The following article by James Poniewozik was posted on the New York Times website June 12, 2017:
President Trump’s first full cabinet meeting Video by CNN
The meeting, held before press cameras and microphones, began with President Trump going around the table to ask each attendee their thoughts, particularly those pertaining to his glory, leadership and success. Vice President Mike Pence called working for Mr. Trump “the greatest privilege of my life,” and the hosannas rose higher from there.
At one point, the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, utters what sounds almost like a prayer, thanking Mr. Trump for “the opportunity and the blessing” of working for him.
The whole proceeding — Mr. Trump basking in the competitive adulation of his underlings — resembled a meeting of nervous regional commissars pledging fealty to the Dear Leader.
But it also resembled something else.
The Apprentice U.S. – BEST FIRINGS (Part 1) Video by Smithson City
Americans once watched Donald Trump on TV sitting at a boardroom table, with anxious underlings competing for his favor. That dynamic, on “The Apprentice,” framed him as decisive, powerful and important. Week after week, contestants scrambled against each other to earn his approval.
Donald Trump fires three celebrities at once – The Celebrity Apprentice Video by The Celebrity Apprentice
Andrew Dice Clay, on the other hand, demonstrated the folly of trying to say that anything — even something as small as the availability of snacks — was Mr. Trump’s fault.
Andrew Dice Clay offends Donald Trump, part 1 – The Celebrity Apprentice Video by The Celebrity Apprentice
Mr. Trump knows his symbolism. The boardroom scene, like a lot of reality TV staging, draws on an iconic image — the captain leading his team around a table. We’ve seen it in movies and on TV in great councils, boiler rooms and situation rooms. We saw it, beneficently, in Kevin Kline draining the swamp in the movie “Dave.”
Dave (6/10) Movie CLIP – Balancing the Budget (1993) HD Video by Movieclips
In an administration reportedly roiled by power struggles, the tableau might suggest something more like Robert De Niro as Al Capone, playing ball with his “team” in “The Untouchables.”
Batter Up – The Untouchables (3/10) Movie CLIP (1987) HD Video by Movieclips
The real-life scene was not quite so ominous. But a classic Monty Python sketch captures something of its social discomfort, as a deranged movie producer drives his writers to mental breakdown by insisting they neither disagree with him nor be yesmen nor be indecisive.
Monty Python – Twentieth-Century Vole Video by Chadner
The Trump cabinet example, with its rounds of hamhanded, stagy praise, brought to mind another familiar image: the boss packing a meeting with yesmen, like the General Electric corporate board in an episode of “30 Rock.” (To be fair, while Mr. Trump has been known to bring his family members into meetings, he has not yet drafted hunting dogs.)
Jack Donaghy: General Electric’s Board of Directors Video by FermatSim
Did anyone buy the performance? The obviousness was so glaring that by afternoon, Senator Charles Schumer of New York, not necessarily known as a laugh riot on camera, had produced a parody video.
GREAT meeting today with the best staff in the history of the world!!!
Of course, the effectiveness of Trump’s stunt may depend on what he was trying to get out of it. Maybe you can’t claim that you’re wildly successful and universally loved, particularly when your Gallup disapproval rating has matched its all-time high. But you can show you’re still powerful enough that your people still must at least pretend that you are.
This weird televised suck-up spectacle may not raise Mr. Trump’s approval numbers. But it demonstrated that — in Mel Brooks’s words from “Blazing Saddles” — he can still get a harrumph out of that guy.
Blazing Saddles (3/10) Movie CLIP – Harrumphing with the Governor (1974) HD Video by Movieclips
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