The analogy of the magician's "slight of hand" is perfect. It's manufactured "slight of SLIGHT" to divert attention due to emotional attachment to FEELING "slighted" - not inappropriately so, but at the expense of paying attention to practical realities.
I understand the point here, but some of us have been putting major effort into fighting what was happening at the Kennedy Center. For me it isn't just a social media blitz. I won't take my attention and efforts away. This is a major pushback on Trump’s attempt to make all American History about him, including the takeover of a living memorial to another president.
The naming of the Kennedy Center is very revealing. It started out under Eisenhower as The National Cultural Center. President and Mrs. Kennedy took over the planning. After JFK's assassination, Johnson and Congress decided to make it the living memorial to JFK while keeping a focus on culture. The Congressional Act reads that there can be no other memorial to JFK within Washington DC. So. No. His name cannot be added. Period.
Since the Trump takeover their marketing has started to include emphasis back on the National Cultural Center. There have been other things done inside that detract from the living memorial and the gifts that nations donated to honor JFK. For example, the African Lounge that had textiles and artwork was closed. No one knows where the artifacts went. There was talk of selling off the rest of the artwork. The new design completely eliminated the third floor terrace.
I spent several days documenting and taking photos and videos in case the whole thing was torn down like the East Wing.
I wish we could get a win like this on everything the regime is doing to our country and people. I have learned that I can't focus on everything. I have been focusing on one or two things, like the Kennedy Center, and hope that others can tackle some of the other things.
My first vivid memory outside of family ones is when President Kennedy was assassination. I was a heartbroken 3-yr. old and I still feel that in my body when I think of it. He was MY president, and I loved him earnestly.
Thank you for your care in seeing that the true intent of The Kennedy Center remains true, MB. As true as the heart of a 3-yr. old.
Dang it Jack! again, ya got me thinkin again; bout other things. This steaming pile of clownshow krapp is not worth the time and is nothing more than another misdirection sleight of hand...
Great post, Jack. I've been making the point for years that Trump wasn’t so much a celebrity as a profit center for legacy media. The've kept re‑animating him long after his expiration date.
For decades, Trump floated around the celebrity ecosystem as a kind of permanent B‑list curiosity with Page Six gossip mentions, real‑estate puff pieces, beauty pageant shots, the occasional lifestyle interview. It was almost a given that his name and photo grabbed attention, even if the substance was paper‑thin, so he kept showing up in glossy magazines and on tabloid covers as a kind of standing punchline about wealth and vulgarity. Champagne wishes, caviar dreams (and rape, kidnapping, and domestic violence off camera).
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was more kitsch than mogul, a familiar face who reliably moved copies but was rarely taken seriously in business or politics. Then came the gread laundering project, The Apprentice.
Producers have since described, in detail, how the show built a fictional universe in which Trump was a decisive, almost omniscient executive, his name plastered over carefully staged boardrooms, helicopters, and skyline establishing shots.
What viewers didn’t see, according to people who worked on the series, were the hours of rambling, incoherent digressions and bigoted asides left on the cutting‑room floor so that an erratic, frequently offensive performer could be remixed into a crisp, no‑nonsense patriarch of capitalism.
When he descended that golden escalator in 2015, Jon Stewart (who was leaving the Daily Show) rang a five-alarm klaxon that proved amazingly prescient. Here came the New York Post's devil's bargain: give him saturation coverage and he’ll give you ratings. Fox News had proved this with the racist Birther claptrap, and Trump was front and center after Obama mercilessly mocked him at the White House Correspondents' dinner.
From that day on, campaign reporting turned into a 24‑hour Trump live‑blog. We'd been talking about a living wage and single-payer healthcare, sponsored college and reasonable gun policy. All that shit was kicked to the margins while every channel ran his rallies, tweets, and feuds as breaking news. The fact more Americans died of covid than all the wars of the 20th century COMBINED was swept under the rug, as was the entire botch of that crisis.
Even after Biden’s 2020 victory, the oxygen never returned to policy, because January 6, the investigations, the trials, and the endless post‑presidency rallies kept Trump at the center of the frame. The past was rewritten, and the billionaire-owned media (even the stalwarts of NYT, Wapo, and a thousand regional papers and news outlets) talked about Biden's age and unpopularity instead of the tremendous success of his quietly progressive policies. It was STILL about Trump.
But for all that noise, his historical legacy is tissue‑thin. His politics of grievance, a ruling party transformed into a personality cult, and a media environment trained to chase his every outburst as if it mattered more than people’s actual lives. It is a history of institutions failing, and as is always the case, the poor have suffered the most.
