New book reveals how Trump’s handlers used show tunes to control his temper
Even a year after his departure from office, utterly bizarre stories about Trump’s personal and private idiosyncrasies are still emerging from the inevitable flood of tell-all books by reporters and former Trump insiders seeking to whitewash their role in enabling him. They are unique in being so ridiculous and absurd that it seems impossible that they could be true, but knowing what we do about the deeply damaged and peculiar psyche of Donald Trump, they somehow still ring so true.
That’s why thousands of social media users fell for the “Gorilla Channel” hoax written by Twitter user @pixelatedboat, which claimed that Trump demanded to watch footage of gorillas fighting all day. “To appease Trump, White House staff compiled a number of gorilla documentaries into a makeshift gorilla channel, broadcast into Trump’s bedroom from a hastily-constructed transmission tower on the South Lawn,” read the fake excerpt.
At face value, this is obviously fake. But then you think about the other things that Trump’s people did in order to placate him, including photoshopping crowd photos, using military resources to cover up the name of John McCain on a destroyer to avoid seeing it, brought thousands of cheeseburgers to the White House for him to feed to college athletes, and arranged a steady flow of feel-good charts to cheer Trump up when the fake news media was being mean to him, it doesn’t seem so crazy after all.
This is why it’s hard to make sense of the latest revelation from Melania Trump’s ex-chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, who writes in her book that Trump’s aides had a specific person whose job it was to play show tunes in order to soothe Trump’s explosive rage. “At one point…Mr. Trump’s handlers designated an unnamed White House official known as the ‘Music Man’ to play him his favorite show tunes, including ‘Memory’ from ‘Cats,’ to pull him from the brink of rage,” she writes.
Paragraph I did not expect to read this morning: "Mr. Trump’s handlers designated an unnamed White House official known as the 'Music Man' to play him his favorite show tunes, including 'Memory' from 'Cats,' to pull him from the brink of rage." https://t.co/PnXOfNwtWB
— Michael Paulson (@MichaelPaulson) September 28, 2021
Knowing the way in which Trump’s childish attention span is captivated by stimulating things like teevee! and big charts, it definitely sounds like it might be true — and if so, then our nation has definitely dodged a bigger bullet than we could ever know. It is beyond outrageous that a man of this volatile temperament was given control of the world’s deadliest arsenal and we must do whatever we can to make sure that never happens again.
Social media had a field day making fun of Trump for the “Music Man:”
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT PLAY ANYTHING FROM THE ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER CATALOG. MR. TRUMP WILL LAUNCH A GOD DAMN NUCLEAR WEAPON IF YOU DO.
— Sam Stein (@samstein) September 28, 2021
And?
My toddlers were exactly like this. https://t.co/UEFKfNbQxY
— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) September 28, 2021
Trump fully sobbing to ‘Defying Gravity’
— donna respirator (@AliceAvizandum) September 28, 2021
https://twitter.com/SereneOz/status/1442875566571458571?s=20
"Memory"? Trump is a bottomless abyss of tastelessness as well as corruption https://t.co/HQHaEOwsfo
— Chrissy is judging vaccine refusers (@C_Stroop) September 28, 2021
No fucking way did our President actually have a fucking designated jester
We really have regressed haven’t we https://t.co/yHbvqgag0Y
— Eschero ☔️ (@EscheroOfficial) September 28, 2021
