The Electable Trump Was A Mark Burnett Production
One of the less attention-grabbing aspects of the Trump 2016 campaign was that since he had no record and since most Americans don't understand that television isn't real, there was this notion of boundless possibility under an outsider businessman president.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 30, 2020
In The New Yorker, in 2018, Patrick Radden Keefe writes:
In 1998, a thirty-eight-year-old former British paratrooper named Mark Burnett was living in Los Angeles, producing television. "Lord of the Flies" was one of his favorite books, and after he heard about "Expedition: Robinson" he secured the rights to make an American version. Burnett had previously worked in sales and had a knack for branding. He renamed the show "Survivor."The first season was set in Borneo, and from the moment it aired, on CBS, in 2000, "Survivor" was a ratings juggernaut: according to the network, a hundred and twenty-five million Americans--more than a third of the population--tuned in for some portion of the season finale. The catchphrase delivered by the host, Jeff Probst, at the end of each elimination ceremony, "The tribe has spoken," entered the lexicon. Burnett had been a marginal figure in Hollywood, but after this triumph he, too, was rebranded, as an oracle of spectacle. Les Moonves, then the chairman of CBS, arranged for the delivery of a token of thanks--a champagne-colored Mercedes. To Burnett, the meaning of this gesture was unmistakable: "I had arrived." The only question was what he might do next.
...Trump had been a celebrity since the eighties, his persona shaped by the best-selling book "The Art of the Deal." But his business had foundered, and by 2003 he had become a garish figure of local interest--a punch line on Page Six. "The Apprentice" mythologized him anew, and on a much bigger scale, turning him into an icon of American success. Jay Bienstock, a longtime collaborator of Burnett's, and the showrunner on "The Apprentice," told me, "Mark always likes to compare his shows to great films or novels. All of Mark's shows feel bigger than life, and this is by design."
Burnett has made many programs since "The Apprentice," among them "Shark Tank," a startup competition based on a Japanese show, and "The Voice," a singing contest adapted from a Dutch program. In June, he became the chairman of M-G-M Television. But his chief legacy is to have cast a serially bankrupt carnival barker in the role of a man who might plausibly become the leader of the free world. "I don't think any of us could have known what this would become," Katherine Walker, a producer on the first five seasons of "The Apprentice," told me. "But Donald would not be President had it not been for that show."
And about the "reality" in reality television:
Burnett has never liked the phrase "reality television." For a time, he valiantly campaigned to rebrand his genre "dramality"--"a mixture of drama and reality." The term never caught on, but it reflected Burnett's forthright acknowledgment that what he creates is a highly structured, selective, and manipulated rendition of reality. Burnett has often boasted that, for each televised hour of "The Apprentice," his crews shot as many as three hundred hours of footage.The real alchemy of reality television is the editing--sifting through a compost heap of clips and piecing together an absorbing story. Jonathon Braun, an editor who started working with Burnett on "Survivor" and then worked on the first six seasons of "The Apprentice," told me, "You don't make anything up. But you accentuate things that you see as themes." He readily conceded how distorting this process can be. Much of reality TV consists of reaction shots: one participant says something outrageous, and the camera cuts away to another participant rolling her eyes. Often, Braun said, editors lift an eye roll from an entirely different part of the conversation.
"The Apprentice" was built around a weekly series of business challenges. At the end of each episode, Trump determined which competitor should be "fired." But, as Braun explained, Trump was frequently unprepared for these sessions, with little grasp of who had performed well. Sometimes a candidate distinguished herself during the contest only to get fired, on a whim, by Trump. When this happened, Braun said, the editors were often obliged to "reverse engineer" the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trump's shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense. During the making of "The Apprentice," Burnett conceded that the stories were constructed in this way, saying, "We know each week who has been fired, and, therefore, you're editing in reverse." Braun noted that President Trump's staff seems to have been similarly forced to learn the art of retroactive narrative construction, adding, "I find it strangely validating to hear that they're doing the same thing in the White House."
Such sleight of hand is the industry standard in reality television. But the entire premise of "The Apprentice" was also something of a con. When Trump and Burnett told the story of their partnership, both suggested that Trump was initially wary of committing to a TV show, because he was so busy running his flourishing real-estate empire.
During a 2004 panel at the Museum of Television and Radio, in Los Angeles, Trump claimed that "every network" had tried to get him to do a reality show, but he wasn't interested: "I don't want to have cameras all over my office, dealing with contractors, politicians, mobsters, and everyone else I have to deal with in my business. You know, mobsters don't like, as they're talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesn't play well with them."
"The Apprentice" portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth--a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. "Most of us knew he was a fake," Braun told me. "He had just gone through I don't know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king." Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, "We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise."
Amy Alkon ❤
Crid at August 30, 2020 11:21 PM
More TDS. Yawn, I've heard all of this before and I don't care. A bunch of poseurs more concerned about Trump's furniture than what's happening in the country.
FerdBurful at August 31, 2020 3:27 AM
Isn't this how "instinctive" managers operate? I've seen lots of people - from business owners down to line supervisors - who operate on instinct, and then rationalize the decision. Humans are rationalizers, not pure rational actors.
