Donald Trump, Andy Kaufman & Tony Clifton Revisited: When it's time to break character
I may not have been the first person to compare Donald Trump to Andy Kaufman or his alter-ego, Tony Clifton back in 2016, but I think I was among the first. I revisited the comparison on a few occasions, and amid the world being tossed into chaos with coronavirus, I think the time has come to revisit the comparison once again. I can't just link back to my first Tony Clifton post from The Unmutual Political Blog, which is no more. Sorry. (Do I look like a guy with a plan?) So, I suppose some explanation may be required once again.
Andy Kaufman was a genius. Whether he was a comedian, a performance artist, or something else, was never exactly clear. He was, however, a genius. Among his greatest creations was the character of Tony Clifton-- a blowhard lounge singer. Clifton was actually a terrible singer, and his schtick was to go on stage, sing badly, act belligerently, insult the audience, throw glasses of water at anyone he deemed insufficiently worshipful of his genius, and always, always act as though he is, in fact, a real person. Kaufman took the bit so far that he never admitted that Clifton was a character. In order to make the bit stick, his writing partner, Bob Zmuda, would occasionally perform as Clifton so that Kaufman and Clifton could appear together, allowing Kaufman to maintain his insistence that Clifton was real.
Unrivaled ego amid gross incompetence, nonstop belligerence, bullying his own audience and anyone who attempts to challenge him, and essentially a fake character masquerading as a real person. Also, a womanizer.
Here's a quick clip of Clifton on stage, being belligerent, unfunny, full of himself, and needlessly getting into a fight with an audience member, because that was the "Tony Clifton" act.
Look familiar?
Since Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy, the ongoing question has been the extent to which he is Clifton, or the extent to which he is Kaufman acting as Clifton. Is there an Andy Kaufman underneath the act? Is there a real person underneath the constant posturing, belligerence, and essential phoniness of the performance? When all you see is someone who never seems to break character, how do you tell? After all, Kaufman's schtick was never breaking character anyway. Kaufman would never admit that Clifton was a character.
How you tell, as I suggested several times in the 2016 campaign, back on The Unmutual, was that there are times when a strategic and intelligent actor would would break character. The thing about Kaufman was that, however we characterize him, he was a performer, and the essence of Kaufman was maintaining his schtick. He needed to keep up the act, or he just wouldn't be Andy Kaufman anymore. Sacha Baron Cohen learned everything he knows from Andy Kaufman. As a performer, though, the incentives were never there for Kaufman to say, OK, ya' got me, Clifton is a character, and that's me underneath the wig and makeup. Darn. And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids.
I don't even know how to devise a scenario in which the incentives would be there for Kaufman to do that. So, he never did, because he had the discipline as a performer.
Donald Trump is President of the United States. As I have written on many occasions, a president matters primarily in times of crisis. One should be very careful of metaphors, but here's a reasonably good one. Captain Hazelwood. If you are captain of an oil tanker, on the open ocean, with no storms, you can be drunk off your gourd, and it won't really matter. There is a crew, automation, and no actual physical dangers nearby. However, add the dangers of a rocky coast, and choppy waters, and a drunk, incompetent captain matters. That's when the resulting oil spill from the Exxon Valdez does real damage.
So, does it matter if the captain is actually a drunken idiot, or just faking it? That depends on whether you are on the open ocean in calm waters, or facing the Alaskan coast in choppy conditions. The captain who is just goofin' around can sober up when needed because it's an act. The actual drunken idiot can't, and badness ensues. That's not to say it is a good idea for an oil tanker captain to pretend to be a drunken idiot, but it is at least a little less dangerous when the tanker is on the open ocean with calm weather. And if it's an act, at least the captain can drop the act when circumstances require it.
The point is that there is a time to drop the act, and sober up. If there's an Andy Kaufman underneath the Tony Clifton, there's a time to get rid of the wig, drop the act, stop throwing drinks in people's faces, stop picking fights with the audience, and be a real person.
The first three years of Donald Trump's presidency were marked primarily by the unfathomable luck that has characterized his entire life. Born to wealth and privilege in every way, that same luck characterized three years as President. Despite his constant lying about the state of the economy, crime and everything else prior to his inauguration, his inheritance as President was about as fortunate as his inheritance as a child. The economy kept growing at the same clip, unemployment kept dropping at the same clip, the stock market kept growing at the same clip, and so on. No more. As I have written many times, presidents do not centrally plan an economy. That is the point of capitalism. The purpose is to make presidents, and government in general, as irrelevant as possible. They only matter in times of crisis, and for three years, Trump didn't have one.
