Trump and Farage are politicians for the post-TV age

Their apparent authenticity and tolerance for controlled anarchy leave their opponents looking tired and staid

When we say someone is a good “TV politician”, what do we mean? We perhaps think of someone like John F Kennedy who marked himself out as a youthful and energetic agent of change while being mired in corruption and battling ill health

And often, in my view wrongly, we think of Donald Trump. Unlike JFK, Wilson or Cameron, Trump is not playing a sanitised version of himself on television. 

Rather, Trump’s gift is to give a performance that looks more authentic than his rivals. 

For Trump to look authentic, it is necessary for Scott Bessent to look a fool whenever he explains why the latest presidential outburst actually does make sense

Stephen Bush Financial Times 20 May 2025

https://www.ft.com/content/c5a00787-6c67-4eec-a76f-b3e5fedc4826


How Trump wields and uses attention.He’s a master at it.

Democrats Are Losing the War for Attention. Badly

The notion now is that at every single moment when you are competing for someone’s attention, you are competing against literally every piece of content ever produced.

Chris Hayes just wrote a great book called “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.”

https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/01/how-trump-wields-and-uses-attentionhes.html


The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes: 9780593653111 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books



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