The Trump Show: Next Episodes

     There is the possibility that Trump is not just deeply neurotic but either has long been or has recently become psychotic.  In that event, his egomaniacal delusion could well lead him to summon violent resistance to his removal.  While such resistance would have very little chance of being successful, however unsuccessful it might be it would have enormously detrimental effects on America’s economy, institutions and prestige.  But I think it’s more likely that Trump will be dissuaded from taking such a risk.

Trump knows that crowds of prosecutors and creditors will be at his heels the moment he relinquishes the Presidency.  He will need money urgently, and the only way he has made money in the past was as a reality-TV performer.  He will try to reproduce that success, but the fantasy biz-world format of his old show won’t work for him any longer.  He has to exploit his political following,  and he can do that only through some sort of alternative-news offering.

The Fox News network has already betrayed him unforgivably (that’s a low bar with Trump).  Newsmax might provide a viable medium, but it will find DJT a prickly partner.  They’ll both be in it for the money, and there won’t be enough to go around.  Major advertisers will not be rushing to sign up.

Creation of a subscription streaming service would require more creativity than the Trump family can command, and anyway Trump’s core constituency will not be coughing up, at least not for long.  If TrumpStream were launched,  it would be well advised to require subscribers to sign two- or three-year contracts.  Then Trump would be way ahead if he could get Deutsche Bank to take an assignment of the contracts in satisfaction of his debt – only that would leave him without a desperately needed income stream.

Come 1/20/2021, Trump’s Twitter account will lose its special head-of-government treatment.  For a time Trump might profit from his “persecution” at the hands of Twitter, but will he be foolish enough to court expulsion from the medium?  TrumpTwitter could only be created with talent and capital that are not at his disposal, but if the investment were made, what would be its burn rate, and for how long would there really be interest?

Anyway, TrumpChannel, cable or streamed, is going to be Trump’s only possible financial lifeline.  (I’m predicting any economic collaboration between Trump and Newsmax, or some even-farther-out media splinter, will be extremely short-lived.  Who – even under less Trump-trying circumstances – has been a business partner of DJT’s and lived to tell the tale, or even been a Trump lender, vendor or customer at other than considerable loss?)  And he must keep his audience stoked up to support the product launch.

Of course the “I wuz robbed” fantasy is essential to that stoking.   Hence, to the extent DJT controls what comes out of the Administration there will be no concession, no cooperation and no letup in the whining.  Right through January 19 the True Believers will keep being riveted by the remarks of Rudy Giuliani even as he moves on from blaming Hugo Chavez to unmasking the role of V.I. Lenin.  (Or will Rudy’s targets be limited to dead non-Russian Marxists? Is Putin’s blackmail that strong?)

If Trump were really a shrewd businessman or a talented media impresario, he would recognize that TrumpChannel has to launch on or before Inauguration Day.  But that would mean that a serious business/creative effort would have to have begun two weeks ago, and there’s no sign of one yet.