The Curtain Rises: Vacuity as Performance

“This vacuousness is the choreography of illiberal power.”

It sounds like the kind of phrase that belongs in a graduate seminar — abstract, a little haughty. But it is not an abstraction. It is a diagnosis. We live in a country where the dance of emptiness is no longer background noise but the show itself.

Trumpism didn’t invent the performance of hollowness. It perfected it. The rally chant with no policy, the executive order with no enforcement, the speech that loops back on itself like an ouroboros choking on clichés — all of it is carefully staged emptiness. The vacuity is not a flaw; it is the act.

This is the secret that Washington analysts and media scribes prefer to treat as an accident: there is nothing behind the curtain, and nothingness is the governing style.

Conservatism’s First Act: Buckley and the Illusion of Substance

Conservatism once claimed an intellectual pedigree. William F. Buckley Jr. puffed on his cigarette holder and deployed ten-dollar words like a stage magician producing handkerchiefs. The point was not clarity but exclusion: if you didn’t follow the Latin phrases or the Oxford cadence, you weren’t worthy of the club.

Buckley’s performance was a kind of choreography — a pirouette of pretension designed to dignify reactionary politics. Behind the curtain of vocabulary and wit lay opposition to civil rights, labor, and the social safety net. But the packaging was impressive. Conservatism could still pretend to be about ideas.

 Reagan’s Spotlight: Morning in America

Then came Ronald Reagan, who turned conservatism into pure theater. Where Buckley wielded words, Reagan wielded images: sunsets, flag-draped families, amber waves of grain. “Morning in America” was not a policy agenda but a film set.

The hollowness grew, but it dazzled. Deregulation was sold as freedom. Tax cuts were portrayed as prosperity. The social contract was gutted while the cameras rolled. Reaganism was conservatism’s Hollywood phase — a production so well-lit that few noticed the stagehands carrying away the furniture.

Gingrich and the Guerrilla Dance

If Reagan was Broadway, Newt Gingrich was guerrilla theater. He arrived in the 1990s with the choreography of sabotage: government shutdowns staged as moral crusades, venom scripted for C-SPAN, obstruction turned into a spectacle of principle.

The trick was simple: break the government and then blame it for being broken. Gingrich rehearsed every move to feed an angry electorate. He turned the floor of the House into a cheap playhouse and journalists into willing reviewers.

Here, the choreography of emptiness took a darker turn. It was no longer just about dazzling voters with imagery but about teaching them to cheer for sabotage.

McConnell’s Silent Waltz

Mitch McConnell perfected the art of negation. Where Gingrich smashed windows, McConnell locked the doors. His choreography was the waltz of not moving. Judicial nominations sat in drawers. Legislation was frozen mid-sentence. “Do nothing” became the most elaborate dance number of all.

In McConnell’s performance, vacuity became not just tolerated but institutionalized. To govern was to obstruct. The emptiness of action was itself a demonstration of power.

 Trump’s Apogee: Dancing on Empty

And then came Trump, a man for whom the choreography of emptiness was not a tactic but a religion.

Every rally is an improv show, and every policy announcement is a setup for applause lines. He governs by spectacle: a parade of executive orders signed for the cameras, then quietly rescinded or unenforced; a wall crowdfunded in chants but not in concrete; tariffs imposed and lifted like stage props moved between scenes.

Trump makes vacuity the ideology. There was no Buckleyan scaffolding, Reaganite imagery, Gingrich pretense of principle, or McConnell feint of procedure. There was only the spectacle — emptiness packaged as strength, chaos choreographed as destiny.

“This vacuousness,” to borrow the line, “is the choreography of illiberal power.”

The Orchestra in the Press Box

Illiberal choreography requires an orchestra, and the American press obligingly provided the score.

The New York Times frames Trump’s antics as “norm-busting” rather than norm-destroying. Cable news covered every rally live, panning the camera across the crowd as though capturing history, not hysteria. Opinion pages wonder aloud what “Democrats must do” to restore order, while the arsonist dances freely on the stage.

The journalists are not duped; they are enthralled. A performance this loud, this garish, could not be ignored, so they mistake the noise for news.

~Dunneagin

VIII. The Digital Upgrade: Jim Crow 2.0 in HD

But choreography doesn’t just happen on podiums. In the 21st century, it streams.

Trumpism fuses the old authoritarian performance with new digital tools. Racism once needed firehoses and poll taxes; now it requires only algorithms. Platforms like Facebook and TikTok don’t just transmit prejudice — they amplify it, curate it, and deliver it to your feed wrapped in dopamine.

As I wrote elsewhere, Jim Crow 2.0 does not wear a hood; it arrives as recommended content. It whispers to susceptible audiences: you are the real victim. It trains the algorithm to elevate grievance and suppress equity. It converts hatred into a business model, “Jim Crow as a Service.”

This, too, is choreography. The vacuity of governance is mirrored by the vacuity of digital “choice.” No policy, no substance — just curated outrage packaged as news, as community, as destiny.

