At the Podium: Dissonance Between Press Briefings and Trump Rallies

The focal point amidst continuing turmoil caused by COVID-19 is the federal government. More succinctly, the White House’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room and its recent, frequent visitors -- including President Trump, VP Pence and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force -- have emerged as the focal point of pertinent information distribution. Today is the first time since Easter that the daily briefings have ceased, at the behest of Trump’s administration and even Trump himself. This is likely because the briefings themselves have transitioned into something completely outside their intended purposes. Some conjecture that the briefings have become more like rallies, the president’s primary expression of his opinions and way of connecting to his supporters. Because this is an election year, the president’s appearances in these briefings have seemed to shift the briefings’ subjects from guidance through the pandemic to rhetoric aligned with the president’s policy stances and partisan opinions. This shift, in turn, has forged a new parallel in iconicity.

In both settings, Trump operates in the charismatic authority style, one of three leadership styles posited by Max Weber. Though dabbling in qualities of traditional authority and steering from legal-rational authority, he relates most distinctly with generating charisma to invite his supporters further into his ideology. This is an observation made too by sociologist Paul Joose, who points out that “Weber places followers, not leaders, at the center of his etiological account of charismatic power” (“Countering Trump”). He and his followers are a package deal: the MAGA and KAG clothing apparel they don, alongside their uproarious support of his proclamations and booing of his opponents, are bombastic and unyielding. Both in large groups and individually, in appearance and in disposition, Trumpian supporters have become iconic. They evoke intense emotion because they themselves are firm in their intensity, standing behind Trump when he takes the stage or cheering from the unseen crowd. They are a show of support and unanimity, emblematic of his values. Without those supporters attending his rallies, it would be difficult for him to assert his influential position. This is the reality we have seen play out when putting that same figure into the coronavirus briefings.

In the White House briefing room, no one is manifesting any sonic or visual sign of support. The humanitarian and numeral depression this pandemic has taken, both on human lives and almost every corner of the economy, requires a shift in tone. Trump himself has not adapted to this loss in supportive iconography, and the consequences of that fact are playing out in real time. This is why Trump has faced so much pushback in the briefing setting: his assertions were made without the visual backing of his supporters. Behind him were officials from the federal government who were and remain serious in acting in public interest. In front of him was an audience of journalists pressing for clarification beyond his typical superlative-laced speech over the specifics behind his intentions and language. The absence of his iconic supporters has proven damaging to his authority as a charismatic leader, and so it’s no surprise that with his acceleration of reopening states, he has also made it a priority to reunite with that support as soon as possible.