Donald Trump’s Cheap Heat
He knew exactly what he was doing when he said that Kamala Harris isn’t really black.
Before we start, I have a little present for you. Have you ever wanted a genuine $2 bill with a picture of Donald Trump lacquered onto it? Well the fine people at the National Collector’s Mint (not an actual “mint”) will sell you one for the low price of $19.95.
Yup. That’s a very real thing. The best part? They have a “maximum purchase” limit of five. Because these are such hot items that they have to make sure there’s enough to go around. 🙄
1. Heat II
I take a different view of Trump’s performance yesterday than the Morning Shots boys did. I don’t think it was a meltdown. I believe it was a planned set-piece.
It was what they refer to in wrestling as “cheap heat.” And it was smart.
We talked about the wrestling concept of heat earlier this week.
Trump’s view of politics is that nothing can be accomplished without dominating cultural attention. It does not matter if people love you or hate you—you want them fixated on you. From there, you can figure out the angles. (And let the Electoral College do its work.)
Yes, Trump set himself on fire yesterday. But this self-immolation wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t crazy. It was exactly what he wanted.
For the 11-day span from Joe Biden stepping aside to yesterday, Donald Trump was invisible. Kamala Harris dominated the country’s attention and sparked the emergence of a genuine cultural movement.
Trump needed to get back on the screen in order to compete with her in the attention economy.
In the pre-Trump days, a Republican candidate might have attempted to get attention by giving a big speech about foreign policy, or coming out with a new campaign theme.
Instead, Trump went in front of a black audience and said,
I’ve known her a long time . . . and she was always of Indian heritage. And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black. Until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black.1
This is straight out of the Ric Flair playbook. So much so that it crosses the line into “cheap heat.”2
What is “cheap heat”? It’s when a wrestling heel says or does something in an obvious attempt to antagonize the audience and make them hate him.
For instance, you stand in the middle of the ring in Cleveland and talk about how the Browns suck. Or you call the city a dump.
Wikipedia notes that racial attacks are a traditional form of cheap heat:
[A]nother common practice of villains to draw cheap heat involves using racial and ethnic slurs to offend the collective sensibility of wrestling fans. For example, in 1972, when the American Indian Movement was gaining momentum, Baron von Raschke was known to refer to Native American WWA World Heavyweight Champion Billy Red Cloud as a "dirty low down Injun" as a means of drawing cheap heat.
Why is this kind of heat “cheap”? Because other wrestlers recognize that it doesn’t take any skill or inspiration to draw. Literally anyone can do it.
Here's the great Jim Cornett explaining why people in the industry disdain cheap heat: “If you drop your pants and shit on the guy in the front row, people are gonna be up in arms about it. But that would be anybody. It doesn’t have to be you doing it.”3
But Donald Trump doesn’t care about his artistic merit scores and attention has an absolute-value sign around it.
Saying Harris isn’t really black is a gagillion times more effective at getting attention than rolling out some policy paper.
So yes, Trump may be relying on cheap heat, but he remains an innovator in American politics.
2. Strategery
In addition to recapturing the spotlight, Trump created a tactical dilemma for Harris: How is she supposed to respond to such insanity?