Trump Campaign Rallies And Presidential Imagery

Donald Trump kicked off the 2020 election season with a campaign rally in Florida last night. These campaign rallies enable Trump to keep lines of communication–besides his Twitter account–open to his faithful; they rejuvenate his ego, one presumably battered by the endless ridicule heaped on him by his political opponents; they enable him to switch from his usual self-pitying moaning to his preferred mode of narcissistic boasting; they allow him to send out a message that will be faithfully amplified by a media eager for ‘newsworthy events’; he is, after all, the President.

If the staging of these rallies is any indication, they will supply a stream of rhetorically powerful imagery–the awesome paraphernalia of the American Presidency is now Trump’s to command–that will animate his public presence over the next four years. Trump is not just any ordinary candidate now; he is an elected President running for reelection, supported by a party which controls both houses of the legislative branch.

The American polity should have thought long and hard about how it has, over the years, allowed the pomp and circumstance of the Presidency to continue to increase to levels that resemble those of the monarchs of days gone by. Servant of the people? I think not. Those who occupied the Oval Office before Trump have left many loaded weapons lying around for him to use: the disregard of the legislative branch in the declarations of war; disrespect of the judicial branch; and of course, a wallowing in the perks and privileges of residency in the White House.

During the 2012 election season–in response to Charles Blow criticizing Mitt Romney for speaking ‘rudely’ to Barack Obama during a presidential debate–I made note of how we seemed to have become excessively reverential of the presidency, and by association, of presidents too:

Blow feels the need to remind us, in a tone of reverential, devotional awe: ‘the president of the united states!’ Is he hoping to make us fall on our knees? This is the president, the unitary executive, the person put in place to ensure a republic which would otherwise do just fine with a legislative branch also possesses an entity capable of making snap decisions. Why, then, the need for such excessive deference?

Blow is not alone in these constant provisions of reminders to respect and be suitably awed by the president and his office. The White House, the presidential galas, the gun salutes; these are archaic expressions of monarchical times gone by. But the president is a political leader; he has arisen from conflict; he presides over conflict. It’s acceptable to be in conflict with him and his office. The president can be disagreed with, he can be debated; he needs to explain himself and his actions like anyone else. Disagreements with the president need not be confined to print, they can be verbal too. And when they are verbal, they can sound edgy (like most disagreements between adults are). ‘Déclassé and indecorous’? Dunno. Politics isn’t really the space for decorum.

Well, the indecorous are here, and they intend to use the presumption of respect to their fullest advantage.

Note: The perennial election season, a perpetual motion electoral machine, has long been staring the American polity in the face, nipping at its heels, breathing down its neck–pick your favorite metaphor, and it works–for many years now. It is finally here. Talk of opposing Democratic candidates began on November 10th, 2016, and it won’t stop till November 3rd, 2020. Talk of the 2024 election will, of course, begin on November 4th 2020. Trump filed papers as a candidate for the 2020 election on the day he was inaugurated. His filing was a deft political move:

Having filed…as a candidate, Trump would be able to coordinate with PACs and other similar organizations. More importantly, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations would no longer be able to engage in “political speech” which could theoretically affect the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election without running the risk of losing their nonprofit status. The move effectively bars interest groups from creating nonprofits which they could funnel money into for the purposes of opposing Trump’s initiatives. This will likely create chaos for political opponents of Trump such as George Soros, who has sunk significant amounts of money into various nonprofit groups with the intent of opposing Trump’s government.

Originally published at samirchopra.com on February 20, 2017.