Donald Trump's cabinet love-in reveals once again why he is a political genius: It's all about that base

He set a trap and the mainstream media walked right into it

Donald Trump laps up the praise during meeting of his cabinet on Monday (AP)

Witness the genius of Donald Trump - his courage and his political acumen. He doesn’t mind that by forcing members of his cabinet to genuflect before him with viscous declarations of adoration and praise he reduces them to sycophantic worms. That the scene, played out before the cameras, seemed absurd verging on tragic to you or to me concerns him not a jot.

Where some may see an isolated and lonely president slowly stringing himself up with self-destructive acts and reckless provocations - can the rumours of him pondering a defenestration of Robert Mueller, the special counsel looking into the Russia affair, really be true? - he knew exactly what he was doing. He was tending to his base. And it’s all about that base.

He was also setting a trap into which we duly head-longed. Our ridiculing of Trump for requiring so transparent a display of obsequiousness at the cabinet table will only reinforce what his supporters have always believed; that the mainstream media is indeed the enemy of the nation, because we are biased and our agenda is to bring down a democratically-elected president.

Trump is relentless in promoting two related themes. He is a victim of a brutal and non-stop barrage of attacks as unfair as they are venomous. And he is battling the forces of ‘fake news’. ‘‘As you know, we’re under siege, you understand that,” he declared last week as James Comey, the fired FBI director, was calling him a liar in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “But we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever. You watch.”

Why would Trump supporters not watch the tape of that cabinet meeting - praise be “for the opportunity and blessing that you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people,” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus offered - and not balk? How can they watch so obvious a display of forced fealty and not conclude that the man who calls himself a winner is really a loser?

Partly it’s about Barack Obama, whom they couldn’t abide. Obama, to them, was the quintessence of arrogance and hubris. So what does it matter if Trump puffs himself up a bit, especially since the mainstream media is not going to do it for him whatever he achieves? And when he says he has done more than any president at this stage of their administration save for Franklin Roosevelt they largely accept it, even if the claim hardly stands up to scrutiny.

The under-siege messaging is meant to keep Trump’s base from fracturing, because he is asking for their help to keep him in the game. That on its own gives them a reason to feel connected and wanted. They have a president that needs them and does not ignore them, like Obama did. And the more outraged his supporters feel about how he is being treated, the reasoning goes, the more they will feel compelled to stay by his side, no matter what.

It’s why Ivanka Trump was just on Fox News expressing her shock at how horrible everyone is being to Daddy. “There’s a level of viciousness that I was not expecting,” she lamented. “I was not expecting the intensity of this experience…Some of the distractions and some of the ferocity, I was a little blindsided by on a personal level.” She added: “But this isn’t supposed to be easy. My father, and this administration, expects to be transformative.”

You know her appearance was part of a coordinated effort because within seconds of her appearing on the set Trump himself was alerting his followers on Twitter to tune in. “Ivanka on @foxandfriends now!” he wrote. His Tuesday morning pre-breakfast Twitter tirade, meanwhile, returned to that other of most important subjects: fake news.

“The Fake News Media has never been so wrong or so dirty. Purposely incorrect stories and phony sources to meet their agenda of hate. Sad!” That was one. Another: “Fake News is at an all time high. Where is their apology to me for all of the incorrect stories???”

Casting Trump as a chump is too easy. Charles Schumer, the minority leader of the Senate, took the bait too, reacting to the cabinet-room love-in by releasing a spoof video of his advisors taking turns to lavish him with absurd and comic praise. “Michelle, how’d my hair look coming out of the gym this morning?” he asks a member of his office staff. “You have great hair,” she replies. “Nobody has better hair than you.” (Schumer’s hair is almost as odd as the president’s.)

Reports that Trump has persuaded Cindy McCain to take up a position as an ambassador-at-large to push an agenda on refugees and assorted humanitarian issues with her own office at the State Department reminds us of his wile. What better way to muzzle her husband, Senator John McCain, and stop him going full-bore as leader of the opposition within his own party?

It is because his overall predicament is so dire - the mushrooming Russia investigation and the dismal slide in his overall approval numbers - that protecting his base from dissolving has become so critical. According to the latest Gallup poll, 59 per cent of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing while his approval rating is at a near record low, for him, of 36 per cent.

Only by keeping his base intact can Trump avoid political oblivion. That’s why he decided to take America out of the climate change accord even when roughly six out of ten Americans tell pollsters they opposed the move. His base would like it . And it’s why he gives a fig if some of us watched that cabinet go-around and buried our heads in our hands. His base would like it.

The members of his cabinet - billionaires and persons of accomplishment - get that too. Since they’re on his team now they have as much reason as he to plug the holes in the listing ship. So if you are feeling sorry for them for demeaning themselves in the manner of worms, don’t.