U.S. President Donald Trump aims to create “theatrics of the spectacle” and it’s not going to get any better, says a cultural studies professor and prolific author.
Henry Giroux, a Rhode Island native who teaches at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and penned “America at War with Itself,” says he believes it will be increasingly difficult to understand what the president is doing or why.
Trump intentionally sows an environment of “shock,” “sensationalism” and “confusion” where it’s unclear what is true or what is happening, Giroux told CTV News Channel Monday.
“He’s more concerned about throwing information out that causes uncertainty and chaos” that drives the press to have to chase stories about what he means rather than asking serious questions about what he’s doing, Giroux said.
Trump’s allegation via Twitter on the weekend that former president Barack Obama ordered Trump’s phones to be wiretapped has been rejected by both FBI director James Comey and former National Intelligence director James Clapper, though the House and Senate intelligence committees say they will honour the president’s request to investigate.
Giroux, who spent his life studying and teaching in the United States before coming to McMaster in 2004, says Trump’s charge has no credibility because he has “made a career about lying about Barack Obama.”
And if there was anything to back Trump’s claim, the president holds the power to declassify information.
“He could easily, if there is anything that he knows, he could simply declassify this and make it public and to provide some sort of evidence, which he has not done.”
Giroux says the allegations are part of Trump’s much-used tactic to create “massive diversion” from issues of substance, such as the controversies surrounding Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the administration’s connections to Russia.
Giroux, whose book explores the role of hate in the presidential campaign, says the newly revised travel ban announced Monday, which takes the target list down to six nations, is not a toning down of Trump’s anti-immigration stance.
“Simply because he eliminates Iraq or modifies the wait time, I mean this is still an act of massive discrimination against an entire religious group.”
