Politics as performance

Politics is usually thought of as a process for gathering support and resources to achieve planned goals. But it is also a performance, which may serve to obscure as well as highlight goals. Politics as performance involves political leaders behaving as entertainers, drawing on symbols familiar to their audience from popular culture. There is a wide variety of performances. Minor performances are when a politician in an election campaign is filmed entering a supermarket to buy shopping (a favourite of Margaret Thatcher). Popular now in the UK is for political leaders to visit workplaces dressed in a yellow jacket and a safety helmet. At the other extreme are the choreographed rallies beloved by dictators, which aim to suggest strength, purpose and might. More extreme than a rally is a short war. This signals that the politician is a mighty leader and that the country is strong and technologically advanced. There is also an element of performative cruelty. Members of the public can thrill at the suffering their government has inflicted on 
those they despise. 

The current war against Iran is an example of performance above the achievement of planned goals. The reasons for starting a war given by the US President are multiple and varied and change daily. These obscure what are probably the real reasons: to improve his declining popularity and to distract attention from the growing publicity about his involvement with the grubby world of Jeffrey Epstein. Trump is the very perfection of the politician as performer. He came to wider public notice when he acted the role of a successful self-made businessman in the television show The Apprentice. For his current role of President he has followed the example of many ageing Hollywood stars by posing as an energetic and more youthful version of himself: he has exaggerated his height by wearing high-heeled shoes, has pulled in his stomach with a corset, has died his hair, and adopted a tanned stage make-up. He has also mimicked the type of drawled speech made famous by John Wayne (who acted a war hero while avoiding military service) and which symbolises leadership to many of his citizens. 

Attacking Trump for being dishonest or a fake is therefore as pointless as criticising Sir Ian McKellen for wearing robes and pretending to be an immortal wizard in Middle Earth. Where Trump can be criticised as a performer is for frequently deviating from his script into off-the-cuff statements that reveal the true shallowness of purpose in his life. He has also failed to maintain consistency in his performances. It is not possible to be convincing when you act as Othello this week and Iago the next. Performing as the great world peacemaker and immediately afterwards as the great warrior makes neither performance believable. Most of the world frets and hopes he will soon leave the stage.