The Miser of The Attention Economy

 This John Dickerson piece examines how Trump has dominated the attention economy since he came on the scene. He does it by trolling and blustering and shattered norms - norms, by the way, that were really pretty solid. You really shouldn't shit on a Gold Star family. You really shouldn't say we are no better than Russia (though that is now accurate in some ways). Trump's political power stems from his utter shamelessness to say and do things that no other occupant of the White House would dream of.

Ultimately, the question will become "Can someone else harness that power of shameless attention-grabbing behavior?"

I think the answer is most likely no. 

The first and most obvious reason is that people are largely sick of Trump's shit. One of the appeals of Joe Biden was his basic decency. I do think that a fundamentally decent candidate will have a lot of appeal in 2028. I do not think the GOP will be able to nominate someone like that, because increasingly, Trump creates the reality within the GOP electorate. Sure, some Republicans are creating distance, like I noted yesterday, but that distance isn't from Trump, but rather the "bad boyars."

So, I think some preening jackass like Ron DeSantis or some other creature will emerge from the Republican side. In fact, if I were an ambitious but relatively decent Republican, I would sit 2028 out. If this backlash grows, Republicans will be toxic by 2028. On the Democratic side, I think the aggressiveness of a Gavin Newsome will not be as appealing as the sort of earnest decency of a Jon Ossoff or a Pete Buttigieg. 

Meanwhile, Trump - I believe - is finding himself starved of attention and adulation. That's why he wants to make the midterms about himself and have rallies. It's also why he's banning news organizations from the White House Press pool. Frankly, the only proper response from every legitimate news outlet is to boycott the White House pool. Trump is "making headlines" by banning CNN, but if the Times and Post and Journal and ABC and NBC all boycott his press briefings, then it will be HIM who is starved of oxygen.

The press has been abysmal during the Trump years - as a broad institution. They insist on analyzing his vomitous utterances as policy or as coherent statements of presidential intent. This guy is incapable of being forthright and honest, but the press treats him as if he were a normal politician who bends the truth and occasionally bends it too far. That's...incompetent.

So, they should just boycott the lie-filled hatefest from the briefing room. They can cover what is being said but what does their presence there add? If they ask a legitimate probing question, they will be lied to and called names. Why are they there? Nothing of value comes from their presence.

Instead, they should strike back by denying Trump the one thing he truly craves and which they conspire to give him: attention.

The proper way to deal with a misbehaving toddler is to place them in time-out. They want attention, even negative attention, so you deny it to redirect their behavior. 

Toddler-in-chief Trump needs a time out.