The Choreography of Nothingness

What makes this emptiness powerful?

It exhausts. It confuses. It saturates the space where debate should happen. By flooding the stage with spectacle, illiberalism leaves no oxygen for substance.

The choreography of nothingness works because it feels like something. A rally chant has no legislative impact, but it delivers the adrenaline of belonging. An algorithmically curated grievance has no solution, but it gives the user a steady drip of validation. Vacuity performs power by masquerading as energy.

This is why Trump’s chaos often feels more commanding than Biden’s competence. Substance is boring. Emptiness, when staged correctly, looks like action.

The International Dance Troupe

Lest we think this is a purely American production, consider the international tour.

• Orbán in Hungary — staging illiberalism through hollow plebiscites and cultural pageantry.

• Bolsonaro in Brazil — governed by meme, empty spectacle masking rainforest arson.

• Putin in Russia — reality shows of “democracy” where the outcomes are scripted in advance.

All follow the same choreography: vacuity as strength, emptiness as control, spectacle as governance.

Dancing With Shadows: What Comes After

If emptiness is the performance, what happens when the lights dim?

The danger is not just Trump. It is the normalization of emptiness as politics. Once voters are trained to expect spectacle, substance feels alien. Once institutions are hollowed out, restoration looks like weakness. Once algorithms curate grievance as identity, the choreography of illiberal power becomes self-sustaining.

Trumpism, then, is not just a man or a movement. It is the apogee of a dance that began long before him — from Buckley’s smug fencing to Reagan’s movie-set patriotism, to Gingrich’s sabotage, to McConnell’s silent blockade. Trump is the grand finale: the high kick of hollowness, the empty climax of a conservatism that spent half a century rehearsing how to dance on nothing.

XII. Final Bow: Naming the Dance

So let us call it clearly: this vacuousness is the choreography of illiberal power.

Not accident. Not incompetence. Not even just corruption. It is emptiness staged as rule, hollowness performed as strength, chaos scripted as destiny.

The firehoses are gone, replaced by hashtags. The rallies are hollow, but the cameras roll. The policies collapse, but the chants endure. And the algorithm ensures the show is delivered directly to your phone, nightly, free of charge.

The tragedy is not that the stage is empty. The tragedy is that emptiness, performed well enough, convinces audiences that they are watching greatness.

The tragedy is not that the stage is empty. The tragedy is that emptiness sells tickets, and the audience keeps coming back for the sequel. Trumpism is not the last act. It is the franchise reboot.

~ Dunneagin

The Curtain Rises: Vacuity as Performance

“This vacuousness is the choreography of illiberal power.”

It sounds like the kind of phrase that belongs in a graduate seminar — abstract, a little haughty. But it is not an abstraction. It is a diagnosis. We live in a country where the dance of emptiness is no longer background noise but the show itself.

Trumpism didn’t invent the performance of hollowness. It perfected it. The rally chant with no policy, the executive order with no enforcement, the speech that loops back on itself like an ouroboros choking on clichés — all of it is carefully staged emptiness. The vacuity is not a flaw; it is the act.

This is the secret that Washington analysts and media scribes prefer to treat as an accident: there is nothing behind the curtain, and nothingness is the governing style.

Conservatism’s First Act: Buckley and the Illusion of Substance

Conservatism once claimed an intellectual pedigree. William F. Buckley Jr. puffed on his cigarette holder and deployed ten-dollar words like a stage magician producing handkerchiefs. The point was not clarity but exclusion: if you didn’t follow the Latin phrases or the Oxford cadence, you weren’t worthy of the club.

Buckley’s performance was a kind of choreography — a pirouette of pretension designed to dignify reactionary politics. Behind the curtain of vocabulary and wit lay opposition to civil rights, labor, and the social safety net. But the packaging was impressive. Conservatism could still pretend to be about ideas.

 Reagan’s Spotlight: Morning in America

Then came Ronald Reagan, who turned conservatism into pure theater. Where Buckley wielded words, Reagan wielded images: sunsets, flag-draped families, amber waves of grain. “Morning in America” was not a policy agenda but a film set.

The hollowness grew, but it dazzled. Deregulation was sold as freedom. Tax cuts were portrayed as prosperity. The social contract was gutted while the cameras rolled. Reaganism was conservatism’s Hollywood phase — a production so well-lit that few noticed the stagehands carrying away the furniture.

Gingrich and the Guerrilla Dance

If Reagan was Broadway, Newt Gingrich was guerrilla theater. He arrived in the 1990s with the choreography of sabotage: government shutdowns staged as moral crusades, venom scripted for C-SPAN, obstruction turned into a spectacle of principle.

The trick was simple: break the government and then blame it for being broken. Gingrich rehearsed every move to feed an angry electorate. He turned the floor of the House into a cheap playhouse and journalists into willing reviewers.

Here, the choreography of emptiness took a darker turn. It was no longer just about dazzling voters with imagery but about teaching them to cheer for sabotage.

