More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Trump has cared deeply—maybe most of all—about being the center of national attention and about his “ratings” as president. Unlike no-drama Obama, his White House has made a point of dominating media coverage and the national conversation, no matter what the cost.
It has long been clear that no spectacle is more absorbing than a fight, and the centerpiece of the White House’s media strategy, at least in its early days, was continuous warfare, both figurative and literal.
It has long been understood that a good story must be both surprising and unsurprising at once.
An inferior product can beat a better or cheaper product with enough advertising or if the consumer never becomes aware that there are alternatives.
Attentional contests are in that sense logically prior to any decision on the merits. Strictly speaking, they determine what options or choices seem available.
After four (or maybe two, or maybe eight) years of riveting developments and a blowout finale, the administration will be gone, leaving little in its wake beyond occasional cast reunions and “where are they now” columns.
The history shows that dominating mindshare is a classic strategy of influence, because the sheer volume of messaging allows the leader to drown out alternatives, transform minds, and begin changing the rules of the game itself.
Trump’s decline may be less Nixonian and more like the fate of Paris Hilton, who was never defeated but, rather, forgotten. That is this president’s greatest fear: not of scandal or humiliation, but of being ignored.
The past half century has been an age of unprecedented individualism, allowing us to live in all sorts of ways that were not possible before. The power we have been given to construct our attentional lives is an underappreciated example.
