I think honestly a key to Trump's popularity. He inverted the theatrical aspect from one where the Meet The Press class were in on the joke and the conservative voters were the rubes, to one where the conservative chuds were in on the joke and the DC crowd were the rubes bsky.app/profile/rinc...
Eg til ~ 2016, Rs in conservative media talked about eg building the wall to keep out immigrants, or would get rid of Roe because abortion is baby murder. And it was meant as ~ metaphor for "I will be hard-line on this"--they didn't mean it--but for R base voters, was interpreted very very literally
Trump inverted that. He /is himself/ one of those low-information R voters and believes it literally. So when /he/ said "I will build the wall" he meant it literally. And the media kept struggling with this. "Oh you mean a metaphorical wall" and he'd say "no, I mean, literally, a big beautiful wall"
The media gets this backwards often. He's saying things that other Rs say as bait-and-switch, but when /he/ says it, he means it literally. He believes it, and the media refuses to believe it, because they are smart and sophisticated and "know" in the game of politics it's "just" rhetoric, not real.
E.g. when an R politician in a debate or on TV says "other countries in NATO aren't paying their dues", every sophisticated political junkie intuitively understands that "ah, yes, this is the speaking-to-the-rubes way of complaining Germany is not hitting its 2% spending target".
And if Rubio says this, that's what he means. If GWB says that, that's what he means. If /DeSantis/ says that, that's what he means. It's not what Trump means tho. He's inverted the kayfabe: he /literally/ means the talking point, not the sophisticated metaphorical underlying meaning the pundits do.
Which is also why Trump got tons of apathetic R voters on board (and why eg DeSantis crash-and-burn trying to emulate it): they know when DeSantis tells them the border is an invasion, they understand those as R politician words to win elections but when Trump says it he means he'll shoot immigrants
This is why journalism keeps struggling with his rhetoric. It's extreme rhetoric. But American politics is /full/ of extreme rhetoric. The difference isn't that his rhetoric is more extreme or impolite (tho it is, but /mostly/ as just a matter of degree, not of form). It's that he means it literally
He doesn't chant "lock her up" as an ugly speaking-to-the-rubes way of highlighting a wedge issue in HRC's campaign and elite nonaccountability in classified information protection. He means pretty simply that his political opponents should personally and literally be imprisoned without due process
When he says he'll deport 15m illegal immigrants he doesn't mean "I will work with Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform with more funding and enforcement at the border", he means "I will *very literally* use the federal government to round up millions, cost or practically be damned"
And it's not sophisticated political punditry to read into Trumps rhetoric a metaphor that isn't there anymore. At that point, it's *you* who are the rubes. Because he's telling you exactly what he intends to do, and he's already had a term to show everyone when he says this stuff, he means it.
Even in softball interviews, when an idiot like Hannity feeds him a line like, "You're not really going to be a dictator are you?" he responds with, "Fuck yeah, I am."
Trump: We need a Muslim ban
Media: gross rhetoric, but immigration is a campaign issue
Trump: (wins) here is my muslim ban
Media: what
Courts: sounds illegal
DOJ: for legal reasons let's pretend it's not a muslim ban
SCOTUS: is this a muslim ban
Trump: yes
DOJ: he meant no
SCOTUS: ok then it's fine
especially vile bc hawaii v trump dropped right after masterpiece cakeshop, where SCOTUS literally said “the fact that one commissioner said a mean thing proves this rule is unconstitutional animus against Christians”
the court majority sees non-christians as second-class citizens
Never too late to for the legal institutions (ahem, Debevoise & Plimpton) to impose consequences on attorneys who worked on the “Muslim ban,” as they certainly would for any attorney who worked on a “Catholic ban” or a “Jewish ban.”
