Nov 23, 2024 By Richard Robbins 4 min read

If there is one thing Donald Trump understands, it’s that government, like a good movie, demands quick takes. In Trump-world, no scene runs longer than two minutes.

Were it otherwise, the patrons – in this case, that means all of us – would look elsewhere for entertainment.

The buzz created post-election by Trump’s Cabinet picks is a case in point. Coming fast and thick, they have generated the notion of action on a generational scale. Headline writers have blared that Trump’s rollout of his Cabinet selections has been the fastest on record, or at least, the fastest in recent history.

The perception of rapid fire decision-making can be a good thing, at least politically. It demonstrates decisiveness.

Correspondingly, it imposes a kind of restraint on the opposition that can be perplexing, if not paralyzing. In the matter of the Trump Cabinet picks, Democrats are forced to decide which selection should be targeted as the most problematic of the bunch: Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services?

Then there is the matter of Matt Gaetz. His withdrawal on Thursday from consideration as attorney general and his quick replacement by former Florida AG Pam Bondi proves the point: Trump doesn’t wait around.

The Gaetz scene over, Bondi arrives on set in a split-second.

The rapid pace of the selections is not unlike a Trump stump speech, in which he weaves from point to point and the opposition is forced to choose which statement, which outrageous charge, which allegation, which falsehood to respond to.

A moving target is not an easy target.

Back in 2021, Steve Bannon, a fellow in the Trumpian school of political chaos, said that the way to stump the opposition is to “flood the zone” with crap, or its equivalent.

As the scholar Jonathan Rauch observed, “This isn’t about persuasion. It’s about disorientation.”

Add distraction and entertainment and you have the whole mix.

To quote Joe Biden, I’m being serious here, folks: Entertainment is not a negligible factor in democratic governance.

The revered hometown boy, General of the Army George C. Marshall, once remarked, apologetically, that he failed to recognize the importance for a politician – in his case, Franklin Roosevelt – of “entertaining” voters even when the matter involved something as serious as World War II.

This specifically regarded the Allied invasion of North Africa, which came about in November 1942, days after that year’s midterm elections. FDR had hoped to “entertain” the home front with the spectacle of U.S. troops going up against the German army for the first time in the war. He hoped, in short, to demonstrate to voters that the U.S. was actively engaged against the enemy.

(To his credit, Roosevelt left the decision as to when and where to strike up to his generals. For the record, Democrats lost 20 Senate seats and 87 House seats in the 1942 midterms.)

As for the political importance of distraction, perhaps there’s no better example than the rapid rollout of government make-work jobs during the job-deprived 1930s and the Great Depression. The Roosevelt administration made no secret of the fact that it was grinding out thousands of such jobs, while managing to hide in plain sight the fact that unemployment remained stubbornly high.

The modern perception is that Republicans get things done while Democrats stand around twiddling their thumbs. The reason for this is fairly clear: Republicans govern in verbs, Democrats in compound sentences.

Take, for example, the unemployment rates scored by the Biden administration. They’ve been unambiguously low. But you’d never know that by listening to Biden or other administration officials. There’s always some caveat of caution thrown in to take away the shine of good news.

You better bet Trump won’t make that mistake. Any day now he’ll pronounce the “Trump” economy – in actuality, the Biden economy – the best ever in all of history. “Everyone says so.”

Trump is a first-punch, rapid-punch kind of guy. Love him or hate him, give him credit: He acts, and reacts, swiftly.

There are limitations, however, as the Gaetz nomination shows. It was a badly thought-out enterprise. A handful of Senate Republicans, appalled by Gaetz, dealt the nominee a fatal blow. And in the process, they bloodied Trump’s nose. But that, too, is entertaining.

Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.