History show us regimes built on bluster and cruelty leave behind wreckage and embarrassment. A decade later their fair‑weather supporters insist they never bought the act at all.
Look at the postwar Germans and Italians who swore they were skeptics all along, and all those post‑Watergate Republicans suddenly discovered they had always distrusted Nixon (aside from Roger Stone, who tattooed his face in the exact spot you'd be staring at if you were sodomizing him in the athletic club steam room).
Trump will go the same way: a gaudy historical footnote, remembered mostly as the place that showed everybody the Constitution was a deeply flawed document in need of serious revision.
It is my hope this is the breaking point where Americans finally demand actual democracy, but I ain't holding my breath on that.
Paraphrasing here... "Conducting Forensic analysis of Truth Social Posts as fhough decoding ancient Vatican documents.." ..literally has me rolling in the aisles...😄😁😆😅🤣😂...or perhaps I should say...on my living room sofa...
I guess I haven’t noticed the fixation with the Kennedy Center situation quite so much.. partly because I no longer watch cable news or any TV news… I just don’t. I don’t miss it and I don’t need it. I follow a few people from MS NOW… like Rachel and Lawrence online. I don’t need to turn on a TV to keep up. I follow independent media on SubStack and YouTube. I don’t need the noise. You taught me that.. thank you.
Also, I spend more time on SubStack than I do on social media.. especially lately. Sure, I scroll each one… Instagram… Threads… BlueSky… even Facebook. Mostly not for politics though… I check out what you’re having to say on Threads because I enjoy seeing the difference in what you post there as opposed to here. You can be pretty entertaining sometimes lol… I post a lot on BlueSky because those people are living in an echo chamber. They’ve abandoned every other social media platform because they don’t want to engage with MAGA and they hate META.. I get it but I’m not sure they’re getting the whole picture. Some are… some aren’t. They even come at me if I try to post something from a META platform. I’ve mostly stopped doing it and try to find the information from another source.
Here’s one thing I’ve noticed and I’ve tested it time after time. I post several important articles… yours always.. a few others… and some news media stories if they seem important. I get little to no engagement because your articles require actually READING… people are lazy.. they are. They don’t want to read an article no matter how important it might be. It’s exasperating! Then, a few days later so as not to bury the articles I hope a few will read, I post a string of meme’s… BOOM.. my notifications blow up. They like, repost and sometimes comment in droves. If I could fit everything you need people to know on a meme.. they’d read it but I can’t. I just keep posting and am grateful for the few who at least like and sometimes repost. I have no idea if they actually read it. My guess is not many.
Maybe I haven’t noticed the Kennedy Center noise as much because I’ve seriously curtailed my doomscrolling. I’m kind of proud of that because it can be addictive and I know I have a bit of an addictive personality… self awareness is good. You taught me not to do that too.. the doomscrolling that is. Again, thank you. If I’m tempted just because I’m bored or can’t sleep, I always have a great book and so I read.. fiction.
This was, for me, somewhat of an eye opening article because I just wasn’t aware that it was distracting so many in such a way. Of course, I knew it happened and I’m glad he had to remove his name but it’s not going to save us so it’s just in the background for me. Appreciate knowing that it’s this loud. I’ll be sure not to add to it.
Trump juggles from one chaotic scheme to the next (the Kennedy Center, the Reflection Pool, the cage fight next to the White House, etc.) in order to deflect attention but also keep our attention all on him. There are those in his inner circle who corral him into doing things while the real damage is going on in the background unnoticed for a while. Grifting, ponzi scams, and tearing down everything this country has been founded on.
Jack, your “Bonus” piece is exactly right…governing is hard work…and that’s exactly what is not happening now! It’s all performative…no substance! Press Conferences are nothing more than an opportunity for more time in front of the cameras, nothing like I remember watching as a kid when JFK was President and held a Press Conference…solid questions with actual answers! Cabinet meetings are praise sessions, with nothing being done, no business except to praise the glorious leader. Unfortunately the media and so many watching don’t seem to remember what being President really entails…hard work, long hours and actual accomplishments! Thanks for all your hard work…keeping us actually paying attention to the details, not following that “shiny object!”
The analogy of the magician's "slight of hand" is perfect. It's manufactured "slight of SLIGHT" to divert attention due to emotional attachment to FEELING "slighted" - not inappropriately so, but at the expense of paying attention to practical realities.
Dr. David...now THAT'S a turn of phrase.
You've found the hinge the whole trick swings on: the feeling of being slighted is real and earned...which is EXACTLY why it works as misdirection.