Then, his luck ran out. The biggest crisis in many years hit. Take your pick for where coronavirus ranks. This beats 9/11, easily, in my opinion. The financial crisis of 2008? Unemployment is going to surpass that, so we're probably past that. Great Depression? WWII? I wouldn't go that far, but if we're at a crisis bigger than 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis, we're already in major history territory.
Welcome to a moment in history. This is when presidents matter.
FDR? Lincoln?
Trump?
Now would be a good time to drop the Tony Clifton act, if it's an act. If there's an Andy Kaufman underneath there, it's time. Remember when Trump bragged about how easy it would be to be "presidential?" Do you think now would be a good time?
I'll just turn to the daily briefings, and there are so many moments I could pick. Let's take this one, as an example.
"Don't be a cutie pie." Trump attacking a journalist is basically a dog-bites-man story, or more frequently, a dog-bites-woman story, particularly if the petty insult is the word, "nasty." Does this moment come across as vaguely Clifton-like? Any time a journalist presses Trump at all, he goes Clifton. He has explicitly instructed Pence, who is charged with overseeing some of the coronavirus processes, not to deal with governors, unless they are sufficiently obsequious.
This is not a partisan critique. Ohio's Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, has been one of the models of effective governance during the coronavirus crisis. He has taken the matter seriously, acted quickly, and while I have strong concerns about the legal process of postponing the primary before the State Supreme Court ruled on the matter, I do think he was right on the substance. And he has been telling the truth. DeWine is concerned, first and foremost, with protecting people in Ohio. I honestly, truly, feel safer as a resident of Ohio with DeWine doing the job as he is doing.
Right now, DeWine's approval rating in Ohio is almost 80%. Trump had a brief, small bump, he never cleared 50%, and he is back down to 45%. All he is doing is all he has ever done-- act like it's Festivus, gather 'round his Festivus pole, and air grievances.
I suppose I can marvel at a success for public opinion and democracy that DeWine is getting the credit he deserves, and Trump isn't. (Although, those 45%...)
In contrast, though, consider Viktor Orban. Hungary has gone full-dictatorship. The poster-country for Levitsky & Ziblatt's thesis on democratic backsliding has seen its authoritarian demagog use the coronavirus crisis to consolidate all power in the country for himself. He is now a full-blown dictator in a country that no longer has any semblance of democracy. The argument that Levitsky & Ziblatt made is that authoritarian demagogs in a democracy simply hollow out democratic institutions and leave the shell of a democracy with no substance. The appearance of democracy with no real democratic constraints. Orban used the coronavirus crisis to get rid of the charade.
What is worth pointing out here about Trump is that he isn't really doing much to exploit the coronavirus crisis the way Orban did. Why not?
Orban wanted true power. Trump? He's Clifton. What he is revealing is that he is actually less dangerous than many people-- myself, and Levitsky & Ziblatt included-- have argued, because he is concerned, not with the direct consolidation of power, but with the show.
That doesn't make him harmless. Democratic institutions have been hollowed out, and that has been deeply destructive. Regardless of whether they were hollowed out for the sake of Orban-style consolidation or Clifton-ian ego, they were hollowed out. However, Trump has not used coronavirus the way Orban has because his interest is more in going in front of the cameras and being Clifton than in doing what would need to be done behind the cameras.
One of the ideas currently circulating is the notion that authoritarians will handle a crisis like coronavirus more effectively than democratic governments. As a social scientist who views policy through the lens of tradeoffs, my response is that I am willing to see what the data tell us, with the caveat that authoritarian governments will often lie about the data. That said, let's watch. Authoritarian or not, now would be a good time for an actor playing a character to drop the act. Trump isn't doing that. Why not? Plainly, because he can't. There's no actor underneath the act. He is Tony Clifton. "Don't be a cutie pie." That's so Tony Clifton, and far from an isolated incident. You know who isn't doing that? Mike DeWine. Is DeWine an authoritarian? That's going to be a hard case to make. How will the data come out when we do cross-national comparisons at the end of this thing? Right now, it's looking like the US will do badly. Why?
A lot of reasons. At least part of it will be Trump. He's somewhere between Tony Clifton, Captain Hazelwood, and Frank Costanza. And as with Frank Costanza, every time he speaks, Steve Bannon gets a check.
At least we know he isn't really Viktor Orban, though, right?
