- Most who write about politics focus on the horse race of elections, or the specifics of policies.

But today's guest says we should view American politics, especially current American politics, through a pop culture lens.

She's Joanna Weiss this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(bright music) (bright music continues) Hello and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- And our guest this week is Joanna Weiss, who among other things, is a contributing writer at "Politico" magazine.

Joanna, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So I mentioned to you when we talked before that your recent reporting came on our radar screen because one of my star students sent me an article you had written for "Politico," "What Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Tells Us About Trump's Appeal."

And my principal takeaway from this story was that fandom and celebrity is perhaps a better frame for thinking about the continued popularity of Donald Trump.

Do I have that about right?

- You do, you do, and I'm glad I hit the student population with politics and Taylor Swift, it's a good combination.

But yeah, it's something that struck me when I went with my daughter to the Taylor Swift show, as one does, at Gillette Stadium outside of Boston.

And it was a terrific show, but more than that, it was a fan experience.

The collective experience of being there with other people who were dressed a certain way, or in all kinds of complimentary ways, who were singing the songs together.

There was this kind of community that formed around Taylor Swift that was bigger than the artist herself.

And it made me think about the relationship that Donald Trump's supporters have with him, which is not really the same as a typical politician.

I mean, in every way Donald Trump is not a typical politician.

And I think a big key to understanding him is seeing the way he has come out of the entertainment industry.

- How do those group dynamics, so the way you describe what you saw at Gillette evokes in me some of the things that I've seen, either in the reporting I've seen or some of the footage that I've seen, of sort of like the carnival like festival like atmosphere at a Trump rally.

Is that, how does that group dynamic play out?

- Yeah, I mean, Trump rallies are, in some ways they're like concert events.

It's people who are going to see an entertainer, to see a star who's putting on a performance.

There is the same kind of dress up, you could sort of think of it as a form of cosplay, all the MAGA material that you can get, all the merchandise.

The chanting, there's a collective experience that is, you know, there other politicians obviously have had rallies and there are cheers and there are supporters, but I think there's a different aspect to the relationship with Trump.

And he plays into it by understanding what gets the crowd excited, by sort of turning on the entertainment aspects of his persona.

- So, is this a new phenomenon, (clears throat) excuse me, in the political world, what we're seeing with Donald Trump?

- I don't think it's brand new, I mean, I think there have been populists and entertaining politicians, and the best politicians are good at rhetoric.

I mean, you know, Barack Obama was able to stir a crowd with a, you know, great rhetorical sense, I think Hillary Clinton was not as good at rhetoric, and that did stymie her, that was one of the things that I think that stymied her political future and her political experience.

But I do think that Donald Trump understands, he came directly out of the entertainment industry.

I mean, you know, he came up, yes, as a real estate person in New York, but he was always working page six of the New York Post, the entertainment press.

He understood those dynamics, he understood how to get attention.

He has this innate understanding of how to get and keep attention.

And that's very different from most people who follow the political rules, he really doesn't.

- So, you know, in popular culture, in that world certainly it is not a new phenomenon.

You look at Elvis and before, you look at the Beatles, you look at the Rolling Stones, right up to the present time.

Do you think Donald Trump paid attention to that, or that was part of his thinking, or was he aware of those earlier popular culture, musical phenomenon?

- I'm sure he was.

I mean, I do think he has an instinct for it.

Just, I don't know him, but I feel like he has, there's something innate because he's able to kind of turn it on so reflexively, and I think sometimes, you know, his advisors don't want him to do the things that he does, but it works.

I think some of the political apparatus around him is sort of shocked at the way he behaves, and yet it works.

But I'm sure that his models have been entertainment industry big stars.

Yeah, I think he's probably evoked Elvis or invoked the name of Elvis, I'm pretty sure he has.

- I mean, and it starts from when takes the stage too.

You know, it's almost like when Taylor Swift takes the stage, boom.

- He knows how to make an entrance, coming down the escalator, right, she comes up the lift and he comes down the escalator.

- But, you know, it's interesting because there's a whole bunch of political science theory around ingroup and outgroups.

And one of the big explanations of 2016 was that Donald Trump had tapped into segments of the American population who had felt outside of the political process and brought them in.

