I wrote for Politico today about Trump’s sensory overload approach to the presidency:
Trump makes the hyperactive, voluble Teddy Roosevelt, whom H.G. Wells called “a big noise,” seem shy and retiring by comparison. He makes the wrathful Andrew Jackson, who nearly blew up his administration over how the wives of his Cabinet members were treating Peggy Eaton, the wife of the secretary of War, look like a paragon of calm and caution.
Trump reportedly told aides before taking office that they should think of each presidential day as an episode in a TV show, a goal that turns out to have been too modest. Trump acts like he need to produce enough programming to fill a 24-hour news network, with outrages, internal melodrama, legal fights and endless plot twists that are, indisputably, ratings gold.
Obviously, the fundamentals will be most determinative of Trump’s fate in 2020. Is the economy still growing? Are we at peace? How does the trade war with China stand? But the backdrop to it all will be the level of public tolerance for, or exhaustion with, Trump’s antics and provocations.
In other words, can Americans bear for the show to go on? The threat to Trump isn’t Trump Derangement Syndrome, an affliction of opponents who can’t really touch him and whose hysteria actually bonds Trump’s supporters to him even more strongly. The threat is Trump Fatigue, a condition that could spread more broadly and make swing voters harder to reach.