Writing for Politico, Dan Brooks does a deep dive into the very Trumpian phenomenon of what Brooks calls “the just-saying-stuff presidency.”
Trump’s commitment to loose talk has given him unprecedented leeway to act on his words without criticism or debate, before people have even decided whether he’s serious.
Basically, Brooks has taken Salena Zito’s pithy observation that Trump’s people take him “seriously but not literally” and analyzed its various parts. For example:
[Trump] generally knows when he is lying, joking, bluffing or riffing to see what sticks, as well as when he is speaking sincerely and when he is giving the impression of one but actually doing the other. And his awareness creates an information asymmetry that works to his advantage.
Trump is, after all, at least in part an entertainer, reading the room, and delivering what the audience either wants to hear or will find titillating. I think we can discern his core program but it is ‘juiced’ with audience-pleasing riff, shtick, and trial balloons.