Andy Kaufman was a genius. Whether he was a comedian, a performance artist, or something else, was never exactly clear. He was, however, a genius. Among his greatest creations was the character of Tony Clifton-- a blowhard lounge singer. Clifton was actually a terrible singer, and his schtick was to go on stage, sing badly, act belligerently, insult the audience, throw glasses of water at anyone he deemed insufficiently worshipful of his genius, and always, always act as though he is, in fact, a real person. Kaufman took the bit so far that he never admitted that Clifton was a character. In order to make the bit stick, his writing partner, Bob Zmuda, would occasionally perform as Clifton so that Kaufman and Clifton could appear together, allowing Kaufman to maintain his insistence that Clifton was real.
Unrivaled ego amid gross incompetence, nonstop belligerence, bullying his own audience and anyone who attempts to challenge him, and essentially a fake character masquerading as a real person. Also, a womanizer.
Here's a quick clip of Clifton on stage, being belligerent, unfunny, full of himself, and needlessly getting into a fight with an audience member, because that was the "Tony Clifton" act.
Look familiar?
Since Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy, the ongoing question has been the extent to which he is Clifton, or the extent to which he is Kaufman acting as Clifton. Is there an Andy Kaufman underneath the act? Is there a real person underneath the constant posturing, belligerence, and essential phoniness of the performance? When all you see is someone who never seems to break character, how do you tell? After all, Kaufman's schtick was never breaking character anyway. Kaufman would never admit that Clifton was a character.
How you tell, as I suggested several times in the 2016 campaign, back on The Unmutual, was that there are times when a strategic and intelligent actor would would break character. The thing about Kaufman was that, however we characterize him, he was a performer, and the essence of Kaufman was maintaining his schtick. He needed to keep up the act, or he just wouldn't be Andy Kaufman anymore. Sacha Baron Cohen learned everything he knows from Andy Kaufman. As a performer, though, the incentives were never there for Kaufman to say, OK, ya' got me, Clifton is a character, and that's me underneath the wig and makeup. Darn. And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids.
I don't even know how to devise a scenario in which the incentives would be there for Kaufman to do that. So, he never did, because he had the discipline as a performer.
Donald Trump is President of the United States. As I have written on many occasions, a president matters primarily in times of crisis. One should be very careful of metaphors, but here's a reasonably good one. Captain Hazelwood. If you are captain of an oil tanker, on the open ocean, with no storms, you can be drunk off your gourd, and it won't really matter. There is a crew, automation, and no actual physical dangers nearby. However, add the dangers of a rocky coast, and choppy waters, and a drunk, incompetent captain matters. That's when the resulting oil spill from the Exxon Valdez does real damage.
So, does it matter if the captain is actually a drunken idiot, or just faking it? That depends on whether you are on the open ocean in calm waters, or facing the Alaskan coast in choppy conditions. The captain who is just goofin' around can sober up when needed because it's an act. The actual drunken idiot can't, and badness ensues. That's not to say it is a good idea for an oil tanker captain to pretend to be a drunken idiot, but it is at least a little less dangerous when the tanker is on the open ocean with calm weather. And if it's an act, at least the captain can drop the act when circumstances require it.
The point is that there is a time to drop the act, and sober up. If there's an Andy Kaufman underneath the Tony Clifton, there's a time to get rid of the wig, drop the act, stop throwing drinks in people's faces, stop picking fights with the audience, and be a real person.
The first three years of Donald Trump's presidency were marked primarily by the unfathomable luck that has characterized his entire life. Born to wealth and privilege in every way, that same luck characterized three years as President. Despite his constant lying about the state of the economy, crime and everything else prior to his inauguration, his inheritance as President was about as fortunate as his inheritance as a child. The economy kept growing at the same clip, unemployment kept dropping at the same clip, the stock market kept growing at the same clip, and so on. No more. As I have written many times, presidents do not centrally plan an economy. That is the point of capitalism. The purpose is to make presidents, and government in general, as irrelevant as possible. They only matter in times of crisis, and for three years, Trump didn't have one.
Then, his luck ran out. The biggest crisis in many years hit. Take your pick for where coronavirus ranks. This beats 9/11, easily, in my opinion. The financial crisis of 2008? Unemployment is going to surpass that, so we're probably past that. Great Depression? WWII? I wouldn't go that far, but if we're at a crisis bigger than 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis, we're already in major history territory.
Welcome to a moment in history. This is when presidents matter.
FDR? Lincoln?
Trump?
