"That old line that politics is showbiz for ugly people is so good it should be true, but it isn't really. Politics has always been politics, and showbiz is something different. Not, however, in the unique case of Donald Trump. The current US president is best understood as a pomp-era megastar. Extraordinary, really, that Trump never even needed to get into cocaine. I think when he dies scientists will discover that his body naturally produced coke as a byproduct of digesting overcooked hamburgers."
"Everything he says or does is redolent not of a politician, but an ego-driven entertainment industry behemoth. Monday afternoon in Egypt, with all the awkward world leaders box-stepping behind him, was very much The Official Release Party of a Peace Process. Ego can, of course, be very creative, so it should be widely acknowledged that this hold-your-breath settlement simply couldn't have happened without our leading man."
"In recent years you may have read whole screeds on the Trump doctrine, often written by former foreign ministers or revered diplomats, which singularly fail to capture the essence of the entity with which they are dealing. Maybe the reason they seem to have had so much trouble codifying things convincingly is that most of these people either regard showbiz as beneath them or know slightly less about it than they do about some obscure branch of theoretical chemistry."
Donald Trump operates as a pomp-era megastar whose persona and instincts derive from entertainment rather than traditional politics. His conduct centers on ratings, staged spectacles, and personality-driven releases that subsume team efforts. Public performances, including highly choreographed international events, function like high-profile release parties that foreground his ego. Conventional diplomatic frameworks and comparisons to historical statesmen misread his behavior by overlooking a star-driven ethos. Many experienced foreign policymakers fail to grasp how showbusiness metrics, attention-seeking tactics, and performative rivalries shape his strategies and outcomes. Humor and hyperbole often accompany portrayals, but the core remains a celebrity template applied to governance.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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