Answered the Phone, said Yes, Cleared Some Stuff Out and Made it Happen

December 23, 2020 2:57 AM

The Full(est Possible) Story of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Press Conference by Olivia Nuzzi for New York Magazine
posted by chavenet (30 comments total)

Nuzzi is upfront that this isn't, quite, the oral history of exactly how it came to happen that we've all dreamed of reading.

But it scratches that itch really well nonetheless, and goddamn she tried hard, and it shows.
posted by automatronic at 4:45 AM on December 23, 2020 [6 favorites]

Analyzing the Trump presidency and all the fuckery that went on in it is gonna feed academics for decades.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:08 AM on December 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

Academics can live off the land, if they need to. But this is a nice dispensation for them, yes.
posted by thelonius at 5:13 AM on December 23, 2020 [6 favorites]

I enjoyed this piece and the reportage. But I wished a bit for a more lateral take in a few areas.

To me, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping choice had the fever-dream quality of an events team that hasn't slept for months under a crazy boss. It makes sense, if the news you are delivering is "we can't book the Four Seasons hotel but here's how you won't look bad" to your out-of-touch-with-reality boss (whether Rudy or Donald). Or about to get fired anyway.

But it also has a mad genius edge and this is where I really disagree with the piece's argument that Trump has lost his sense of theatre. For me I go back to watching Wonder Woman, which despite a terrible CGI battle with an improbably Ares, etc. etc., touched me immensely through its representation of a non-traumatized, unapologetic superhero which I didn't know I was needing to see until I did.

If you work in an industry like lawncare, junk removal, pest control, lice management, crematorium, etc., etc., etc., you are surrounded by this kind of landscape all the time, but you mostly see it represented in film as a place criminals jump the fence next to, maybe the sign of a middle-aged burnout life, a weirdly set-friendly warehouse in The Office.... I know to my eyes, the spot looked ridiculous and I'm not suggesting that blue-collar workers are stupid or used to ugly...but I think the location actually may have supported the message being delivered.

The "elites stole the election from me" narrative does play into a brand of disenfranchisement and this location kind of embodied that weirdness -- because Trump is a gold toilet guy -- really well. And like the angles in a Tim Burton movie, it sort of aligned with the alternate reality they were and still are trying to create, an America that does not exist, and makes the characters and the narrative more plausible because everything is clearly askew.

So that one line that asked why Trump, master of theatre, screwed this one up...I'm not convinced he did, despite trying. We are indeed still talking about it.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:15 AM on December 23, 2020 [22 favorites]

Every bit the clusterfuck you already knew it was. Four years and the sheer ineptitude of this "administration" still astounds.
posted by tommasz at 5:25 AM on December 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

"It’s hard to know what counts as a fuckup when you work for Donald Trump."

Truer words were never spoken.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:55 AM on December 23, 2020 [29 favorites]

> Four years and the sheer ineptitude of this "administration" still astounds.

And yet these morons (and Ontario's Ford brothers, and Boris Johnson, etc.) usually manage to do a better job of advancing their political and economic interests than most left/liberal politicians will ever manage, due to their "born on third base" head start, a political, economic, cultural and media infrastructure that does everything it can to prop them up, and the inherent advantage you have in politics when your platform panders to peoples' worst instincts rather than their best.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:36 AM on December 23, 2020 [24 favorites]

Many of those people involved in this will ask to be put into a witness protection program. Mostly out of personal embarrassment.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:36 AM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

“So you’ve got dead people, landscaping, and pornography!”

Does anymore need to be said?
posted by nubs at 6:46 AM on December 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

I wish the Darryl Brooks angle I heard - that they had to move the location from the Four Seasons Hotel because it was too close to a school for the conviction he got - was at least explored.

The theory goes that Trump just rage tweeted a press conference at Four Seasons, the legal team realized a convicted sex offender (Brooks) would violate his parole, which would be embarrassing, and so they moved it to the landscaping company due to time restraints.

