New book asserts that Donald Trump is TV

The New York Times

New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik's new book Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television and the Fracturing of America explores Trump's interdependent relationship with television. As book reviewer Gary Shteyngart explains, Poniewozik asserts that "Trump is TV, the mere simulacrum of a human being projected onto a flat-screen. He grew up with the dawn of television and a TV-watching mother. Over the years, Poniewozik writes, Trump 'achieved symbiosis with the medium. Its impulses were his impulses; its appetites were his appetites; its mentality was his mentality.'" Shteyngart adds: "The presidency has become what it never was under Obama or Clinton or the Bushes, no matter how different their governing styles or agendas. It has become 'Must See TV.' Despite the apparent bedlam, special care is taken to make sure that the plotlines, in industry parlance, 'hook,' and that the characters always say crazy, unexpected things. Ever thought you’d see a Jewish white supremacist in the White House? Well, now you have. A renowned neurosurgeon who mistakes Hamas for hummus? Send him in. Anthony Scaramucci, whatever he was? Check. Still, Poniewozik never underestimates Trump’s malicious genius (as so many of us have)." As Poniewozik writes in his book of Trump's time on The Apprentice, "He had a genuine ability to improvise. He knew instinctually what the camera wanted.” ALSO: Poniewozik writes that TV was Trump's "soul mate. It was like him. It was packed with the razzle-dazzle and action and violence that captivated him."