The Trumph of the Will
(Posted in Primaries too. Cause I couldn't make up my mind where this went.)
I wanted to make a couple related observations about this Donald Trump debate drama.
First, an admission.
When I heard last night that Trump was pulling out of the Fox News GOP primary debate I was quite certain he had every intention of finally attending tomorrow night's event. The point was simply to engineer 48 hours of cable news drama, begging by Fox News, all topped off by Trump finally deigning to attend the event after all the other players had been sufficiently humiliated. But unless the man is managing a far better bluff than I can imagine, that is clearly not the case. It also seems clear it was never the case. I see no evidence that Trump fumbled this gambit or boxed himself into a non-attendance he didn't intend. Being a no show was the plan.
I can't say that I know how this is going to play out for him. But I thought this was an important moment to revisit an issue I've discussed in various posts going back over a dozen years. In the present context I would put it like this: Pundits and political obsessives tend to get distracted by process and policy literalism. But politics generally and especially intra-Republican political battles are really about demonstrating dominance - not policy mastery or polling leads but a series of symbols and actions that mark the dominating from the dominated.
I've seen various people say, 'Well this is awful for Trump. He's missing his opportunity to make his closing argument to Iowa caucusgoers!' But that's not getting what's happening. Maybe this will be a disaster for Trump. But it won't be because he missed out on 15 minutes of airtime.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-trumph-of-the-will