“Mike’s rise to the number one or top-ranking position in the chimpanzee community was both interesting and spectacular. … At one time he even had appeared almost bald from losing so many handfuls of hair during aggressive incidents with his fellow apes. One day at camp, all at once Mike calmly walked over to our tent and took hold of an empty kerosene can by the handle. Then he picked up a second can and, walking upright, returned to the place where he had been sitting. Armed with his two cans Mike stared toward the other males… Gradually, he rocked more vigorously, his hair slowly began to stand erect, and then, softly at first, he started a series of pant-hoots… The cans… made the most appalling racket: no wonder the erstwhile peaceful males rushed out of the way… Mike’s use of the cans that made an unfamiliar and very loud, intimidating sound in his display was nothing short of brilliant.”
Mike became the alpha male by making more noise – and more threatening noise - than the other chimps.
Trump biographer Michael Wolff repeatedly and insightfully points to the fact that no one in this advanced stage information economy is more effective at getting and holding attention than Trump. And – Wolff argues – that really is the sum of his political theory: get and hold attention. What Trump has intuited is that attention is zero-sum and if he can grab attention, others don’t. The amount of information available has increased exponentially over the last half century but our attention has not, no matter how thinly we spread it.
Trump, like Mike the chimp, knows how to make the noises that most unsettle us, most get and keep our attention. And in an information economy, seizing attention is like seizing land in an agricultural economy: it gives you wealth, power and status.
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