Recently, I went to see “Barbie,” a surprisingly touching film about what it means to be human, with a cousin who collects Barbies. Afterward, the conversation at dinner drifted as it invariably does these days to former President Donald J. Trump. I explained to my cousin that whatever you may think of Trump — and she’s a conservative with a higher opinion of him than I have as a moderate independent — you must acknowledge that he is great at creating a narrative and sticking to it. That’s real power — power that is now being seriously countered with his arraignment Thursday, Aug. 3, on charges of fraud, obstruction and violation of voting rights in a federal court in Washington, D.C.
I call this counterpoint the breast cancer theory of narration. Back in 2009 as the New York Yankees were winning their last World Series to date and my aunt was recovering in a hospital from a disastrous hip revision surgery that exacerbated the dementia that would ultimately claim her life, the medical community revised its guidelines on mammograms, suggesting that women at average risk could get them every two years at age 50. This raised a blowback like you’ve never seen. Why, a nurse asked me, when this should be good news. Because, I said, you didn’t get out in front of the story. And the story of feminists and medical professionals who thought women would be disadvantaged by the new guidelines was just more powerful. Guess what? I and most of the women I know go for a mammogram every year.
What’s the moral of this story? That to counter a powerful narrative you need to have a better narrative that you tell quickly and often. For years, Trump has told his so-called truth aggressively and repeatedly so that his followers hear nothing else. (Not my cousin. She listened when I gave him credit for the Covid vaccines but not for disowning them.)
Now, however, it appears that the spinmeister has spun himself out as special prosecutor Jack Smith, taking a page out of the old marketing playbook, has come up with a story that he’s telling decisively and often. He’s not only charged Trump with four counts of fraud, obstruction and violating voting rights (the civil rights oldie but goodie) in the case of the Jan. 6 insurrection at The Capitol; he’s added charges to the classified documents case in which it appears that there was much to-ing and fro-ing at Mar-a-Lago in an alleged attempt to destroy and even flood security footage that might reveal what was going on with the withheld documents.
I guess these people have never seen an episode of PBS’ “Masterpiece Mystery!” in which the detective sergeant tells the detective inspector that he’s going to review the CCTV footage of the crime. There’s always a camera, in the case of New York City, one on every street. (This is what tripped up Harry and Meghan in their story about being chased by the paparazzi, that and the fact that you can’t go more than 5 MPH in Manhattan.) If you’re going to get rid of CCTV, you’re going to have to burn it and pretend it was an electrical fire so you can claim the insurance as most people are covered for fire but not for flood. Trump’s people can’t even allegedly do the wrong thing right.
What is significant in the charges is that Trump is now getting serious pushback, first from the Jan. 6 Committee, now from Smith and even from some fellow Republicans. And that’s what it’s going to take to counter his narrative — facts, evidence, data, statistics and cold, hard, objective reality hammered day and night.
In Iowa, moderate Texas Republican presidential hopeful Will Hurd, a man I much admire for his sane, measured, modern approach to the border and his leadership skills, told his listeners he was going to speak truth to power about Trump. They started to boo. He held up his hands, not to cower or retract his comments or couch his thoughts but to say simply, “The truth hurts.”
Ain’t that the truth.