What you're describing though is sort of a, it becomes sort of a political ecosystem, a cultural ecosystem, a community into itself that has its own rules, its own ways of dressing, its own ways of behaving, and some inside jokes.

And you write about the humor of Donald Trump, both in this article and elsewhere, as something that's maybe underappreciated by a lot of others.

But it's part of this community, isn't it?

- I think it's part of understanding Trump and his appeal is understanding how he uses humor, because it is, again, it's one of the tools in his arsenal, it's one of the entertainment tools in his arsenal.

One of the things that is appealing to his supporters, to him as a public figure, is that he's someone who breaks the norms, who says things that shock people, which is a way for him to kind of prove his authenticity to them.

Whether he believes everything he says or not is unclear, but he knows how to shock.

And some of his humor has been based on shock, but some of his humor, you know, the kinds of things that I wrote at one point about, I read about an appearance that he made at a veteran's group.

And he made some sort of joke about him getting a Medal of Honor, which was a- - He wanted to award himself.

- He wanted to award himself a medal.

And some of the press, a lot of the, you know, "(gasps) He said he wanted to award himself a Medal of Honor, isn't that horrible, isn't he?"

And in the room, it was clear from the reporting, from the local reporting in the room, he made a joke.

The audience around him got it, the joke was in a way, kind of an intelligent way of diffusing some of his weakness in the situation.

He was in front of a military group, he is known to have been a draft dodger, so by making a little joke and kind of acknowledging ahead of time in this self-deprecating way, like, "(laughs) you know, obviously I don't deserve a Medal of Honor, but ha ha ha."

It diffuses the tension, it kind of takes that issue out of the conversation.

He owns it, controls it, and can move on.

And so it was kind of a deft way of using humor.

But for people who were inclined to not be appreciative of the fact that he had been a draft dodger or people who, you know, were kind of shocked by his public persona and the kinds of out of norm things that he always did, they didn't take it as a joke, they didn't hear it as a joke.

And so they presented it as, you know, a problem.

So there's this big disconnect, I think.

- So Joanna, there's a very strong emotional aspect to this.

When you go to a Taylor Swift concert or you go to a Donald Trump rally, you feel things, in the case of Donald Trump, you feel some humor at some points, you may feel some anger at some points, and other emotions.

Is is that a critical part of the Trump?

- And I don't know if it's an emotion, but a sense of belonging.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Well, it's both.

I mean, I wanna talk about the emotion because is there that aspect and does that in some way, overrule or complicate when people leave a rally and then start to think about, am I gonna vote for this person?

Do I really wanna support this person?

Anyway, there's a lot of questions in there and Jim added one, if you can unpack all that for us.

- Yeah, I mean, I think Trump, Trump sparks an emotional reaction on all sides, on both sides, right?

Like, there are people who are so appalled by the kinds of things he's willing to say that they're very emotional and they react emotionally to anything he does.

And I think tend to think very negatively about, no matter what he says, because the package around it is so appalling to them.

On the flip side, I do think he is able to create an emotional connection.

And it's, again, it's this sense of like, I'm with you, I get you, you get me, it's kind of a clubby sense of belonging.

- [G. Wayne] The belonging, what you were saying.

- Right, and you know, people who study fandom and have kind of looked into this as well, and kind of the, almost the evolutionary aspects of this ingroup outgroup dynamic that you were talking about.

I mean, it really does, it goes back all those thousands and tens of thousands of years to when people needed groups to survive.

If you didn't have your group around you, your chances of survival and passing your genes onto the next generation, were much less and- - Your cave versus the cave next to you.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

And so with that ingroup sentiment came, you know, an equivalent sentiment of like, you've gotta really push back at the outgroups.

You've gotta really distance yourself or find yourself in opposition to the outgroup.

And so that becomes part of the dynamic.

You know, Taylor Swift fans, they're very emotionally, they love Taylor Swift, not all of them, but there's a subset of Taylor Swift fans that are very, very, very mean to people who say something that they see as critical of Taylor Swift.

Oh, people are online doxxed, attacked, death threats against critics.

