AMERICAN FREQUENCIES

Presidential communication and the problem of precedent.

- BY JILL LEPORE

Donald Trump is the world's most outspoken troll, and its most dangerous.

The list of figures in American history with whom Donald J. Trump has been compared since he announced his bid for the Presidency a decade ago is longer than his trademark necktie, as red as a gash. It’s taller than Trump Tower, gleaming like a blade. It has a higher turnover than his beleaguered first Cabinet. It includes even more goons, toadies, and peacocks than his current Administration. And yet the comparisons keep coming, in the daily papers, in the nightly podcasts, online, online, online. Is Trump more of a liar than Joseph McCarthy; is he slicker than Huey Long? Is he as mean-spirited as Father Charles Coughlin, more sinister than George Wallace? Is he as much of a fraud as P. T. Barnum, even more of an isolationist than Charles Lindbergh? He is trickier than Richard (Tricky Dick) Nixon, but to what degree?

Trump plays this game, too. He loves it, and why not? It only ever helps him, inflates, magnifies, and amplifies him. He thinks only Abraham Lincoln has been treated as unfairly as he has—or, no, “I believe I am treated worse.” Shall we compare him to a summer’s day?