child I didn’t need to believe that that Gilligan, the Skipper (too!) and the motley crew really survived for years on that deserted isle — I still got a kick out of their shenanigans. The very point of the program was to suspend disbelief and enter a parallel universe, a pretend reality.
The Apprentice ricocheted between the real and the surreal in much the same way. Some of the challenges Trump set for the contestants seemed challenging, even substantive, while others reminded me of my days as a Cub Scout. Trump himself was fun to watch — at times kind, even endearing; at times cruel and petulant.
God help me, but Trump’s presidential campaign has lodged itself in the same part of my brain. I click through to find out what outrageous thing the Donald has said the day before. I wonder who will follow in the footsteps of the characters who are (for me) the “good guys” — the disabled reporter, the offended women, the grieving parents. And I also follow the people who are (for me) the villains — the spineless politicians who have hitched their wagons to the Trump train, the rabid crowds who apparently want nothing in life as much as they want to “lock her up” and “build the wall.”
On the night before Hillary Clinton’s climactic speech at the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump sent what appeared to be a fundraising email to his supporters. But the central ask of the email was not to send donations — the central ask was that his supporters refrain from watching Clinton’s acceptance speech. Trump wanted to be able to claim that more people watched his speech than Clinton’s. And indeed, the next day, Trump tweeted precisely this, citing the results as proof of his campaign’s success.
This is the novel calculus with which Donald Trump has apparently determined to construct his presidential campaign. His goal is nothing more than “views” and “likes” and “re-tweets” and television ratings. In this way of orienting to the world, success demands that he do whatever needs to be done to ensure that “Trump” is the biggest word in the word-cloud at the end of the day.
Can this approach to mass market media consumption translate into turn-out at the ballot box? Trump seems to think so. After all, he beat sixteen opponents in the Republican primary, and he seems utterly enthralled by that experience, as if it can be replicated in perpetuity.
I don’t remember exactly when I stopped watching The Apprentice. I remember concluding that Trump was not play-acting. His character, who lacked all character, was no “character” at all. Buffoonish, loud-mouthed, self-aggrandizing — these were not qualities the Donald embraced for one hour a week. Rather, they represented how he truly operated in the world. Eventually I became — along with millions of others, it seems — sufficiently disgusted by Donald Trump that I stopped tuning in.
Donald Trump’s campaign for President might as well have been launched as a reality show called “The Candidate.” Thankfully, it appears the endless media coverage is having the effect of fast-cycling us through the equivalent of six seasons, which is how long The Apprentice lasted on NBC. The latest episode — Hillary Clinton’s smack-down in the first presidential debate — did not go well for Trump, and I am trusting that by November 8 most viewers will have simply grown tired of it.
My greatest hope is that someday I will be able to look back on 2016 as I look back on earlier phases of my life as a consumer of mass media. Someday, when I rummage through that corner of my memory I hope to find, standing next to the impish Gilligan, that consummate know-nothing and narcissist, Donald Trump.
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