A Study in Performance Politics

TO A MAN whose identity has been intertwined with entertainment ever since the hugely successful reality show The Apprentice and indeed what catapulted him to eventually becoming US president, every press conference is a performance.

When Donald Trump took the stage against the media in Delhi, it was no different to him but for Indians, unused to his style, it was nothing they had ever seen a head of state do before. For instance, his picking on a representative of CNN and railing against the network like an angry teacher giving a dressing down to a schoolboy in class. What Indians are not acquainted with is also the journalist responding in tone as an equal.

To a question by the CNN reporter on whether he would pledge not to take assistance from a foreign country in the forthcoming US presidential elections in the light of Russian interference the previous time, Trump began by saying that he needed no help from any country and then switched over to the insult. He said that CNN had apologised to him, “in a way, didn’t they apologise for the fact that they
said certain things that weren’t true? Tell me what was their apology yesterday?”

To which the reporter’s cool retort, “Mr President, our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours.”
Trump then: “Your record is so bad, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Reporter: “I am not ashamed of anything.”
Trump: “You probably have the worst record in the history of broadcasting.”

He then went on to answer the question without skipping a beat now that the ritual of the joust was over. Also, consider that this happened despite Trump, with foreknowledge about himself, prefacing the press conference by stating that he will be “not all controversial” because he didn’t want to blow his trip’s achievements on one answer: “One little answer. Like John will ask me one simple little question and you will blow it out and that will be the end of the trip.”

You might be forgiven for construing that what followed was not really as non-controversial as promised. He spoke against a US Supreme Court judge who wrote a dissenting judgment against his administration saying, “It’s almost what she’s trying to do is take the people that do feel a different way and get them to vote the way that she would like them to vote.” He accused the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives of leaking confidential information to assist his Democrat opponents in the presidential elections. He said the US could easily win in Afghanistan as against getting soldiers to come back if he wanted to kill millions of people but he didn’t want to kill millions of people, subtly suggesting having toyed with a nuclear weapons option.

To Trump’s credit, he was relatively non-controversial. From him this was less than the norm. Where he did hold true to his non-controversial word was on matters related to India. He point-blank refused to comment on the Citizenship Amendment Act and didn’t get drawn into anything on Kashmir. To questions on the violence that was unfolding in Delhi and accusations of religious persecution in India, Trump said he had discussed it with Modi. “And he [Modi] said that in India they have worked very hard to have great and open religious freedom. And if you look back and look at what’s going on, relative to other places especially, but they have really worked hard on religious freedom. I asked that question in front of a very large group of people today. And he talked about it; we talked about it for a long time. And I really believe that’s what he wants,” said Trump. Narendra Modi could not have found a bigger defender than Trump. Repeated questions drew more effusive praise. This might be the reward that comes from giving Trump a massive welcome that he could take back home to furnish his global credentials as indicated from this answer, “I think I can say, virtually, from the plane to whatever venue we were going to, it was wall-to-wall people. They’ve never seen anything like it. Somebody said it was the greatest greeting ever given to any head of state from any country.” There is no way to know whether that is true but in Trump’s world, the reward of performance is perception and he had more than enough of that.

Donald TrumpIndia visitIndo-US relationsNarendra Modi