Donald Trump, Twitter, and the Rapid-Fire Sales Technique
Although President Obama was the first “Twitter President,” Donald Trump’s use of the medium is different from almost anything else we’ve seen in modern politics. The same day as an important intelligence briefing on Russian interference in the US election (January 6, 2017), he began the day by trolling The Celebrity Apprentice. He contradicts himself repeatedly (a lot — see, for example, lists at Politico and The Telegraph) and moves between topics quickly, leaving many pundits scratching their heads at what he’s doing and satirists drooling over their material, as the spike in SNL viewership can attest. But the satirists, in the end, are just as confused as the pundits. Satire in this vein is funny because it’s confusing. It portrays itself as “understanding,” when it’s really throwing up its hands in disbelief. But particularly since Trump spokesman Sean Spicer has said that Twitter use will be a key element of his presidency, let’s try to understand better what Trump’s doing.
Among the many catastrophes visited upon us in 2016 was the loss of Umberto Eco in February. This public intellectual began his career as a scholar who focused on art and philosophy in the Middle Ages, but is perhaps best known for his novels (his 1980 The Name of the Rose identifies him in countless obituaries). He was also, however, a prolific essayist and active political commentator during the time of Silvio Berlusconi’s second stint as Italian Prime Minister from 2001–2006 (many of these essays were collected and translated in the 2007 Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism, particularly pages 131–41).
In September 2003, Eco wrote this: he “is an entirely new kind of politician, perhaps a postmodern one, and precisely because his actions are baffling he is bringing into play a complex, shrewd, and subtle strategy, one that demonstrates nerve and intelligence — …the unerring instincts of a salesman… The salesman doesn’t care whether his discourse hangs together, he hopes you will take an interest in some feature. Once you have fixed your mind on that, you will forget everything else. So he uses all arguments, one after another at machine-gun speed, unworried about any contradiction that may result.” Indeed, the statements themselves are often intentional provocations that guaranteed him media attention. The bravado of those statements intentionally unleashes his supporters to follow his example and, when his political opposition called him out, allowed him to claim persecution and build group solidarity that helps hold his coalition of supporters together (and ensure he’ll receive more media attention). The rapid-fire succession of different statements constantly shifts the focus of attention away from what was just said and to the new thing, while simultaneously serving as trial balloons, testing the boundaries of what’s acceptable. If no one reacts, he pushes farther. If people do react, we’re told to take him “seriously but not literally.” In summary, he controls the terms of the debate, forces the opposition to stay on the defensive, and leaves the media disoriented, forcing them to chase innumerable different threads at the same time so they can’t spend enough time on an issue to clarify for their readers/ viewers.
Although the analysis in the previous paragraph was directed at Berlusconi, the parallels are striking — so striking in fact that I’d argue we should consider Eco’s essay as apocalyptic of Trump’s Twitter account. I don’t mean that his essays reveal some religious truth. Instead, along with the great medievalist/ novelist Bruce Holsinger, we should think of apocalypses as only visible in retrospect. In other words, Eco’s analysis wasn’t prophetic — not intentionally talking about the future — but it is apocalyptic in helping us unlock a puzzling contemporary moment. Certainly, when he was writing those essays in 2003–2004, Eco had no idea that Twitter would come into being in 2006 or that Donald Trump would be such a popular (and, to many, puzzling) user of that medium, but Eco did know something about a rich, corporate, celebrity, pseudo-populist, anti-immigration, nationalist media figure who ascended to the top of his country’s political pyramid. And Eco did suggest some ways out, some ways to resist Trump’s rapid-fire sales technique that Twitter seems to have been invented for.
To read Eco’s analysis “apocalyptically,” applied to the contemporary American political moment, one can’t, as some have said, simply ignore his tweets. They are indeed the statements of the President-Elect and are prophetic of policies that might soon be implemented. One can’t, as others have suggested, take them deadly seriously and report them earnestly on the front page. This is precisely what Trump is counting on — the outrage that keeps the story alive, allows him to claim persecution, etc. Instead, what Eco suggested was to give Trump’s tweets the headlines they deserve, not simply parroting what he said. Retweeting and responding on social media should focus not on satire or mockery (which only makes the choir feel good) but instead on pointing out the contradictions, the facts of the case, and most importantly the real underlying issues involved in the policies Trump is suggesting.
To the loyal opposition, Eco suggests they must consistently counter Trump’s pronouncements but then shift the playing field. Stop playing by his rules. Respond with positive provocations. Go big. The Senate Democrats’ proposal to force Trump’s Cabinet to release their tax returns is a step in that direction, as is their new proposed legislation banning Trump’s proposed Muslim registry. But go further. Offer a real alternative. Propose legislation to expand Obamacare and Medicare. Renew the commitment to social justice that forged the Obama coalition to expand voter protections, end abuses in the criminal justice system, and protect equal pay. Support grassroots efforts at the state and local levels to show the popular support for these alternatives. Most importantly, the lesson we should take from Umberto Eco is that everyone should first and foremost understand the rules of this game, the underlying strategic architecture of Trump’s rapid-fire tweets. In other words, we all need to recognize the tweets for what they are: they’re a sophisticated discourse with a tried-and-true pedigree, the core of a pushy salesman who’s trying to sell his product (in this case, himself) by conjuring an imaginary world, without regard for what we as a country actually want or need.
(This is a slightly expanded version of one that appeared in the January 22, 2017 The Roanoke Times.)
