TRUMP THE SHOWMAN

In a chaotic rally that ended with him getting shot at, Trump shows why entertainment is in his blood, why rappers like him, and sealed the election for himself in the process.

In Nancy Jo Sales’s 1999 VIBE Magazine profile of Donald J. Trump’s relationship with rappers, Trump is quoted as saying he doesn’t have time to listen to hip-hop, despite his admiration for rappers. “The problem is, my life is so wild, I just don’t have the time”, Trump would later explain, fully. Makes sense. The piece was chronicling hip-hop’s complicated and enthralling relationship with Trump, who at the time was a real estate magnate and born and bred New Yorker whose outsized persona was just a way for him to be both a national celebrity and a local one too. At that time, he was stunned by old money and embraced by hip-hop, perhaps the epitome of “new money” institutions. Never mind that he was shown to be prone to dangerous and racist rhetoric, such as the Central Park Five situation; never mind that he was already sued for housing discrimination. He was showing up at Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’s birthday, celebrating Russell Simmons’s successful insurgence into the Hamptons society, and leaving messages on Method Man’s answering machine. American life was different then, social media has made people more dogmatic, and hip-hop was becoming a billion dollar business; Trump took advantage of rappers’s avarice. Rhymes, such as Raekwon’s infamous “Incarcerated Scarfaces” line “Rae’s a heavy generator/but yo, guess who’s the black Trump”, would infiltrate the mainstream. Trump was a conscientious ally of mainstream hip-hop, or of the gloss that it conveyed. 

Seeing him become President — partly by antagonizing Black people — can sometimes render this era of Trump history as insignificant, but I was reminded of it yesterday. By now you know that, hilariously, Donald J. Trump was shot, or at least shot at, during a rally in Pennsylvania. The bullet, according to him, just grazed his left ear. In the video, you can hear shots ring out, as Trump realizes what is happening and checks his ear. The crowd gasps a bit; seeing their rogue leader harmed. The secret service comes crashing in like a pack of wolves. As he gets up, with his ear bleeding like Mike Tyson bit it, and the blood traveling to his mouth, he tells his bodyguards to “wait”, and puts a fist in the air. 

Showmanship is something innate, gifted to you from birth. It’s a spiritual sense — the ability to know when the cameras are watching, the ability to be earnest and ridiculous at the same time, the ability to be free from inhibitions while still showing mystery. For only reasons Allah, the omega, the big bang, can understand, that gift of showmanship occupies whatever’s remaining in Trump’s brain. He is all gut instincts, all “dragon energy”, as Kanye West once said. He is a primate, from the screaming that his nonsensical words induce, to his talk-radio charisma. You hear the phrase “presence of mind” said when it comes to athletes; the pure id that you have to have to be able to understand that even after you get hit by a hollow point bullet you must show your base that you are virile and healthy is akin to that cliched sentiment reserved for athletes. The image of him doing so is now a part of American history, and it happened in real time, as people were on the subway living their mundane lives. It sent shock waves to my friends: my best friend and I were comparing him to Cam’ron and 50 Cent; people were putting 50’s classic “Many Men” over the video of Trump getting up. Many men do wish death upon him; and he got up and is still breathing. (I do have to say — it was only his ear). Trump was back in his peak celebrity days at that podium — before January 6, before his shocking illiteracy became important, before the “lock her up” chants. It was back when you could see him on the back of the NY Post and it did not cause any semblance of anxiety. At that point, it was a man and his hunger for the perfect close-up, as if he was Norma Desmond after shooting Joe Gills. It seems almost unfair to even think about what Biden would have done if this happened to him; Trump’s vigor for life — the only reason why he will defeat Joe Biden — reared its absorbing head.

Lately, Trump’s been having rappers show up to his rallies and take photos with him, either before they begin or after. He commented that Sheff G had grills that he wished he could wear, and that Philadelphia upstart OT7 Quanny looked great in his “Make America Great Again” hat. (“He’s got so much cash, he doesn’t know what to do with it”, he also said about Quanny). It’s not surprising to me. Street emcees aren’t politicians; quite the opposite actually, they are people who move through the planet with an uncontrollable hustle that can only be quenched with more hustle. Quanny sees what I saw in Trump, what Raekwon once saw: that this man’s drive for fame has willed outcomes, changed incomes.  

Trump is obviously quite dangerous — he spent the moments before the shots got fired talking about “illegal” immigrants flooding the country as if they were rats he had to exterminate — but he won the election yesterday. The Democrats, who only have themselves to blame, lost as soon as he got up to pump his fist. Biden is having drugs showed down his throat right now; there is a world where Trump easily makes it to a UFC fight the same night. A presidential campaign that was already functioning as a WWE entrance just got scarier and more theatrical, and now, Mr. Trump will make it his mission to make sure the only person who is free is him, Puffy, and Russell Simmons.