Trumped Up: Mike Daisey’s “The Trump Card”
Mike Daisey attempts to explain the unexpected, confusing rise of Donald Trump in his latest monologue at Woolly Mammoth Theatre
No one person or issue is fully responsible for the rise of Donald J. Trump. But if anyone created the Manhattan meglomaniac as we know him today, it was Roy Cohn, the closeted homosexual mastermind behind the 1950s Lavender Scare.
“He built Donald Trump,” says Mike Daisey. “He was not just his lawyer, but his principal advisor and consigliere for 13 years.” Their working relationship ended when Cohn died from AIDS-related complications.
That’s just one of the fascinating and disturbing facts revealed in The Trump Card, Daisey’s latest monologue, debuting Aug. 2 at Woolly Mammoth. The monologuist first developed the notion of a theatrical examination of Trump last year, as rumors started swirling that the mogul and reality TV star might run for president.
“I’ve done a number of biographies of different megalomaniacal people over the course of my career,” Daisey says, noting that Trump’s outsized personality and influence matches his previous subjects L. Ron Hubbard, P.T. Barnum, and Steve Jobs.
“Donald Trump is a really fascinating figure and signifies a lot about how Americans view themselves,” he says. “Our expectation now is not that the common man is our hero, but that instead the billionaire represents us as the best version of ourselves.” It’s a shift that Trump helped manifest through relentless self-promotion and media manipulation over the last several decades. Yet it was the American political system as a whole that laid the groundwork for his latest feat.
“Both parties’ decision over the last two, even three, generations to ignore rural white voters throughout the country left rural people vastly disenfranchised,” Daisey says. “[It’s] a collaborative effort between the right and the left that has created a base of people that are very susceptible to being stirred to great anger by the use of racism…because they want apocalyptic change.” Meanwhile, far too many others don’t understand what’s happening. “A lot of the show is trying to explain to people who are actually quite out of touch what Trump’s appeal is…. As wealthy white people, they are extremely used to everything being targeted at them, and so that’s part of the confusion, because they’re not the ones being talked to [by Trump].”
Ultimately, Daisey hopes to open people’s eyes to the level of skillful stagecraft fueling Trump’s rise — and abetting his staying power. “We have to stop pretending that it’s not effective, and that none of this is going to work out, and that his poll numbers will simply drop,” Daisey says. “This is something that we actually really should be concerned about.”
The Trump Card opens Tuesday, Aug. 2, at 8 p.m., and runs to Sunday, Aug. 7, at Woolly Mammoth, 641 D St. NW. Tickets range from $20 to $74. Call 202-393-3939 or visit woollymammoth.net.
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