A Little Piece

In case you missed it, President-Elect Donald Trump lumbered before the cameras to deliver a rambling, incoherent press conference today.

It was a sobering reminder of what the last Trump administration was like, especially during the COVID days, when Trump used the crisis to claim the spotlight each night and just riff on whatever batshit insanities were rattling around the rusted trash can he calls a brain. And, sadly, it was a sobering reminder of what’s to come, as we’ll surely have to endure endless iterations of this clown show in the months and years to come.

And make no mistake, these press briefings will continue to get constant coverage by the media. It doesn’t matter that they usually involve no actual information that the American people need and, in fact, often involve serious misinformation that the American people definitely do not need. It doesn’t matter because the political media no longer sees its role as one of educating viewers about the vital issues before the nation; it sees its role as one of entertaining viewers instead, and no one is more entertaining than the shoot-from-the-hip stand-up insult comic known as Donald Trump.

As CBS Chairman Les Moonves said in a quotation that historians will weld to his name forever, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

They’re good for the media in a couple ways, in fact. The spectacle of the live show draws an audience, as it appeals both to adoring MAGA fans who worship their cult leader and to horrified liberals who hate-watch him with an almost similar intensity. But the idiotic claims he makes — injecting bleach cures COVID! windmills cause cancer! — likewise launch endless fact checks that get a lot of clicks for a little work. (I have all the respect in the world for the pros who fact-check Trump, but quite frankly, it’s a lot easier to write “Uh, No, Canada Doesn’t Want to Be the 51st State” than it is to draft an article explaining the details of the Inflation Reduction Act.)

And today’s press conference has done this two-step in style. The briefing, which was held — of course — at the tacky golf club he owns in Florida, drew massive amounts of live cable news coverage and repeatedly updated reports from major newspapers and magazines. (As I’m writing this at 8pm, the New York Times is somehow still updating its article on the Mar-A-Lago briefing, apparently discovering exciting nuances that escaped them earlier.)

True to style, Trump fired off some truly wild suggestions. The topline insanities were all foreign policy adventures, ranging from committing “economic warfare” to conquer Canada and not ruling out military force to conquer Greenland. (Congrats to everyone who voted for Trump because he was the “anti-war” candidate.) But there was some smaller craziness, such as a rant against Biden’s ban on gas water heaters and, playing a classic for his fans, Trump’s perennial complaint about windmills.

As you’d expect, these claims were all then dutifully fact checked by journalists who surely paused in the middle of their draft to wonder how their illustrious careers arrived at a rushed draft of “Actually, We Have Ships in the Pacific and Don’t Need to Seize the Panama Canal.”

And another news cycle is set, responding to the inanities of the incoming president.

I’m not saying we should ignore Trump — as the man in control of the American military, his crazier instincts need pushback for sure — but we also shouldn’t obsess over his every movement and muttering. There’s going to be an awful lot of this in the next four years and we’re all going to need to pace ourselves if we want to survive.

So yes, the president laid out an insane “expansionist plan” today. But it’s such a joke that you might as well watch this head of state discuss his “expansionist plan” instead.