President Donald Trump has lost one of the very few things he became famous for, New York Magazine's Sarah Jones argued in an analysis published on Friday.
Specifically, she argued, he's lost his ability to put on a show.
This became obvious with the long string of disasters that befell his Great American State Fair, Jones wrote.
"A mock-up of Trump’s triumphal arch oozed a puslike substance, and a robot dog danced alone in the mud. Nearby, the reflecting pool sat green and full of algae, lethal to ducklings and irresistible to protesters, who demonstrated next to it in costume." Meanwhile, Trump's D.C. prosecutor Jeanine Pirro got an indictment against an Olympian for "touching a piece of the pool’s disintegrating bottom liner," while "two days before the storm, a portion of the stage broke off and nearly struck dancers who were in the middle of a rehearsal."
None of this would have been seen at a Trump celebration of old, argued Jones, which, despite their chaos, were bombastic and grandiose.
"Trump’s tastes have always been entertaining, if garish. Lately, though, the seams are fraying," she wrote — and the State Fair disaster is "almost the least of it." The problem, she said, is that "if Trump can’t throw a good party or make everything golden, what’s left? Loyalists have leaned on MAGA for glitz and a little excitement.Without spectacle, the future of the movement is in jeopardy."
Back in 2015-16, wrote Jones, "Trump made the mob laugh and channeled its libidinal hatred," and his rallies almost had a similar quality to megachurches. He captured the same energy as the far-right Tea Party rallies in the early 2010s, as well as the segregationist rallies of George Wallace. That isn't the case anymore, she argued — he has their politics, but not their spirit.
Ultimately, Jones said, "There won’t be a mass epiphany within MAGA" — but there is a slow burn as many of them lose the magic and feel "the sense of being had." The president "understands his vulnerability, on some level, which is why he is obsessed with the size of his crowds," she concluded — because "In the absence of spectacle, corruption and cruelty are more difficult to ignore."