Trump's nuclear-threat 'policy' calls for him to pose and be noticed
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. Credit: Dong-A Ilbo via Getty Images
More than a half-century since Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message, President Donald Trump makes the notion worth revisiting.
Media, both "social" and "mainstream," are Trump's obsession.
Consider two belligerent governments seen as global menaces: Iran and North Korea.
They could sent no more powerful a message than the threat of nuclear catastrophe.
Trump's latest engagement with the powers in Pyongyang thus won him a great photo opportunity.
Enabled by foe-turned-cordial-acquaintance Kim Jong Un, he became the first incumbent U.S. president to walk into North Korea.
The two posed side by side. Trump is 6-1, although advertised as 6-3. Kim is 5-7.
Trump gets to be the bigger statesman with a bigger arsenal. Good optics, if you don't fixate on finding a deeper meaning.
As president, Trump speaks of ratings as if still producing a reality show.
Put this latest famous photo next to one of Trump in 2017 denouncing Kim as "rocket man" at the UN and threatening destruction. Labeled "before" and "after," they imply progress. Soothing ending, great ratings.
Chances for nuclear disarmament by the rogue regime remain tiny. But that's beside the point in the land of the media/message.
Underlying facts tell a murkier story. The U.S. national security adviser, John Bolton, wasn't even part of the show. Negotiations are nowhere. Trump expressed the hallucination that Barack Obama wanted such a summit and didn't get one.
Kim's domestic murders and purges were politely ignored. A North Korea economy choked by sanctions, but helped by China, wasn't discussed. Nor was the Kim regime's military buildup.
No matter. Kim drove up ratings as the guest star of Trump's weekend.
A more troubling photo-and-video montage emerges on Trump and Iran.
First recall the pantomime last year of presidential factotum Rudy Giuliani "ripping up" and "spitting" on the nuclear treaty with Iran signed by Obama and other leaders in 2015.
Trump trashed the treaty soon after. In his own iconic photo, he regally displayed a withdrawal order from behind his desk. The document showed his tall, photogenic, unreadable signature.
Now we have a more recent image of an oil tanker burning in the Gulf of Oman, purportedly the result of Iranian mischief. And we see video of Hassan Rouhani checking out nuclear equipment as tensions rise.
What becomes the American strategy to avert disaster? Videos and photos don't say. But crises real or contrived offer good ratings.
Trump has said he'd be glad to meet with Rouhani. If it ever happened, the photo could be great for Trump. Rouhani is only 5-6.
Back in the day McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher, wrote: "The title 'The Medium Is the Message' is a teaser — a way of getting attention.
"There's a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, 'Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.'
"This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things."
Trump found an effective way of getting people to notice him July 4 — a bizarre reference in his speech to the Contintental army securing airports in the 1770's.
It was a flub for the history books. But the president kept on preening and drew attention, so what's the difference?
Call it another message accomplished.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
