On Monday, Donald Trump decided to cut a town hall event short and play songs to his audience for 40 minutes.
This is the kind of thing that drives liberals up the wall. To do something this bizarre, surely he’s (for real this time!) lost his mind. Kamala Harris’s X account flippantly posted “Hope he’s okay,” over a video of the former president silently swaying to Sarah Brightman. Now, at last, the people will see this man for the addled buffoon he is!
I don’t think Trump was having an episode. I also don’t think this was a work of premeditated political genius. I think he was tired, irritated that people in the crowd kept fainting, and decided he’d rather listen to music instead, so that’s what he did. I can’t imagine this event will have more of a lasting negative effect on the Trump campaign than any of his earlier elite-baffling moments (if anything, he might start doing pop-up DJ sets as a regular thing).
When I say “elite-baffling,” it sounds like I’m implying there’s some strategic intent behind these things. Most of the time, I suspect there is not. Trump’s motivations are instead an unusually pure expression of unmitigated narcissism, as revealed in his abrupt declaration from the stage: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” I don’t want to hear any more questions, therefore you don’t want to hear any more questions. I want to listen to music instead; you’re going to listen to my music with me.
For MAGA fans, this is doubly enjoyable: First, it confuses and frustrates the left. And second, it’s further evidence that Donald Trump is not a product of consultants, he is a rich guy doing what he wants to do when he wants to do it, fuck everyone who tells him different. If he had puppet masters, why would we all be sitting here watching him bliss out to “Nothing Compares 2 U”?
Contrast this with Barack Obama’s tradition of releasing a “songs of the year” list. His 2023 set included Big Thief, Alé Araya, and Mitski. (Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Hallelujah” from Shrek, you’ll notice, is not present.) Is Obama really listening to “Vampire Empire,” or does he have a team of millennials curating his cultural identity for elite tastes? And which is worse, anyway: that his public persona is managed by hipsters, or that he is one?
There were moments of blatantly political fare in Trump’s playlist, like the briefly ubiquitous “Rich Men North of Richmond” (which Trump did not seem especially enthused by). But mostly it was the stuff you imagine he’d personally choose to get a crowd vibing at a Mar-a-Lago party: James Brown, Guns N’ Roses, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Elvis Presley.
And of course, the choice that baffles liberals the most: “YMCA.” For those on the outside, it’s inexplicable that Trump and his acolytes associate themselves with the campiest of gay anthems. But in embracing “YMCA,” Trump gives his fans permission to reject its woke baggage and celebrate its camp as their own, alongside the rest of MAGA’s shameless and over-the-top aesthetic. In the context of a Trump rally, “YMCA” is a song you remember your dad dancing to at your wedding. It’s a reception hosted by the affable DJ Trump at Mar-a-Lago with your friends and family, all white and straight and Christian and safe. It’s silly fun, and at the same time a bold declaration of cultural conquest. Today the Village People, tomorrow America!
Now, MAGA are the ones who are in on the joke, and you’re the ones on the outside. This is extraordinarily powerful stuff, the kind of power that stiffs like Mitt Romney and Kevin McCarthy could never dream of wielding. And again, I don’t think Trump totally understands this, or that he operates according to any kind of strategy in moments like Monday. But simply by being his authentically horrible self, he continues to piss off all the right people. And the more confused and frustrated you are, the more you keep the party going.