I mean, again, this isn't everyone, this isn't like, you know, all the happy teenage girls, but there's a subset that really takes it seriously.

And I think that, you know, that clubby feeling, again, not all of Donald Trump's supporters are gonna do anything like that, but there's that clubby feeling and that sense of it's us against them.

And he is very good at tapping into that us against them.

I get you, they think you're deplorable, they think you're wrong, they think you're dumb.

I know, I get you, you get me.

- What role does social media play in these dynamics today?

- It amplifies it, you know, it kicks it up to 11.

I think these dynamics were always there, but social media, you know, first of all, if you are a fan of Taylor Swift or you're a supporter of Donald Trump, you don't just get the evening news or when the record drops, or when you happen to play the album, it's like all day long you can be reinforced in your fandom and in your in-group feeling.

And again, when Donald Trump was President and he was on Twitter all the time, and some of his aides were appalled and his opponents were appalled, he was feeding that beast, and he was giving that little, like doling out the red meat.

- Is there a way, so we're on the eve of the 2024 presidential nominating cycle, and the election'll be at the end of the year.

Is there a way to pierce that?

Like, so he's got 91 felony indictments, right?

He's got a civilian legal challenges in the state of New York that cut to his identity as a businessman, a successful businessman.

But he seems impervious, the people who support him seem like they're not going anywhere.

Is there any method to pierce that group dynamic?

Is there something that could possibly shear off supporters, whether it's to Nikki Haley or to Chris, uh- - Chris Christie.

- Chris Christie, thank you.

- Ron DeSantis, I mean, they, they certainly hope so, but so far we haven't seen it.

And again, you know, this is his core group.

He has, through the process of all of his different indictments, he has understood how to play that group.

If you remember the mugshot in Fulton County, Georgia when he was indicted in that setting.

And that mugshot, you know, his opponent saw that mugshot as this like crazy man, defiant, you know, who does a mugshot like that?

And he's got fire in his eyes and he's crazy.

But he knew exactly what he was doing.

That mugshot was, it's us against them, they're out to get me, I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna fight for me and I'm gonna fight for you.

And among his core supporters, that has worked.

- So this is gonna be the most school barmiest of questions I could possibly ask, but it sort of seems very lizard brain when maybe we need to be thinking about policies and reasoning through really complex challenges like climate change or peace in the Middle East, or peace in Europe for that matter, right?

Shouldn't we expect more and better of our politics than just sort of celebrity and fandom?

- Yes.

Politics is persuasion though, you know, in politics there has always been an aspect of entertainment to politics.

Even I would argue the Lincoln Douglas debates where they were out there doing, you know, very high-minded rhetoric, there was still an entertainment aspect to that.

They had to use humor, they had to use good rhetoric and all those sort of rhetorical tricks and skills to get people listening.

So I think if you can, now you still have to, there's still a political divide, a very large political divide in this country that does break down on policy.

And there are very, very different senses of what's fair and what's right and you can really divide the left and the right more than ever now, you know, based on broad policy ideas.

But who sells the policy has always been, and who's best able to sell that policy has always been an aspect of politics.

And, you know, Ron DeSantis is out there trying to sell Trump better than Trump.

- Right.

- And kind of failing at it.

You know, Chris Christie's trying to sell a lot of the right-wing policies, but in a different package from Trump, as is Nikki Haley.

You know, they're playing by the regular rules of politics, the ones that we've all, that everyone has kind of, you know, this is the way you comport yourself in a debate, this is the way you talk to the press, this is the way you talk at a rally.

And they're having, you know, they're fighting among each other, some are up, some are down.

And while we're talking now Nikki Haley's up and Ron DeSantis is down, but Trump is over here talking his way and in this media environment, it's working.

- So you have been a staff writer, a political writer at two great newspapers.

How did you get to the popular culture aspect that we've been talking about here?

How do you go from covering, I don't know what you covered at "The Globe," I'm guessing you were at the State House, or?

- I did, I covered a lot of politics.

I covered everything from the State House to presidential campaigns at "The Globe," but I was also a TV critic for a while at "The Globe."

So yeah, I... - [G. Wayne] So how'd you get to where you are today?

