One of the things that has been clear with Donald Trump’s win this time is how different it is: no shock wave jolting society. This is, according to polling, one of the presidential election outcomes most widely accepted as legitimate of the past 25 years. The reaction from some of those who didn’t vote for him seems more restrained, with a widespread interest in preservation of self amid potential chaos — a retreat from the news to focus on family, friends and peace of mind.
On the public level, we’re back in business in some way, back to an earlier pre-Trump era of normal relations, strategic silence, public deference and an antiseptic corporate friendliness — a bit of flattery, at times, for Mr. Trump. That kind of public sheen might also originate from the bone-deep acceptance of the hard and fast reality that this is happening again.
There has already been a surreal set of visuals from the past few weeks, both normal (congratulations and good tidings for the incoming president) and surreal at the same time (President Biden and Mr. Trump grinning in front of the White House).
Tim Cook, the Apple C.E.O., wrote on X on Nov. 6: “Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity.” Phil Murphy, the Democratic New Jersey governor, has already volunteered that he’ll attend the inauguration. Recently, the hosts of “Morning Joe” met with the president-elect. “We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so,” Joe Scarborough said. “What we did agree on,” Mika Brzezinski said, “was to restart communications.”
These things are, again, both normal and surreal within this realist reset. Mr. Cook was one of the people during the first Trump administration who visited the White House to meet with Mr. Trump. At the same time, it’s somewhat jarring to see “Congratulations President Trump on your victory!” eight years into the Trump era, when it reads like something more out of 2012. Mr. Biden welcoming an incoming president to the White House is normal, but a few weeks ago, the White House press secretary said Mr. Biden considered Mr. Trump a fascist.
This month, Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, took up golf again to prepare for Mr. Trump’s presidency. “For our countries to continue our conversations, our president also needs to hit the ball properly,” a senior South Korean official told reporters, a perfect quotation. In one instance, you see the range of reactions — deference, vanity, strategy, comedy and an awareness of the deep dangers of the world.
There’s a dimension of making the unspoken spoken here; traditionally, a person trying to get ahead in this way might get out to the driving range and on the greens quietly, out of sight, and appear in final golfing form at Mar-a-Lago in February to talk about tariffs and the U.S. military, rather than previewing this to reporters. But with Mr. Trump, it’s also good to publicly demonstrate a level of deference to his interests; he seems to like knowing not only that you’re trying to flatter but also that you’ve conceded something in the process.
Trying to determine private motivations is, obviously, very difficult for the public. An unnamed European diplomat told Politico recently, “I think we learned from the last time that it’s important to talk constructively and confidentially, instead of through social media.” There are dangers here: It’s easy to imagine public figures conflating self-interest with more noble aims in pursuing their interests more privately.
But it seems as if there’s a get-real quality to the moment, especially internationally: Mr. Trump’s going to be president again — with majorities in both houses of Congress and on the Supreme Court, after a campaign promising major disruption, deportation, changes to trade and retribution — after winning the popular vote. How can people manage the situation and get the most while giving up the least, like a straight-faced delivery of congratulations to the most important person on earth?
The thing is: Some of this stuff can work with Mr. Trump. To be publicly deferential to and onboard with him is the prerequisite for having a job in his administration, but from there, there’s a lot of variety and there are competing ideologies. For all the talk of pure loyalty driving Mr. Trump’s staffing calculations, there’s also a dimension of officials putting themselves in the right places at the right times, saying the right things, leaving unsaid what might offend, developing the relationship on TV or with endorsements or in person. Before a few months ago, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. weren’t often connected with Mr. Trump. Before this past year, few people would have associated Senator Marco Rubio and Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, with Mr. Trump, and yet they’re his very first choices for two of the most serious roles in his next administration.
Mr. Burgum, for example, is a highly qualified cabinet pick who’s widely perceived as more of a Reagan-style Republican and not a hard-core Trump populist, but he endorsed Mr. Trump the day before the Iowa caucus, then appeared outside the courthouse in Manhattan during Mr. Trump’s trial this spring and campaigned for him this year. Upon confirmation, he’ll oversee a large portfolio.
There is a fluidity to Mr. Trump, and this is how we may have an administration featuring two strong China hawks (Mr. Rubio and Michael Waltz) in central foreign policy roles and an antiwar isolationist (Ms. Gabbard) as director of national intelligence. Whose views will win out? What does all this deference and persuasion amount to?
It’s hard to remember now, but one of the things the early social media era did was sort of apply a sheen of corporate friendliness to the voice of major political figures online. Mr. Trump destroyed that fake voice during the 2016 election. And during his presidency, as the social media networks created during the 2000s and 2010s fully matured, politics suddenly operated day to day at a much more intense level, where public stands and displays of authenticity (or the approximation of authenticity) mattered a lot more.
Even two weeks of watching the world tip its hat to Mr. Trump suggests that we might return — even just temporarily — to that kind of corporate formality: a second Trump presidency, but one where nobody’s quite sure what anyone else is really thinking.
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