He wanders, pale, sleepless, delusional, into a room, and performs a surrealistic piece that more and more people are calling, simply, “46 minutes.”
Soon the title of Trump’s unprecedented performance last Wednesday will shorten to 46, a nod to its obvious precursor, John Cage’s silent, genre-busting, 4’33. Recall the shock, amusement, anger, discomfort, and fascination when, in a New York concert hall in 1952, a pianist walked onstage with a flourish, sat grandly at a grand piano, and for four minutes and thirty-three seconds proceeded to do absolutely nothing. In a grand room of the White House, Trump’s appearance – vacuous, arrogant, hallucinatory – generated similar emotions.
Yet because of its basically unendurable sickness, the president’s performance was above all ignored by almost every American media outlet. It appeared only on Facebook.
Susan Glasser argues that we avert our eyes at our peril.
… This might have been a holy-shit speech, but it came in the “yeah, whatever” phase of Trump’s lame-duck Presidency. The courts have thrown out his legal team’s cases. The battleground states have all certified their election results affirming Biden’s win. The Electoral College will meet on December 14th, and the outcome does not appear to be in doubt.
And yet there are nearly fifty days until Biden’s Inauguration. This is far, far beyond the craziness of the past four years. Is this the kind of speech from their leader that Americans should just ignore?
… [Not] a single Republican senator had a word to say about Trump’s insane remarks from the White House on Wednesday …
… [W]hen the President launches a direct attack on the most important traditions of American democracy, I’m not ready to say “Yeah, whatever” just yet.
The presidency of Donald Trump is not mere performance art. In its degenerate stage it looks like Cage; it looks like Jarry. It looks like Mary Tyrone wandering in, pale, sleepless, and delusional at the end of Long Day’s Journey. But it is real. It is actually happening. A fourth Christ of Ypsilanti has entered Milton Rokeach’s hospital, this one with presidential powers.
December 4th, 2020 at 9:33AM
And – in this world of thought and word salad,”truth” claims moored to nothing in any world external to the minds of MAGA, and crazy conspiracy theories – it’s hard not to just go with it and ponder that 46 is just one integer above Trump’s presidential number. (I’m imagining a periodic table of the presidents, with DT in a special place unconnected with the rest of the chart. Both inert and caustic?) But, digressing in a different direction, will President 46 be Biden or Pence? If DT is to get a solid-as-possible pardon, he’ll have to resign at least for a nanosecond and take a chance on Pence, who, delusionally, believes he’s got next after Biden. Is that a good bet for him? Somehow, Charlie Brown, the football and Lucy come to mind. In that case, whatever Pence did, Biden would be 47. Let’s hope he gets a lucky number.
December 5th, 2020 at 8:42AM
Greg: Yes – Mr UD did some similar playing around with the numbers 46 and 47 when we discussed this post …
December 5th, 2020 at 11:52AM
I’m not surprised, but I am delighted that he seems to have fully recovered. I had a remotely similar scare with my wife a month ago – she’s just fine now – and it takes a lot out of everyone. Best wishes for happy holidays, 2021, and good health.
December 5th, 2020 at 2:33PM
Greg: Many thanks for those good wishes, and the same back to you. UD