They don't have to manufacture the emotion. They just have to point it at the right hand. The sleight is in the aiming...not the feeling.
Beautifully put...and...a sharper way of saying it than I managed in the piece itself. Well done.
-Jack
Brilliant Dr. David🙌🏽🤙🏽🙌🏽
WHOA! I love some well used language, Dr. David. Good stuff, that.
I understand the point here, but some of us have been putting major effort into fighting what was happening at the Kennedy Center. For me it isn't just a social media blitz. I won't take my attention and efforts away. This is a major pushback on Trump’s attempt to make all American History about him, including the takeover of a living memorial to another president.
The naming of the Kennedy Center is very revealing. It started out under Eisenhower as The National Cultural Center. President and Mrs. Kennedy took over the planning. After JFK's assassination, Johnson and Congress decided to make it the living memorial to JFK while keeping a focus on culture. The Congressional Act reads that there can be no other memorial to JFK within Washington DC. So. No. His name cannot be added. Period.
Since the Trump takeover their marketing has started to include emphasis back on the National Cultural Center. There have been other things done inside that detract from the living memorial and the gifts that nations donated to honor JFK. For example, the African Lounge that had textiles and artwork was closed. No one knows where the artifacts went. There was talk of selling off the rest of the artwork. The new design completely eliminated the third floor terrace.
I spent several days documenting and taking photos and videos in case the whole thing was torn down like the East Wing.
I wish we could get a win like this on everything the regime is doing to our country and people. I have learned that I can't focus on everything. I have been focusing on one or two things, like the Kennedy Center, and hope that others can tackle some of the other things.
My first vivid memory outside of family ones is when President Kennedy was assassination. I was a heartbroken 3-yr. old and I still feel that in my body when I think of it. He was MY president, and I loved him earnestly.
Thank you for your care in seeing that the true intent of The Kennedy Center remains true, MB. As true as the heart of a 3-yr. old.
Thank you for that…it will probably help to restore it.
Dang it Jack! again, ya got me thinkin again; bout other things. This steaming pile of clownshow krapp is not worth the time and is nothing more than another misdirection sleight of hand...
Great post, Jack. I've been making the point for years that Trump wasn’t so much a celebrity as a profit center for legacy media. The've kept re‑animating him long after his expiration date.
For decades, Trump floated around the celebrity ecosystem as a kind of permanent B‑list curiosity with Page Six gossip mentions, real‑estate puff pieces, beauty pageant shots, the occasional lifestyle interview. It was almost a given that his name and photo grabbed attention, even if the substance was paper‑thin, so he kept showing up in glossy magazines and on tabloid covers as a kind of standing punchline about wealth and vulgarity. Champagne wishes, caviar dreams (and rape, kidnapping, and domestic violence off camera).
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was more kitsch than mogul, a familiar face who reliably moved copies but was rarely taken seriously in business or politics. Then came the gread laundering project, The Apprentice.
Producers have since described, in detail, how the show built a fictional universe in which Trump was a decisive, almost omniscient executive, his name plastered over carefully staged boardrooms, helicopters, and skyline establishing shots.
What viewers didn’t see, according to people who worked on the series, were the hours of rambling, incoherent digressions and bigoted asides left on the cutting‑room floor so that an erratic, frequently offensive performer could be remixed into a crisp, no‑nonsense patriarch of capitalism.
When he descended that golden escalator in 2015, Jon Stewart (who was leaving the Daily Show) rang a five-alarm klaxon that proved amazingly prescient. Here came the New York Post's devil's bargain: give him saturation coverage and he’ll give you ratings. Fox News had proved this with the racist Birther claptrap, and Trump was front and center after Obama mercilessly mocked him at the White House Correspondents' dinner.
From that day on, campaign reporting turned into a 24‑hour Trump live‑blog. We'd been talking about a living wage and single-payer healthcare, sponsored college and reasonable gun policy. All that shit was kicked to the margins while every channel ran his rallies, tweets, and feuds as breaking news. The fact more Americans died of covid than all the wars of the 20th century COMBINED was swept under the rug, as was the entire botch of that crisis.
Even after Biden’s 2020 victory, the oxygen never returned to policy, because January 6, the investigations, the trials, and the endless post‑presidency rallies kept Trump at the center of the frame. The past was rewritten, and the billionaire-owned media (even the stalwarts of NYT, Wapo, and a thousand regional papers and news outlets) talked about Biden's age and unpopularity instead of the tremendous success of his quietly progressive policies. It was STILL about Trump.
But for all that noise, his historical legacy is tissue‑thin. His politics of grievance, a ruling party transformed into a personality cult, and a media environment trained to chase his every outburst as if it mattered more than people’s actual lives. It is a history of institutions failing, and as is always the case, the poor have suffered the most.
