In the White House, President Donald J. Trump is like a lion in the zoo, a sort of sad, caged creature.
“But if you let him out of the zoo and into his natural habitat, he feels like the guy who actually won the election and is President of the United States,” said Bruce Haynes, a communications expert and founding partner of Purple Strategies, a bipartisan political consulting firm.
As Trump prepared to take the stage Saturday in Florida to address a crowd of enthusiastic supporters, it was instantly clear that his decision to escape Washington — and the past week’s drama — was exactly the right move at the right moment for him.
Critics said his decision to hold the event at a Melbourne airport hangar was unprecedented, bizarre and ridiculous, a 2020 campaign that is ludicrously early, given it’s 1,354 days till the next election.
Yet Trump’s speeches across the country energize him and his supporters — and that is likely a very good thing, for his team and for the success of the nation.
Donald Trump has never shied away from enjoying the adoration of his supporters. Neither did his predecessor, Barack Obama, who gave his farewell address to the country not from the traditional location — the West Wing of the White House — but in front of a packed, exuberant audience in his adopted hometown, Chicago.
Saturday’s rally was not exactly unprecedented for a president. On Feb. 09, 2009, less than three weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama visited Elkhart, Ind., to promote his controversial stimulus plan at a rally that had all of the hallmarks of a campaign event; there was a campaign-style speech, questions from the audience, and plenty of adoration from attendees.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both held campaign-style events in the early weeks of their presidencies, too. Now, they were not so blunt as to call the events that, but the hallmarks were all there.
In short, this is what presidents do, some more than others, to reconnect with the people who placed them in office.
Life in Washington can be confining, draining, and isolating when you are President of the United States. Visits beyond the DC Beltway can ease those burdens.
That’s particularly true for Trump.
He likely misses his wife, Melania, his youngest son, Barron, and the daily interaction with his adult children, Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric, who for years were at his side as business confidantes; all are removed to varying degrees from his White House routine.
Combine that with the pressures of the office, and one can only imagine how much he would relish a moment to reconnect with the real world.
To date, nearly everything on his list of accomplishments in the first four weeks of his presidency has been drowned out by his combative relationship with the press, questions about his and his advisers’ relationship with Russia, the delays that Democrats have forced on confirming his cabinet picks, and his continued tweeting.
Saturday, however, placed Trump on friendly turf, as thousands of boisterous supporters welcomed him, giving him the opportunity outside of his one-dimensional tweets to deliver an unfiltered message directly to the public.
“In politics you have to advance the narrative,” said Haynes, and getting out of Washington gives Trump the opportunity to shift his narrative away from sideshow issues, and onto the direction in which he wants to lead the country.
Like during his visit to Boeing in Charleston, S.C., on Friday, he should continue talking directly to the people who voted for him about what he is doing to “make America great again”: creating jobs, tightening safety, building stronger communities.
His voters are not in Washington, they’re not in New York City, and they’re not in LA. Trump gets his energy from them, and he needs to be seen out with them, talking to them, listening to them, interacting with them, and being energized by them. They are his true source of power.
And “he should go to where that power lies and spend his time there,” said Haynes.
By being their president in their backyard, he forces the media to cover him on those terms. And for him, that might just be a good thing.
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