E.G.

Tim Kenyon and Jennifer Saul have observed that Trump often "appear[s] uninterested even in constructing plausible falsehoods." They say he is a "bald-faced bullshitter." A bald-faced bullshitter is

one who not only does not intend to induce in an audience a belief in what they have said; they moreover make no effort to hide that they are bullshitting, and in fact might advertise or revel in it.

Kenyon and Saul say that Trump's bald-faced bullshitting is about power and, paradoxically, about creating trust. The core idea, I take it, is that when Trump engages in bald-faced bullshitting, he has multiple audiences, including both supporters and opponents. He disrespects, and thus asserts power over, the opponents by bullshitting them openly. Seeing this, his supporters feel they are in on what he is doing, and this creates a trusting bond between him and his supporters.

So, Kenyon and Saul say that Trump-style bald-faced bullshit

that openly and disrespectfully treats one audience as not even worth deceiving may be an effective way of consolidating trust with another audience that witnesses it—a more effective means than a less overt sort of bullshit would be.

I think some of the efficacy of Trump's bald-faced bullshitting can be explained in terms of the dynamic described by Kenyon and Saul. But many instances do not seem to me to fit.

Consider the case, during Trump's second campaign, where he claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, were eating their neighbors' pet cats and dogs. I think the typical Trump supporter saw that this was bullshit. But I do not think they likely believed that Trump intended to be seen as bullshitting. If so, then at least in this instance, the Kenyon-Saul dynamic wouldn't be in operation.

***

It seems notable to me that the pattern of gravitating away from both honesty and successful deception, and deliberately choosing obvious falsehood instead, is not just evident in what Trump says. It is also evident in how Trump and people in his orbit choose to look.

Many years ago, when Trump began to go bald, he could have easily chosen a convincing wig. As a professional entertainer, he had immediate access to many wig experts. Instead he chose an unconvincing wig, and has stuck with it for decades. Consider also his orange face paint. He could have a fake tan that looks like the real thing, but he does not choose that.

And this preference for the unconvincing over the convincing isn't confined to Trump himself. It seems to be a general feature of the MAGA aesthetic. In a recent discussion of Kristi Noem's appearance, Amanda Marcotte notices Noem's "unnervingly Botox-inflated lips." Meher Ahmad and Jessica Grose use words like "fake" and "exaggerated" to characterize the MAGA beauty aesthetic.

And I wonder if the Four Seasons Total Landscaping episode might also somehow be a part of this general MAGA pattern of choosing what looks fake over what looks real. As far as I know, it is still unknown how a landscaping business was chosen as the venue for a major press conference at the end of Trump's first term. It is at least possible that there was a deliberate choice to pick something that very distantly resembles a Four Seasons hotel rather than the genuine article. That may seem unlikely, but every explanation of how that bizarre event occurred, including whatever the true explanation is, will seem unlikely.

If there is a MAGA aesthetic in which fakeness is valued, I wonder if this might help to explain not only the choices that MAGA people make about how to appear, but also the choices that MAGA people make about what to say.

That is, I wonder if at least some of Trump's bald-faced bullshitting might be—and might be received (by Trump's supporters) as—an aesthetic choice, in much the same way that Trump's decision about his hair presumably is, and is received as, an aesthetic choice. If so, then it may be suggested that Trump's supporters evaluate many of his utterances in aesthetic terms, as opposed to (e.g.) epistemic or even political terms.