Still funny but more plausible.
posted by glaucon at 7:03 AM on December 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

As a former journo I have an instinctive aversion to long sentences, but the second sentence of this paragraph... *chef's kiss.*

Whether it’s war and peace or public relations and gardening, sorting out the truth is a complicated endeavor when it relates to Donald Trump. Everyone involved in anything, no matter the size, no matter how stupid, seems to lie as a first resort, or to know very little, or to lie about knowing very little, or to know just enough to send blame in another direction, and the person in that direction seems to lie also, or to know very little, or to lie about knowing very little, but perhaps they have a theory that sends blame someplace else, and over there, too, you will find more liars, more know-nothings, and before long, a whole month will have passed, and you still haven’t filed your story about how the president’s attorney wound up undermining democracy in a parking lot off I-95 on a strip of cracked pavement in a run-down part of a city that ordinarily would command no consideration from the national political class or the very online public or the equally online mainstream media, which, when forced to look, found lots of reason to laugh.

(also as a former journo, that's the funniest defense of failing to reel in your assigned story that I've ever seen.)
posted by martin q blank at 7:11 AM on December 23, 2020 [77 favorites]

I accept that we will probably never know the actual truth of what happened because of who we're dealing with. Also I've worked at this kind of organization where shit like this would happen and doing post-mortems is always impossible because of the frantic blame shifting and ass covering.

But I also think there's a virtue in stories that may not capture the exact, beat by beat truth of what happened, but hit the emotional niche of what happened. Like it's not a journalistic breakdown of what happened (though it tries to be) but it does capture the essence of ass-covering and blame-shifting and no one knowing what the hell is going on but oh for god's sake we've got to do something. Like I felt it down in my soul, this captured what it was like to be there in those moments, and for that I feel like historians will study it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:34 AM on December 23, 2020 [9 favorites]

someone please tell me that Armando Iannucci is going to create a "Rudy at the Four Seasons" in the style of "Death of Stalin".
posted by bl1nk at 7:47 AM on December 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

"It’s hard to know what counts as a fuckup when you work for Donald Trump."

Truer words were never spoken.

Perhaps this wil become Nuzzi’s Law, in the same vein as Poe’s Law.
posted by TedW at 8:34 AM on December 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

The entire Trump Presidency was such an unmitigated disaster, and frequently in such heartbreaking, rage-inducing ways, and the entire election cycle such an unceasing source of tension for the entirety of 2020, a year that did not require any additional sources of tension, thank you, that somehow I have come to believe that this coincidence, that all the network decision desks decided, within minutes of each other, to call the election, finally, after four fucking days, EXACTLY at the moment when reporters were Tweeting the news that Four Seasons Landscaping was right by a porn shop, and a creamatorium...it was a direct sign from God. A God that I previously was not certain I believed in. And I am still, today, not certain what kind of sign it was, what the message could possibly be. Although, in conjunction with Babette's timeless inquiry "C'est quoit Gritty?", it has given me my new favorite t-shirt.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:06 AM on December 23, 2020 [13 favorites]

But behind all the obvious fuckery, head-slapping misogyny, racism, projection, tweetstorms, and so on flooding the zone as a straregy, a lot of serious graft, sabotage, and damage to the country was done. And, I fear, little or nothing will be done to highlight the crimes and repair the damage.

“No, there is too much.”
posted by sudogeek at 9:19 AM on December 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

The theory goes that Trump just rage tweeted a press conference at Four Seasons, the legal team realized a convicted sex offender (Brooks) would violate his parole, which would be embarrassing, and so they moved it to the landscaping company due to time restraints.

But consider this: most functional organizations, when faced with such a reality, would simply have had the convicted sex offender stay home, subbing him out with some other witness. Not only to you maintain the location, but you can avoid the optics which might, rightly or wrongly, not serve your case.

Since he Brooks may have been the only witness who they could bring forward, they had to face a choice of just some hand-wavey "OMG WE HEARD THERE WAS FRAUD!!1!!!1!" Or move it so you could have some first hand account.

(I suppose that they may have realized this guy was their only witness, and the location was deliberately chosen to distract from that. But, given the Trump version of Occam's Razor we've lived with for the past 4 years, the stupidest explanation is the most likely. They ain't that clever.)

but I think the location actually may have supported the message being delivered.

