Trump only craves for applause nothing else - Economist

The impresario-elect
Washington is becoming more comfortable with Donald Trump
THE elites of Washington are starting to feel better about Donald Trump. A sense of relief is creeping over them after the president-elect ditched several impossible campaign promises and named conventional conservatives, including a former Goldman Sachs banker, for some big jobs, offsetting the hard-right nationalists and populists given posts in his inner circle. For a moment they thought America might have elected a true demagogue, beholden to a pitchfork-wielding mob. They wondered if the businessman meant it when he roared “Drain the swamp in Washington!” at pre-election rallies, and vowed to ban lobbyists from his government. Now they think they see a cynic like so many others in politics, who ran as an outsider but will govern as an insider. He seems more manageable than they had feared.
Mr Trump is not an ideologue, the lobbying, business, diplomatic and political classes murmur approvingly. Just you wait, they predict, he will ditch his most crazily populist ideas, from starting a trade war with China to mass deportations, while allowing Republicans in Congress to cut taxes and slash business regulations. True, if he increases spending on infrastructure or defence then deficits might explode. But with luck the economy will boom, keeping Mr Trump’s fieriest supporters happy.
They draw comfort from the array of conservative bigwigs, pillars of Congress and retired generals he has summoned for job interviews. Take foreign policy. Candidate Trump alarmed grandees from both parties with his cooing praise for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Their fears ebbed once his search for a secretary of state led him to interview figures with more orthodox views, including Mitt Romney, who as the Republican nominee in 2012 called Russia America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe”, and a former general, David Petraeus, who in 2015 claimed Mr Putin wanted to “resurrect the Russian empire”. The Mr Trump of TV debates appalled conservatives by praising government-run universal health care in places like Scotland. President-elect Trump soothed Republicans by naming as his health secretary Representative Tom Price of Georgia, a surgeon-congressman who seems to view government-run medicine as something like gangrene. Pondering so many mixed signals, Trump apologists cross their fingers, squint a bit, and declare that they see a political pragmatist who may yet preside over a rather normal administration.
These folks are probably deluding themselves. All candidates worry about pleasing their supporters or building coalitions, even as they craft policies that reflect their core beliefs. But it is striking how often public acclaim is Mr Trump’s first and last concern. Explaining in an interview with the New York Times why it would be “nice” for America and Russia to fight Islamic State together, he imagined how, if his plan succeeded: “The people will stand up and give me a massive hand.” Over Thanksgiving weekend aides publicly questioned giving the State Department to Mr Romney—who had, after all, called Mr Trump a “fraud” during the election. The president-elect reportedly argued that Mr Romney “looks the part” of a world statesman—sounding more like a casting agent than a man assembling a government.
Those parsing Mr Trump’s “Drain the Swamp” slogan for clues to his opinions about government reform should have been with Lexington at a rally in Kinston, North Carolina, on October 26th. Freshly disembarked from his Boeing 757, Mr Trump had just begun a thunderous attack on Hillary Clinton’s health policies when he was distracted by a “Drain the Swamp” sign. “Look at that,” he marvelled. When his team had coined the phrase three days earlier he had disliked it, he confided. But then he used it and “the place went crazy.” Now, he beamed, “It’s the hottest, it’s like, trending all over the world…So we like that expression.”
Many note how Mr Trump was helped by reality television, which made him an icon of success. But his rise recalls an older American tradition: vaudeville shows. In their heyday, just over a century ago, chains of vaudeville theatres spanned the continent, with big impresarios claiming to entertain 5m patrons a year. Shows of a dozen or more acts would make audiences gasp, weep and laugh in rapid succession—speed was a vaudeville obsession, as it is with Mr Trump, who promises to bring change “so fast”. A history of the genre, “Vaudeville Wars” by Arthur Frank Wertheim, records how working men in cheap seats were wooed with turns like the “Two Skull-Crackers”, whose mock combat ended with an axe-blow to a performer’s head (beneath a cork- and steel-lined wig), or the “Diving Venus”, a beauty in a tight bathing-suit who plunged into a glass tank. Respectable matrons were lured with such “dignity acts” as opera singers from Europe. Theatre-managers were told to ignore their expert tastes when judging performers: what counted was audience reactions.
The skull-crackers
America has elected an impresario-president. Imagine him peering past theatre footlights through clouds of cigar smoke, checking that every row is full and each face rapt. There is no guarantee that will make him a pragmatist: indeed, perhaps because he has so few fixed beliefs (beyond protectionism), he has appointed ideologues to key positions, like a vaudeville boss crafting a playbill to sell every last seat. His team so far includes hardline nationalists alongside conservative technocrats like his chosen transport secretary, Elaine Chao, the wife of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Nor are grassroots supporters forgotten. He has claimed credit for strong-arming Carrier, a maker of air-conditioners, into keeping 1,000 jobs in Indiana, rather than sending them to Mexico. He has fired off tweets proposing, in breach of the constitution, that those who burn American flags should lose citizenship. If Washington grandees are shocked, they misunderstand Mr Trump. He has a knack for sensation. Applause is his drug. Elites are naive to imagine that this will make him more manageable. It is his show now.

Economist