McConnell’s Silent Waltz

Mitch McConnell perfected the art of negation. Where Gingrich smashed windows, McConnell locked the doors. His choreography was the waltz of not moving. Judicial nominations sat in drawers. Legislation was frozen mid-sentence. “Do nothing” became the most elaborate dance number of all.

In McConnell’s performance, vacuity became not just tolerated but institutionalized. To govern was to obstruct. The emptiness of action was itself a demonstration of power.

 Trump’s Apogee: Dancing on Empty

And then came Trump, a man for whom the choreography of emptiness was not a tactic but a religion.

Every rally is an improv show, and every policy announcement is a setup for applause lines. He governs by spectacle: a parade of executive orders signed for the cameras, then quietly rescinded or unenforced; a wall crowdfunded in chants but not in concrete; tariffs imposed and lifted like stage props moved between scenes.

Trump makes vacuity the ideology. There was no Buckleyan scaffolding, Reaganite imagery, Gingrich pretense of principle, or McConnell feint of procedure. There was only the spectacle — emptiness packaged as strength, chaos choreographed as destiny.

“This vacuousness,” to borrow the line, “is the choreography of illiberal power.”

The Orchestra in the Press Box

Illiberal choreography requires an orchestra, and the American press obligingly provided the score.

The New York Times frames Trump’s antics as “norm-busting” rather than norm-destroying. Cable news covered every rally live, panning the camera across the crowd as though capturing history, not hysteria. Opinion pages wonder aloud what “Democrats must do” to restore order, while the arsonist dances freely on the stage.

The journalists are not duped; they are enthralled. A performance this loud, this garish, could not be ignored, so they mistake the noise for news.

~Dunneagin

VIII. The Digital Upgrade: Jim Crow 2.0 in HD

But choreography doesn’t just happen on podiums. In the 21st century, it streams.

Trumpism fuses the old authoritarian performance with new digital tools. Racism once needed firehoses and poll taxes; now it requires only algorithms. Platforms like Facebook and TikTok don’t just transmit prejudice — they amplify it, curate it, and deliver it to your feed wrapped in dopamine.

As I wrote elsewhere, Jim Crow 2.0 does not wear a hood; it arrives as recommended content. It whispers to susceptible audiences: you are the real victim. It trains the algorithm to elevate grievance and suppress equity. It converts hatred into a business model, “Jim Crow as a Service.”

This, too, is choreography. The vacuity of governance is mirrored by the vacuity of digital “choice.” No policy, no substance — just curated outrage packaged as news, as community, as destiny.

The Choreography of Nothingness

What makes this emptiness powerful?

It exhausts. It confuses. It saturates the space where debate should happen. By flooding the stage with spectacle, illiberalism leaves no oxygen for substance.

The choreography of nothingness works because it feels like something. A rally chant has no legislative impact, but it delivers the adrenaline of belonging. An algorithmically curated grievance has no solution, but it gives the user a steady drip of validation. Vacuity performs power by masquerading as energy.

This is why Trump’s chaos often feels more commanding than Biden’s competence. Substance is boring. Emptiness, when staged correctly, looks like action.

The International Dance Troupe

Lest we think this is a purely American production, consider the international tour.

• Orbán in Hungary — staging illiberalism through hollow plebiscites and cultural pageantry.

• Bolsonaro in Brazil — governed by meme, empty spectacle masking rainforest arson.

• Putin in Russia — reality shows of “democracy” where the outcomes are scripted in advance.

All follow the same choreography: vacuity as strength, emptiness as control, spectacle as governance.

Dancing With Shadows: What Comes After

If emptiness is the performance, what happens when the lights dim?

The danger is not just Trump. It is the normalization of emptiness as politics. Once voters are trained to expect spectacle, substance feels alien. Once institutions are hollowed out, restoration looks like weakness. Once algorithms curate grievance as identity, the choreography of illiberal power becomes self-sustaining.

Trumpism, then, is not just a man or a movement. It is the apogee of a dance that began long before him — from Buckley’s smug fencing to Reagan’s movie-set patriotism, to Gingrich’s sabotage, to McConnell’s silent blockade. Trump is the grand finale: the high kick of hollowness, the empty climax of a conservatism that spent half a century rehearsing how to dance on nothing.

XII. Final Bow: Naming the Dance

So let us call it clearly: this vacuousness is the choreography of illiberal power.

Not accident. Not incompetence. Not even just corruption. It is emptiness staged as rule, hollowness performed as strength, chaos scripted as destiny.

The firehoses are gone, replaced by hashtags. The rallies are hollow, but the cameras roll. The policies collapse, but the chants endure. And the algorithm ensures the show is delivered directly to your phone, nightly, free of charge.

The tragedy is not that the stage is empty. The tragedy is that emptiness, performed well enough, convinces audiences that they are watching greatness.

The tragedy is not that the stage is empty. The tragedy is that emptiness sells tickets, and the audience keeps coming back for the sequel. Trumpism is not the last act. It is the franchise reboot.

~ Dunneagin