And yet they didn't really lean into that--"all of the people being disenfranchised." Instead, what I recall most, was some retconned "COVID restrictions" mumbled when pressed on why the location. This made the the "cover up for the boss" narrative seem all the more likely.

This is what boggles me about this administration. Simple errors that no one would have thought much of get all the more attention because of the attempt to bend reality to make them true. "Turns out the Four Seasons is 'unavailable.' The press conference has been moved to..." would have not raised an eyebrow. Having a press conference at a landscaping company brought all the attention. Likewise, when Trump tweeted that a hurricane was heading to Alabama, he could have simply tweeted "Listen to the NWS--I was working off an older report. Stay safe, everyone!" Instead, he drew on a map with a sharpie, and looked all the more foolish.

Is this intentional, or does he believe he's getting away with something?
posted by MrGuilt at 9:31 AM on December 23, 2020 [13 favorites]

a lot of serious graft, sabotage, and damage to the country was done

And a reminder that the vast majority of the grafters, criminals and other enablers will still be in the exact same positions months and years from now as they were in when they committed their crimes, and eventually escape rich and without punishment.
posted by maxwelton at 9:32 AM on December 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

To draw undue attention to the crimes committed by Trump and his cronies would be to increase the changes of punishment for future crimes committed by other members of the ruling class who are politer and quieter about it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:39 AM on December 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

To draw undue attention to the crimes committed by Trump and his cronies would be to increase the changes of punishment for future crimes committed by other members of the ruling class who are politer and quieter about it.

If only.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:09 AM on December 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

"Turns out the Four Seasons is 'unavailable.' The press conference has been moved to..." would have not raised an eyebrow.

Yeah and this is pure speculation but if you've ever worked for a crazy, narcissistic boss as I have in the past, you learn very quickly that this kind of external logic doesn't apply.

"I wanted the Four Seasons!!!!!! [tantrum]" is what you're actually fearing, especially if you're on a deadline and a tantrum will keep the staff occupied rather than getting there, and so you start to come up with essentially toddler logic (you can have a 'dinosaur tree' (broccoli) instead of a dinosaur cookie) not because it will look or work better on the outside, but because it will quiet the rage monster inside.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:36 AM on December 23, 2020 [11 favorites]

someone please tell me that Armando Iannucci is going to create a "Rudy at the Four Seasons"

Rudy at the Four Seasons, with sails unfurled.
posted by Mayor West at 11:42 AM on December 23, 2020 [12 favorites]

I'd like to think that it was a case of malicious compliance. Like, some poor sod who knew that their crappy job was about to end anyway was ordered to book the four seasons. When they found the hotel wasn't going to work, went ahead and booked the tawdriest location that still fit the bill, and is now able to look back at the world's greatest "fuck you" for the rest of their lives.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:47 AM on December 23, 2020 [21 favorites]

some poor sod

I see what you did there.
posted by dywypi at 11:52 AM on December 23, 2020 [22 favorites]

some poor sod

I dig what you did there.
posted by Zedcaster at 1:27 PM on December 23, 2020 [14 favorites]

Rudy at the Four Seasons, with sails unfurled.

Shaka, when the porn store opened.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:47 PM on December 23, 2020 [11 favorites]

look back at the world's greatest "fuck you" for the rest of their lives.

Right up there in the pantheon with whoever played "Live and Let Die" as Trump was being filmed touring an Arizona mask factory... while not wearing a mask.
posted by carmicha at 9:51 PM on December 23, 2020 [9 favorites]

yes, exactly!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:12 AM on December 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

Seems like one of the endings of the Trump chose your own adventure book. “Your assistant hands you a torn handwritten note from Rudy with options for your big conference. To hold it at the boring but well run convention center....turn to page 53. To hold it at the Four Seasons....turn to page 86”
posted by inflatablekiwi at 7:44 AM on December 24, 2020 [5 favorites]

Sorry, this is by the Olivia Nuzzi who’s friends with Milo Yiannopoulos?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:09 PM on December 25, 2020