Name Calling
Alex was tired of trying to be politically correct. He kept being told by his staff that he needed to do this and do that and worse yet, not do this and not do that. They said that he needed to act more presidential. They said that it would be unprecedented for him to do other than what they said. They said it was important to uphold the norms of the office and that it’s what Americans expected of their president.
At first it gave him pause. There was certainly a part of him that wanted to be accepted by all the people. He craved the popularity. He also liked the idea of proving to all the nay sayers that he could play their game and even do it better than they did. It wasn’t as though he was a punk rocker with facial tattoos. He was a very buttoned-up conservative guy. He wore nothing but dark blue or grey suits. He didn’t even wear pin stripes of plaids. That wouldn’t be dignified. And he only wore white starched shirts with solid bright (but not too bright) ties. He kept his hair right in between short and long in what might be called stylishly long manner and combed and parted neatly at all times. He thought he looked damn good for a Septuagenarian.
In the early days of his presidency, he did try to play by those rules, to stick to the script, but he saw himself fading into obscurity. If he wasn’t being outrageous, he didn’t know how to differentiate himself and standing out was always important when you were building a brand. That’s what he was doing, building a brand. A brand that would almost certainly grant him a form of immortality. He knew he would never die, and he might never have to leave office by popular demand, but just in case (mostly if it all started to bore him), leaving a lasting impact had to be a good thing for him. That would only happen if he kept being himself.
They were all idiots anyway. Only a few of his cabinet and staff members were smart enough to tie their shoes. Those generals and ex-CEO’s were particularly stupid. He got talked into nominating them so they could get through the Congressional approval. The more he saw of them, the more he became convinced that he could do the jobs more effectively himself. He had run his billion dollar business with only 24 people, none of whom had the authority to make any decisions themselves. Alex learned a long time ago that trusting your people to make decisions was a big mistake. It always turned out better if he just held the reigns tight himself. Most of that stuff was just bureaucratic hoo-ha anyway.
The worst part was the interaction with the press. Alex understood the press. They were tricky and underhanded and always twisting your words and thoughts to try to make you look stupid. The best way for that to happen was to let other people speak for you. That was unnecessary now-a-days anyway. Twitter was a bit restrictive with all the limited length stuff. He always thought they should have a premium service that gave you more characters. And spell-check. But he could get most of his thoughts and ideas across with tweets. It made managing easier. You could give your subordinates messages while passing those on simultaneously to the public. That struck Alex as very efficient.
Twitter was also a really good mechanism for Alex’s favorite interpersonal tactic, which was a form of hit and run. His Twitter followers were in the tens of millions, which meant whatever he said would get far more dissemination that the attempts by his opponents to strike back. It worked well for him. And that was fair since he had worked hard for all these followers, starting with popular developments like the Atlantic City casinos, and then the Apprentice, and now this whole political thing.
Alex’s favorite pass-time was coming up with funny names to call people. It was actually pretty easy for him. These names just came to him. He sees an offensive democratic committee chairman with a slender build and he came up with Pencil-Neck. That was one of his good ones. Any name could also be turned into a solid dose of bathroom humor. Schiff could easily be Schitt. Jerry Nadler who used to be fat can just be Fat Jerry. Even his own people who buck him could be belittled like Sloppy Steve Bannon. Calling Senator Warren Pocahontas was a double header since it belittled her while reminding people of Indians, which were always good to make fun of.
Here’s the thing, he got a little bored calling people names, but the truth was that everyone loved it when he did it. He got twice as much coverage when he came up with a particularly funny name. And everyone knows that there’s no such thing as bad press. Especially in this job. The job was basically about staying in everybody’s field of vision. If they can see you, no matter what you say or do, it’s a good thing.
When Alex went to bed at night he was always careful to look himself in the mirror and ask himself what he had done to add value to his brand. If he could find a few things that the media picked up, he knew it had been a good day. Sometimes he remembered to ask himself that question and sometimes he got distracted looking at himself. He was always happy either way and dreamed about all the great deals he was going to be able to do in the future with all this great exposure. Why hadn’t he thought of this before?