Now would be a good time to drop the Tony Clifton act, if it's an act. If there's an Andy Kaufman underneath there, it's time. Remember when Trump bragged about how easy it would be to be "presidential?" Do you think now would be a good time?
I'll just turn to the daily briefings, and there are so many moments I could pick. Let's take this one, as an example.
"Don't be a cutie pie." Trump attacking a journalist is basically a dog-bites-man story, or more frequently, a dog-bites-woman story, particularly if the petty insult is the word, "nasty." Does this moment come across as vaguely Clifton-like? Any time a journalist presses Trump at all, he goes Clifton. He has explicitly instructed Pence, who is charged with overseeing some of the coronavirus processes, not to deal with governors, unless they are sufficiently obsequious.
This is not a partisan critique. Ohio's Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, has been one of the models of effective governance during the coronavirus crisis. He has taken the matter seriously, acted quickly, and while I have strong concerns about the legal process of postponing the primary before the State Supreme Court ruled on the matter, I do think he was right on the substance. And he has been telling the truth. DeWine is concerned, first and foremost, with protecting people in Ohio. I honestly, truly, feel safer as a resident of Ohio with DeWine doing the job as he is doing.
Right now, DeWine's approval rating in Ohio is almost 80%. Trump had a brief, small bump, he never cleared 50%, and he is back down to 45%. All he is doing is all he has ever done-- act like it's Festivus, gather 'round his Festivus pole, and air grievances.
I suppose I can marvel at a success for public opinion and democracy that DeWine is getting the credit he deserves, and Trump isn't. (Although, those 45%...)
In contrast, though, consider Viktor Orban. Hungary has gone full-dictatorship. The poster-country for Levitsky & Ziblatt's thesis on democratic backsliding has seen its authoritarian demagog use the coronavirus crisis to consolidate all power in the country for himself. He is now a full-blown dictator in a country that no longer has any semblance of democracy. The argument that Levitsky & Ziblatt made is that authoritarian demagogs in a democracy simply hollow out democratic institutions and leave the shell of a democracy with no substance. The appearance of democracy with no real democratic constraints. Orban used the coronavirus crisis to get rid of the charade.
What is worth pointing out here about Trump is that he isn't really doing much to exploit the coronavirus crisis the way Orban did. Why not?
Orban wanted true power. Trump? He's Clifton. What he is revealing is that he is actually less dangerous than many people-- myself, and Levitsky & Ziblatt included-- have argued, because he is concerned, not with the direct consolidation of power, but with the show.
That doesn't make him harmless. Democratic institutions have been hollowed out, and that has been deeply destructive. Regardless of whether they were hollowed out for the sake of Orban-style consolidation or Clifton-ian ego, they were hollowed out. However, Trump has not used coronavirus the way Orban has because his interest is more in going in front of the cameras and being Clifton than in doing what would need to be done behind the cameras.
One of the ideas currently circulating is the notion that authoritarians will handle a crisis like coronavirus more effectively than democratic governments. As a social scientist who views policy through the lens of tradeoffs, my response is that I am willing to see what the data tell us, with the caveat that authoritarian governments will often lie about the data. That said, let's watch. Authoritarian or not, now would be a good time for an actor playing a character to drop the act. Trump isn't doing that. Why not? Plainly, because he can't. There's no actor underneath the act. He is Tony Clifton. "Don't be a cutie pie." That's so Tony Clifton, and far from an isolated incident. You know who isn't doing that? Mike DeWine. Is DeWine an authoritarian? That's going to be a hard case to make. How will the data come out when we do cross-national comparisons at the end of this thing? Right now, it's looking like the US will do badly. Why?
A lot of reasons. At least part of it will be Trump. He's somewhere between Tony Clifton, Captain Hazelwood, and Frank Costanza. And as with Frank Costanza, every time he speaks, Steve Bannon gets a check.
At least we know he isn't really Viktor Orban, though, right?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-threatens-to-adjourn-congress-to-get-his-nominees-through/2020/04/15/e3bfc4c6-7f6a-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html
ReplyDeleteAk just saying.
You do realize that Orban now has the formal authority to declare which laws are enforced, which laws aren't enforced, and to do so indefinitely, right? And opposition parties are basically banned, right? And he controls nearly all media in Hungary, right? I'm not saying Trump doesn't want that kind of power. He clearly does, but he's too lazy, stupid, and obsessed with haranguing CNN to take them over because... lazy and stupid. SO lazy. SO stupid. Yeah, this is bad. Democracy is done for here, long term. But, Orban has moved the process further along, by far. He is neither lazy nor stupid.
Delete