The Art of the Bore

Much of the news reaction yesterday was how empty Trump was shown to be when he threw his temper tantrum with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.  (And that's not just my description -- nor is it Sen. Schumer's alone when he spoke to the press afterwards, but it was also the reaction from the 12-year-old daughter of a friend of mine who after watching the video turned to her dad and said, "So, he just threw a temper tantrum because he's not getting his wall, right?")

The public response was all well-deserved, and it's sort of a complimentary one to an observation I had about Trump only two days before.  I had gone over to Trump's Twitter feed and began scrolling through some of his pithy "thoughts," fully prepared to respond to them pointedly as I am wont to do.  But as I read through them one by one, my only reaction after tweet was..."Yawn."  Total boredom.  The same, old, childish whining and flailing, repeating his wildly-empty charges and blatant, egregious lies once again that we've been hearing for two years until he sounded like a broken record, skipping skipping skipping at the same point over and over and over and over and over.  And so that's how I began my replies to each of them -- "Yawn."  And not much more than that.  In fact, I was going to leave each response at that, since it pretty much said it all, but I felt a single added point of corrective ridicule was needed.  But that was it.  "Yawn."

So, it was nice to see Donny Deutsch say on MSNBC the next day something similar about Trump's tweeting, how "It's pathetic at this point."  And noting that his tweets have lost the power to outrage.

It's the same problem any con man has when he sticks around the same corner day after day, pulling the exactly same con repeatedly.  Eventually people figure it out.

To be clear, this isn't "normalizing" Trump.  Being bored by Trump and no longer being outraged by his shtick is not remotely accepting what he is saying.  It's the very opposite.  It's dismissing them.

To be clear, what Trump is saying is pathetic, empty and shameful and must be dealt with and pushed back hard.  It's just that what he's saying he's said before.  And before.  And beforebeforebeforebeforebeforebefore....  And the push-back is not only already in operation, but we saw it in action yesterday in the White House with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

I think Republicans are themselves beginning to sense this, too.  That's along the lines of what I wrote about yesterday, how some Republicans in Congress are trying to distance themselves from Trump.  (An impossible thing to do since they are joined at the hip.)  Even they see that the act is no longer playing well.

And that's all it is.  Trump is not a politician -- by his own admission and the acknowledgement of his acolytes for why they adore him.  He was known to them as an entertainer.  Not even a builder, with six bankruptcies.  He put on a good show to them.  Well, there's a long-standing admonition in the world of entertainment -- never be boring.  Trump is now boring.  Even his temper tantrums are boring.  Because they're all about the Same Thing. Said the Same Way.  Over and over.  And it will be ever thus -- because he has nothing to bring to the stage but the Same Old Vaudeville Act.  And vaudeville ended long, long, long ago.

I have no idea what Trump will tweet today.  I just know that there's a really good chance the reaction could be "Yawn."  With a brief addendum of corrective ridicule...