- So I guess part of it is I've always been a political junkie, and part of it's I've always been a TV junkie.

(all laughing) - Well, there's the answer.

- Yeah.

- There's the answer right there.

- I mean, I cut my reporting teeth covering politics in Louisiana, which is a pretty awesome place to cover politics.

- I bet.

- Yeah.

- So I kind of saw everything from local to state government.

- What paper were you on down there?

- "The Times-Picayune."

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

so great time in the '90s covering politics all around Louisiana, in and outside of New Orleans.

And then when I got to "The Globe" I was also covering politics and spent some time in the State House but I was also just kind of like, again, always a TV junkie, like grew up watching a lot of television as a latchkey child, one of the first front page stories I had as a young reporter at "The Globe" was about this new TV show called "Survivor."

And I convinced my editors that it was a big enough deal, and it was a big enough cultural deal to put that story on the front page, a story about "Survivor" and people watching "Survivor."

And so I think, I think part of what interested me about politics was the entertainment, the way skillful politicians used the tools of entertainment to further their policy goals and to get themselves elected.

And so I've always been interested in TV ads and the kind of rhetoric that people use as they're campaigning.

It's a, you know, it seems like the fluff of politics, but it is the salesmanship that gets you to the policy.

- So I'm curious, what did you see in "Survivor" that made you realize that, hey, this is gonna be a thing?

- I think this idea of people being voted off the island seemed to connect with people.

Like there was this idea that, you know, I mean, it was a crazy show if you were, at that time no one had seen anything like it on American television.

And this idea of this sort of, you know, real people getting together and determining each other's fate and watching those interpersonal dynamics and trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't, and this like amazing character of Richard Hatch figuring out how to play the game, figuring out that we don't have to just be kind of straightforward about it, that in fact, if I'm gonna play this game right, I can be sneaky about it, I can manipulate other people.

- See, I'm fascinated by this 'cause I swear, it was two thirds of the way through the season before I realized it was a game.

- Yeah.

(all laughing) He realized it, and I will tell you, like, one of the things I later did in another reporting jaunt for "The Globe" was interviewed him in prison because he didn't play all his games right.

But he figured out before any of the other contestants on that show that it was a game and it was really fascinating to watch that playing out in real time and I think people, again, people were kind of reacting to this idea that a group of people could get together, and back to ingroups and outgroups, kick someone out of the group.

The story was kind of about like, "Who would you kick out Boston?

", I think was the story I wrote, this was a long time ago.

But I think people connected to that dynamic, and I think I found it just fascinating.

- So as somebody who grew up right near Boston, who would you have kicked out, who did you say?

- Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh, I mean, there were a whole different set of politicians, one of the things I mentioned, and this was like back from my like American history college background, was like Anne Hutchinson got kicked out of, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

So yeah, I mentioned her.

- So one of the big cultural moments this past year was the release of the "Barbie" movie, and you wrote about it for "Politico," and in particular, you focused on its portrayal of masculinity.

And so in that telling, what was Ken to Barbie?

- Yeah, Ken and Barbie, I found that the most fascinating part of the movie, was the Ken Barbie dynamic.

You know, Barbie had her self discovery and it was very much like all the feel good things that we wanna feel about women's empowerment, which is all wonderful, I'm all for it.

But one of the interesting things that has happened in culture as women have had more opportunities, more educational opportunities, more opportunities in the workplace, is that the dynamic between women and men has inevitably had to change, right?

Like it used to be that, you know, in certain, and I mean, you know, I don't wanna oversimplify because there were always women working in different socioeconomic settings, but in that kind of standard middle class setting, that Barbie was built around, you know, the man went to work and came home to the wife, and that was the cultural standard that everyone was trying to adhere to.

So once the wife is out making her own money and doing her own thing, like Barbie having her, you know, parties with the other Barbies, and there's Barbies on the Supreme Court, and there's, you know, there's the full Barbie Supreme Court and the full Barbie, like, you know, all the good jobs are taken by the Barbies.

The Kens have to kind of recalibrate what their expectations are.

And there are certainly in real life supportive Ken types who are, you know, but the Kens in the Barbie movie were really struggling with that and they were really struggling with their place in the world, in a world where women could do all the things that the men could do.