El Verde Loco at August 31, 2020 4:21 AM
Look, if you don't get it just face up to that truth and deal with it. Yglesias and Keefe are doing a whole lot of projection and post hoc rationalisation.
Ben at August 31, 2020 5:25 AM
Still don't get, Matty. Trump isn't the disease, he's the symptom.
I was concerned he would rule like a New York liberal because that's what he is. I've been pleasantly surprised at the lack of liberal excess I was expecting. I've been very surprised by the judges nominated. The spending, not so much, but does anyone think a Meemaw Hillary regime would be budget hawks?
If you do think she'd be a budget hawk, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to work out a time share arrangement with you. For a modest* fee, of course.
* Maxim 38: Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it can't be hard on your clients.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 31, 2020 6:54 AM
Which is worse - the sour grapes or the backstabbing (after pocketing the money made on Trump's image).
These sophisticates lie and exploit others regularly. They're mostly pissed that Trump used them while they thought they were using him.
Ben david at August 31, 2020 7:23 AM
The Ferengi are stirred....
Crid at August 31, 2020 7:49 AM
Listen… I'm *really* sorry… By the time of the TNG series, I didn't give a fuck, and wasn't watching closely. I just looked it up on DuckDuckGo…
I said "Ferengi" a few minutes ago, but meant "Pakleds.
Crid at August 31, 2020 8:03 AM
> These sophisticates lie
Trust only the dim! All in this together, right?
I love it when people nakedly affirm the things I've been saying on this blog for five years.
Crid at August 31, 2020 8:10 AM
Youse guys needz moar booklarnin'… Your schools let you down.
Crid at August 31, 2020 8:45 AM
The thing is, most electable politicians, especially at the national level, are slick Hollywood-esque productions. You don't get considered as presidential timber if you're not already slickly produced.
Unless you really think Dreams of My Father was Obama simply getting in touch with his roots. Or that George W. Bush wrote A Charge to Keep without having one eye on the White House.
Conan the Grammarian at August 31, 2020 11:19 AM
I am disappoint. I was about the quote some of the Rules of Acquisition.
moar booklarnin'
That study was buried by Jimmah Carter, who also created the federal Dept of Edumucation. Who advised him that was the way to go? given the control freak he is, I suspect that was of his own making.
I R A Darth Aggie at August 31, 2020 12:28 PM
> Or that George W. Bush wrote
> A Charge to Keep
Not sure anyone believes that.
Well, Dubya wrote about 20% more of Charge than JFK wrote of Profiles in Courage.
So, I mean, Bush wrote 20% of Charge.
…And put it on *our* card.
(Har! I amuse!)
Crid at August 31, 2020 1:17 PM
In other news, Ted Sorenson's been dead for ten years, and I didn't even know he was sick.
Crid at August 31, 2020 1:19 PM
And probably wrote as much of Charge as Obama wrote of Dreams, so yeah.
It's all part of the slick production of a presidential candidate.
Conan the Grammarian at August 31, 2020 1:32 PM
I wonder who wrote "Wha' Happen?!".
The Clinton book, not the TV show.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 31, 2020 6:11 PM
Ya know, until today, I always thought there were only three semi-famous people who predicted, before November 2016, that Trump would win. Namely, Michael Moore (in July 2016), plus two men whose names I've already forgotten, since I didn't recognize them. One was someone who's correctly predicted every US election for 30-plus years.
So who's the fourth?
Rahm Emanuel. In Feb. 2016.
Funny thing is, the only way I could find that prediction again was when I included "Seib" in my search.
From Oct. 2017:
https://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/trump-roy-moore-and-the-tribes-we-cling-to/Content?oid=4381711
...In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Gerald Seib recalled a conversation he had with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, nine months before the 2016 election. Emanuel, Seib wrote, predicted that Trump would win.
Emanuel's reasoning, Seib recalled: "With this blue-collar, screw-you appeal he has, why should anybody assume that Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan are safe for Hillary?"...
The Wall Street Journal column is behind a paywall, of course.
Lenona at August 31, 2020 8:46 PM
Election night was dumbfounding, I had no clue that it could happen. But it was rewarding to know there were that many Americans who saw that something disruptive had to happen. But mere predictions are less interesting than insight: No matter what people tell you, politics is not a typical wager like college sports: No meaning accrues for anticipating poll results.
Yet it's been almost as amazing that so few Democrats and liberals have been able to reflect on how it happened, and how few are prepared to co-ordinate a response in 2020.
There aren't more that dozen people in public life who could correctly describe it in a few sentences… McArdle, Kaplan, Carney, Carville, Murray, maybe Harris, and that's all who come to mind in a hurry. Moore and Emmanuel, if you say so.
Most everyone else is distracted by the need to demonstrate social elevation relative to Trump, a task so easy the challenge isn't clear: It's a basketball hoop three feet of the ground. But they do their best, and thereby demonstrate incompetence at political persuasion.
Can't remember who said it first, but Donald Trump devastated *both* parties in 2016. And we'll only miss them when we see what comes to replace them.
Crid at August 31, 2020 9:06 PM
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