Without the focus on the interpersonal drama and conflict that attracts eyeballs week after week, reality TV would not have grown into its own genre.
The story of Donald Trump’s unlikely to unprecedented 2016 presidential campaign will one day make for an interesting small-screen presentation. What happens the rest of the way will determine whether it’s a one-hour special, a movie or, who knows, maybe a mini-series.
As with the best reality TV, that part is yet to be written.
Trump’s signature has been seen all over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, from some tense moments among protesters and police outside to discord among delegates and officials inside.
The squelching of the Never Trump holdouts, in private and public, exposed a dangerous fracture among party regulars. The plagiarism allegations over what had been intended as a foundational speech by Trump’s wife, Melania, sucked much of the air out of Day 2. The unforced error was less the plagiarism, whoever was to blame, and more the Trump campaign’s shifting and defensive responses. Instead of putting the flap behind them, his people inadvertently kept it alive for an entire cycle, as he was said to have raged off-camera.
How much we remember of that — more to consider than those heavily scripted, infomercial-like political conventions of the past — will be decided tonight. That’s when Trump takes the stage to give his address formally accepting the party’s presidential nomination.
Or as formally as Donald Trump does anything.
He will not lack for words, as he has proved on the campaign trail. His speaking style, at best unfettered and at times unhinged, could be described as a populist stream of consciousness. His promises to “Make America Great Again,” if short on specifics, still helped him win more than 13 million votes, as he’s fond of reminding us.
Now what? Let us predict boffo ratings. Some Americans will come for policy prescriptions; many others will want only entertainment. Another block, we suspect, will represent the curious and those just starting to pay attention.
The nominee’s address, typically a convention’s high point, can be what voters remember into November. For the Republican Party’s sake, we hope those potential voters hear a streamlined, clearer message.
Trump, a wealthy man with deal-making and reality TV in his bones, proved gifted — yes, even entertaining — on the stump with unscripted remarks before crowds huge and less huge, veering from offense to comedy to the occasional serious point.
It might be too much to ask, but would undecided voters not benefit from an optimistic, direct message that Trump then showed the discipline to carry from state to state? That would be a fond wish for nervous Republicans, from leadership down.
His primary vote total is a modern record. He will need roughly five times as many to win in November. Does he have that in him? We’re dubious but listening.
— The Dallas Morning News
