It surprised me that the recent origin-story Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice found no use for Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” in its disco-dominated soundtrack. That this surreal, meandering anhedonia is one of Trump’s favourite songs captures something fundamental about him. The first verse is Lee recalling watching her house burn down as a child, and as “the whole world [goes] up in flames”, she thinks: “Is that all there is to a fire?”
Music has always played a key part in the politics and image of Donald Trump, perhaps to a unique degree in US presidents since Bill Clinton. Compared to Obama’s crafted playlists, suspiciously spot-on mixes of classics, modern smashes and hidden gems, the populist hits Trump blasts at his rallies feel more intimately entwined with who he is and what he represents.
His early rallies were peppered with tracks that seemed to almost mock his supporters (“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”; “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”). Then the majority of the artists responsible for those tracks made it clear they wanted no part in this ironic commentary, and have prevented Trump from using their work.
You can’t stop the music
This week, in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, Trump held a rally that was meant to conclude with the candidate taking questions from the audience. But as people began to pass out from the heat, he declared: “Let’s make this a musical fest.”
“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music,” he told the crowd. “Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” Cue 40-odd minutes of an elderly man on stage, swaying to smooth, radio-friendly tracks performed by dead artists who can’t call him a shithead in interviews: “Hallelujah”, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, “An American Trilogy”.
This has been leapt on by Trump critics, who, having failed to pry away a serious number of his supporters by pointing out the Republican candidate’s philosophical, rhetorical, legal and practical disqualifications, are hoping his visible decay might do it. It won’t.
Indeed, the coverage of his surreal interlude crowded out yet more inarguable fascistic promises from Trump during the week, such as when he told Fox News on Sunday that Democrats represented an “enemy from within”.
“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people,” he said, adding that if Democrats caused “chaos” on election day, “[it] should be very easily handled, if necessary, by the National Guard, or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen”.
“I had a Town Hall in Pennsylvania last night. It was amazing! The Q and A was almost finished when people began fainting from the excitement and heat,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday morning. “We started playing music while we waited, and just kept it going. So different, but it ended up being a GREAT EVENING!”
It’s kind of perfect that as Trump’s place in US politics gets stranger and his promises more ominous, he’s taken to a dreamy wordless retreat into the hits of yesteryear.
Fox in the hen house
Kamala Harris, continuing her campaign’s “just look at this weird guy” approach, retweeted the Pennsylvania footage, simply commenting, “Hope he’s OK“.
Meanwhile, in between rallies, Harris gave one of her stronger media performances during a risky interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. At one point Baier seemingly tried to goad Harris into a “basket of deplorables” moment, asking whether she thought the large chunk of Americans who support Trump were “stupid”. Harris effectively judo’d this, arguing it is Trump, with his “enemy within” talk, who degrades and belittles the American people in ways she never would.
In “normal” times, this sort of contrast could be a turning point, like Obama’s young beautiful family on Access Hollywood contrasted with an increasingly cranky and querulous John McCain, or Richard Nixon drenched in sweat during the first-ever televised presidential debate. Even if one thought Harris’ show of steel and vigour was merely adequate, it surely would look winning in contrast with Trump’s drift into foggy nostalgia, from which he emerges only to promise his government will be far more tyrannical next time.
But of course, we left normal times behind a long time ago.
