In This Trump Presidency, the Domination Will Be Televised

President Donald J. Trump’s appearance at this year’s Super Bowl had a distinctly Caesar-in-the-Colosseum vibe, marking the first time a sitting president attended the event.https://svtoday.org/

The Commander-in-Chief took his place in the grand arena, symbolically reaching an audience of over 127 million TV viewers, as he presided over the nation’s biggest spectacle of competitive spectacle. Fox’s cameras captured his salute during the national anthem, set against shots of service members and a military flyover, part of the increasingly militarized pregame pageantry.

Trump even had his own form of Super Bowl ads: Fox News aired multiple segments during the game featuring a photo of him raising his fist after the assassination attempt on his life last summer.

Seeking the spotlight isn’t new for Trump, but in his second term, there’s a clear trend of him and his allies utilizing imagery with a distinctly imperial tone to project dominance, authority, and invincibility.

His immigration enforcement raids, for instance, are being packaged like mini reality-TV shows — complete with perp walks and even celebrity cameos — to flood audiences with relentless action. His signing ceremonies, too, have become carefully staged moments of theatrical dominance. Even in his 2017 inaugural portrait, where he once smiled, he now scowls.

This new “Trump 2.0” style of dominance was evident from his inauguration, where he basked in the applause of a MAGA crowd while signing executive orders at a makeshift desk. The manner in which he signed those orders spoke volumes about his vision of leadership: the sole decider wielding his pen, ruling by decree.

This stage-managed vigor seems to have paid off, with early polling showing that a majority of respondents to a recent CBS News survey described him as “tough,” “energetic,” and “effective.” These characteristics appear to be the natural result of media strategies designed to show the maximum leader everywhere, doing everything.

One of the most intense TV efforts of the administration, however, hasn’t starred Trump himself but has focused on immigration enforcement. The P.R. campaign has involved embedding cameras with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies during raids. These raids, filmed with reporters and even TV personalities like Dr. Phil McGraw, have turned the administration’s signature initiative into a season of “Cops” — complete with all the propagandistic undertones that entails. The targets are portrayed as objects, not individuals, and their actions (or lack thereof) are presented as evidence against them.

This imagery, aired on government social media and nightly news, creates the message of a tireless, muscular government springing into action and getting things done. A local news segment in North Carolina captures a chase through the woods and a close-up of a man’s shackled ankles as he’s led into an ICE field office, sending a clear visual signal of a government on the move.

Yet, the videos often leave out critical details. For example, little is shared about how many of the thousands captured in these raids were actually among the intended targets. But the visuals — a language honed by decades of police procedurals — speak loudly. They show agents asserting power and cleaning up the streets, and in the battle between nuanced reporting and striking images, the visuals often win.

However, even the most polished productions have their flaws. On Feb. 6, Fox News aired a segment about a raid in Colorado that failed to capture any of its intended gang members. The segment became a platform for Trump’s “border czar,” Thomas Homan, to accuse leakers of tipping off the targets and to threaten consequences. In an interview with Homan, Fox anchor Harris Faulkner reacted strongly to footage of protesters using megaphones to inform targets of their rights. “If they’re shouting and helping these people get away with bullhorns, how is that legal?” she asked.

Not all coverage has been so favorable, and the administration has noticed. On the same day, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair, Brendan Carr, appeared on “Fox & Friends” to announce an investigation into a San Francisco radio station for its live coverage of an immigration raid, which he claimed undermined the operation.

With this, another layer of subtext emerged, this time aimed at the press: a relentless, unyielding Trump administration that is watching, listening, and won’t be stopped. The show — with force if necessary — would go on.