The hurricane Katrina badly damaged the former president Bush’s reputation, a « tourist », called him Newsweek, looking at the aftermath through the windows of Air Force One. The disaster that followed after Katrina ripped the mask off U.S. society, revealing the depth of racism, poverty and inequality. And the geographical segregation, the safe neighbourood and the unsafe areas, at risk of flooding. This very day, the Bush electoral basis dropped their president.
The initial Obama response to the financial crisis in 2008 was framed as a Katrina moment by the NYT. The Covid during the first Trump’s mandate could have been the K-M of Trump but his Maga basis had resisted, according to commentators. The chaotic evacuation of Kabul was the obvious Katrina moment of Joe Biden.
A Katrina moment, according to some political commentators, is the turning point of the presidential narrative : after this moment (a little phrase, a picture), the narrator is no more reliable. His discredit is no longer political or moral, but purely narrative. The President is suddenly unable to honor the commitments of his campaign. The Katrina moment is a metaphor for a president’s collapse in public opinion. His word is totally devalued, it becomes like fake money.
Donald Trump is always lying to his electorate, using deep fakes and alternative truth. They like to be taken for turkeys. It’s not some fake money, it’s Monopoly money, exchanging it with conspiracy narratives. Conjuration ideas are in the center of his speeches and his way of thinking. Through these lies, Trump always share the ideas of/with his electorate : the deep state is always behind the problem he is facing. The presidential denial of the Covid, for example, or the flood (like in Texas) or any other catastroph, meet in fine the distrust of the Maga basis. Conspiracy theories saved him from the narrative crunch.
Until now. It’s different with the Epstein files : it could be the (first?) Katrina Moment of Trump’s second term. He is unable to invoke conspiracy theories because he runs this country. So, he jump naturally into the conspiracy itself, and he becomes part of the deep state. Or it seems so, to the Maga basis. But it’s only a first step (Bannon evaluate the loss at 10% of Trump’s electorate). There will be many more steps. And losses…
Until Maga disappears totally. And the President’s narrative will be completely void.