Back in the day, in this case the early 1980s, radio shock jock Howard Stern was driving scolds, prudes and nannies crazy with his antics on WNBC in New York. Stern’s success and the loyalty of his listeners, as the story goes, was parsed by radio executives as being driven by “I wanna see what he’ll say next.”
Fast-forward to May, 2017, and Donald Trump (who appeared on Stern’s show about two dozen times) is eliciting a parallel form of attention and interest. Of course, Stern was a radio personality while Trump is the leader of the free world, so the fascination is a bit more of the horror or outrage sort, as in “I’m afraid to hear what he’ll say (or tweet) next.” A shock-President might be a bit more disconcerting than a shock-jock.
If you’re an ardent Trumpkin, the outrage that others express probably fills you with the same insider/loyalist glee that Stern’s ardent supporters felt, and calls for his ouster probably make you as angry as the FCC’s efforts to silence Stern made his fans feel. If you’re an ardent Trump hater, it seems that every day brings a fresh outrage, a new example of how the man is unhinged, or power-mad, or compromised, or secretly plotting to do harm to the nation for personal enrichment and aggrandizement. If you’re somewhere between the two extremes, you may be weary of the constant excess, both by him and about him, and suffering from informational or emotional overload. It can seem that everything is spinning out of control, or that there’s a fresh crisis every day, or that the nation’s unraveling before our eyes. I’ve immersed myself in political debate for the past decade, and I cannot recall a time I’ve felt closer to simply closing it all off just because it has worn me out.
That’s not the correct answer, obviously. Trump’s the President, not a guy that you can safely ignore by changing the station or hitting the “off” switch. Despair not, however. There is a way to manage the degree to which Trumpiness burns your brain cells:
Stop listening to him. Stop reading his tweets. Stop listening to the endless dissection by the talking heads on news channels. Stop listening to the Trumpkins. Stop listening to the Trump-Deranged. Step out of the immediacy of the 24 hour news cycle, the twitter-verse, the instant reactions and commentary.
Instead, focus your attention on what he does, not what he says. The words that come out of a President’s mouth matter in the moment and immediate aftermath, but their impact fades with time. And, as time goes on, we will probably find that the world grows increasingly accustomed and inured to Trump’s verbal looseness and sloppiness, and that his record of saying X then doing Y will grow us into the habit of paying less heed to X.
In doing so, you’ll also avoid the tendentious and partisan dissections that matter as little as that which he said. It is the deeds that matter. The effects of his legacy will be found in the legislation that emerges, in the executive orders he has signed and will sign, in the people he appoints, and in the actions those people take. Trump’s words might seem of enormous portent or outrage in the moment, but his history has made it clear that he won’t feel beholden to them later on.
In addition, and this is vital, don’t try to process him whole. Trump is, as I’ve noted many times, an untethered id. He has shown no consistent political or philosophical ideology, and no un-severable anchor to any particular policy position or campaign promise. This makes it very difficult to build a complete political portrait or find an ideological filter through which he can be parsed.
Treat his actions, instead, as NYU Law Professor Richard A. Epstein recently wrote, “a la carte.” Consider that even NeverTrump conservatives are pleased by his choice of Neil Gorsuch for the Court, for example. Libertarians like his moves toward deregulation. Pro-union Democrats like his withdrawal from TPP and his “buy American” tendencies. Many on both the Right and the Left praised Trump’s decision to launch a passel of cruise missiles at Syria in response to chemical weapon attacks. Conversely, each of these actions are viewed negatively by other constituencies, and unless you’re either the ardent Trumpkin or the ardent Trump hater, both of whom are engaging in cult-of-personality over rational judgment of actions, it’s certain that you’ll find Trump actions you agree with and Trump actions you disagree with. Personally, I think he did as well as imaginable by nominating Gorsuch, I like many of the executive orders that roll back government intrusiveness and regulation, I like that he’s turned the executive branch away from its hostility to carbon energy, I like that his FCC pick is reversing the Net Neutrality BS, I like that his Education secretary is pro-school-choice, and I like the bones of the tax plan he’s put forth. I don’t like the warmongering, I don’t like that he wants to spend more on defense, I REALLY don’t like AG Sessions’ directive re the War on Drugs, I don’t like his bullying of American businesses to repatriate jobs against rational economic sense, and, while it’s hard to find the concrete amongst the chatter, I don’t like the handling of illegal immigrants so far.
Take care not to treat a la carte as a score card, however, where tallies on either side of the line can be compared against each other, and where net success might be judged by that tally. But, a la carte does seem the only way to get a handle on Trump without going nuts trying to figure him out or stay abreast of current events. It’s also the only way to stay sane in the maniacal maelstrom of rhetorical excess that’s clogging cable news and the Internet. Actions are harder to cloud and misrepresent than words are, and actions aren’t easily waved off or re-parsed to mean something else.
So, if you’re weary of the Trump-media circus, go ahead and tune it out. It’s OK, you really won’t miss much that matters in the long run. Just pay attention to what he does, to what Congress does, to what the Supreme Court does, and to what his Cabinet does. You’ll increase the signal-to-noise ratio of your data stream immensely, and you’ll become both a better informed and a calmer citizen in the process.
And, when your weariness has subsided, you might be able to retune your personal filters, to where you realize that, somehow, the Republic will survive the Trump era, that this is not the End of Days, and that the best way to enjoy the circus is with a tasty beverage and a bucket of popcorn.
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