What's the role of men?

And it was just fascinating in the movie to see this, you know, the Ryan Gosling major main Ken character, you know, who was hanging out, whose job was beach.

Like, literally that was the way his job was described, you know, goes into the real world, discovers that, wait a minute, there's a patriarchy here.

Like it isn't actually perfect for, like women don't dominate in the real world still, and maybe I'm gonna take a little bit of that home with me.

So watching him struggle with his place I found really interesting.

- I happen to know a lot about Barbie because one of the books I wrote dealt with Hasbro and Mattel.

- [Joanna] Oh, cool.

- Ruth Handler introduced Barbie, she was the CEO with her husband in 1959 at Mattel.

Since that point to this year, there have been TV shows, there have been all kinds of products, there have been changes of leadership at Mattel, there has been a million different things.

This took Barbie to an incredible new level.

I mean, I don't know what the numbers are now, it's well over a billion dollars at the box office.

What about this movie made it such a huge hit where tries before were not quite so big?

- I mean, I think partly it was the quality.

I mean, I think Mattel was brilliant in green lighting something, and green lighting something that wasn't just gonna be either a, you know, a wholesale mocking of Barbie or a very kind of, limp, like sort of easy pat thing.

I mean, they picked a really great director, they picked a really great cast, They put a ton of money into the production.

And they really wisely and deftly allowed Greta Gerwig to do a story that made fun of Mattel just up to the point where it could, right?

Like Mattel was the butt of the joke and Mattel kind of like under, you know, Mattel sort of took the gentle ribbing, which, again, kind of like, what's the word?

It sort of took away the argument, you know, you can sort of make an argument of, all the arguments about like corporate Mattel and objectification of women.

By mocking Mattel gently it kind of, you know, it actually- - It neutralized it.

- Yeah, neutralized it.

It led Mattel off the hook a little bit.

It wasn't, if you really watched that movie, it didn't say anything really bad about Mattel.

Mattel gets off fine.

- But they gave her complete license, they did not have final say over anything.

- They did, but I think she also understood.

- Well, probably.

- Where, you know.

You understand how far you can go and how far, but no, as you said, it neutralized a lot of the criticism of Mattel and just made it a celebration.

And I, you know, I think they were really smart about allowing themselves to be a little bit the butt of the joke.

- So in 2021 you wrote another story about the strange bipartisan appeal of Ted Lasso, which I have to say, is the best thing I've seen on television in forever.

What is it about that show that gave it such broad appeal across politics?

- Yeah, I thought of doing that story actually, because I live in Massachusetts and Charlie Baker, who was the governor of Massachusetts at the time, mentioned Ted Lasso in his state of the state address.

He actually kind of quoted one of the lines, and it was really, it was a moment where he was basically, it was like a be kind kind of moment.

And he like recounted one of the scenes in Ted Lasso, and that was a moment, you know, that was a tough time, right?

That show came at like heart of the pandemic, heart of that sort, that partisan fervor and that, you know, Trump was in office, he was an incredibly divisive figure.

People were just at each other's throats.

And here came this piece, this cultural artifact, that was asking people and demonstrating people being nice to each other.

And I think it just was this, beyond even a breath of fresh air, it just, it felt kind of revelatory, maybe an outside sense of being revelatory because it was so different from the cultural moment.

Now, I would argue, I love that first season of Ted Lasso.

I think it doubled down so much on nice people that it got a little uninteresting to me.

I thought the next couple, like still great, like, you know, like great actors, great show, but it got a little too nice.

You need a little bit of conflict to have a good show.

It was just sort of watching people who love each other love each other.

But I think at that moment, and there was enough of a plot, there was enough of like a redemption arc for the Rebecca character that you had that plot, that I feel like it offered a different way of being that people really needed at that time.

- You know, we wanted to talk to you about children's books, we wanted to talk to you about zombies, and we're out of time.

So we're gonna to have you back.

- There's a lot of pop culture.

- There's a lot to talk about.

Joanna Weiss, thank you so much for being with us.

That is all the time we have this week but if you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square," you can find us on social media or visit pellcenter.org where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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