History show us regimes built on bluster and cruelty leave behind wreckage and embarrassment. A decade later their fair‑weather supporters insist they never bought the act at all.
Look at the postwar Germans and Italians who swore they were skeptics all along, and all those post‑Watergate Republicans suddenly discovered they had always distrusted Nixon (aside from Roger Stone, who tattooed his face in the exact spot you'd be staring at if you were sodomizing him in the athletic club steam room).
Trump will go the same way: a gaudy historical footnote, remembered mostly as the place that showed everybody the Constitution was a deeply flawed document in need of serious revision.
It is my hope this is the breaking point where Americans finally demand actual democracy, but I ain't holding my breath on that.
Paraphrasing here... "Conducting Forensic analysis of Truth Social Posts as fhough decoding ancient Vatican documents.." ..literally has me rolling in the aisles...😄😁😆😅🤣😂...or perhaps I should say...on my living room sofa...
I guess I haven’t noticed the fixation with the Kennedy Center situation quite so much.. partly because I no longer watch cable news or any TV news… I just don’t. I don’t miss it and I don’t need it. I follow a few people from MS NOW… like Rachel and Lawrence online. I don’t need to turn on a TV to keep up. I follow independent media on SubStack and YouTube. I don’t need the noise. You taught me that.. thank you.
Also, I spend more time on SubStack than I do on social media.. especially lately. Sure, I scroll each one… Instagram… Threads… BlueSky… even Facebook. Mostly not for politics though… I check out what you’re having to say on Threads because I enjoy seeing the difference in what you post there as opposed to here. You can be pretty entertaining sometimes lol… I post a lot on BlueSky because those people are living in an echo chamber. They’ve abandoned every other social media platform because they don’t want to engage with MAGA and they hate META.. I get it but I’m not sure they’re getting the whole picture. Some are… some aren’t. They even come at me if I try to post something from a META platform. I’ve mostly stopped doing it and try to find the information from another source.
Here’s one thing I’ve noticed and I’ve tested it time after time. I post several important articles… yours always.. a few others… and some news media stories if they seem important. I get little to no engagement because your articles require actually READING… people are lazy.. they are. They don’t want to read an article no matter how important it might be. It’s exasperating! Then, a few days later so as not to bury the articles I hope a few will read, I post a string of meme’s… BOOM.. my notifications blow up. They like, repost and sometimes comment in droves. If I could fit everything you need people to know on a meme.. they’d read it but I can’t. I just keep posting and am grateful for the few who at least like and sometimes repost. I have no idea if they actually read it. My guess is not many.
Maybe I haven’t noticed the Kennedy Center noise as much because I’ve seriously curtailed my doomscrolling. I’m kind of proud of that because it can be addictive and I know I have a bit of an addictive personality… self awareness is good. You taught me not to do that too.. the doomscrolling that is. Again, thank you. If I’m tempted just because I’m bored or can’t sleep, I always have a great book and so I read.. fiction.
This was, for me, somewhat of an eye opening article because I just wasn’t aware that it was distracting so many in such a way. Of course, I knew it happened and I’m glad he had to remove his name but it’s not going to save us so it’s just in the background for me. Appreciate knowing that it’s this loud. I’ll be sure not to add to it.
Great article, as always, Jack.
#Holdfast
~Susan
👌🙏👍 As always, spot on insight. Many thanks.
As “Fonzie” used to say “exactamundo”. The politicians playbook.
Trump juggles from one chaotic scheme to the next (the Kennedy Center, the Reflection Pool, the cage fight next to the White House, etc.) in order to deflect attention but also keep our attention all on him. There are those in his inner circle who corral him into doing things while the real damage is going on in the background unnoticed for a while. Grifting, ponzi scams, and tearing down everything this country has been founded on.
#HoldFast
Jack, your “Bonus” piece is exactly right…governing is hard work…and that’s exactly what is not happening now! It’s all performative…no substance! Press Conferences are nothing more than an opportunity for more time in front of the cameras, nothing like I remember watching as a kid when JFK was President and held a Press Conference…solid questions with actual answers! Cabinet meetings are praise sessions, with nothing being done, no business except to praise the glorious leader. Unfortunately the media and so many watching don’t seem to remember what being President really entails…hard work, long hours and actual accomplishments! Thanks for all your hard work…keeping us actually paying attention to the details, not following that “shiny object!”
Great explanation re all the chaos and why it is that way. The more you stop paying real attention the more damage they do…
#HOLDFAST
Teri