That headline is just a direct quote from James Poniewozik's Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America. I was torn between that line from the book and this one:

Donald Trump is not a person.

Poniewozik's take is that "Donald Trump" is really a character that Donald Trump has been playing on television since at least the early 1980s.

"Television has entertained America, television has ensorcelled America, and with the election of Donald J. Trump, television has conquered America," Poniewozik writes. Audience of One is a cultural history of television and a television history of Donald Trump.

Poniewozik joins us for the hour.

GUEST:

James Poniewozik - Chief television critic for The New York Times and the author of Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America

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Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired October 24, 2019.

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Without TV, There's No Trump