The Man Who Didn’t Stare

If you ask Donald Trump (or even if nobody asks), he’ll tell you he was treated “very unfairly” while in office. In characteristically hyperbolic language, he once claimed to be the most unfairly-treated politician ever, wresting that title from, I don’t know—Harvey Milk? A lot of Trump’s whining was, of course, performative nonsense. But not all of it was.

Even now, two years out of office, whenever Trump reemerges with public comments that are, well, Trumpian, pundits and talk show hosts will remind us that Trump is stupid and not to be taken seriously. As evidence, they will remind us that Trump once famously stared at an eclipse—the one thing every schoolkid is taught not to do.

You remember that incident, right? Trump staring at the eclipse? You saw it, right?

What you saw was a photograph, likely this one by Mark Wilson, of Trump turning his face skyward and smiling, during a photo op on the White House portico with Melania. Was he staring at the eclipse?

We can’t actually see the position of the sun in the sky, but from the shadow on his collar and the spectral highlights on his cheeks, yes—he’s looking in the direction of the sun. He’s squinting, so yeah, it’s bright. It’s possible he’s looking at the eclipse—which is already a bad idea. But is he staring at it?

Words have meanings. The distinction between staring, looking, and glancing are meaningful differences of duration. And in a still photograph, the duration is forever. The orange man in the photograph will stare at the sun for as long as you watch him. He never stops. There he is—staring.

But here’s the video. (The relevant moment is at 2:09:45.)

Describing that clip, I’d say Trump glanced up toward the eclipse—clowning around in the same way your annoying uncle might pretend, in a photograph, as if he’s about to step off a cliff or in front of a bus. It’s the sort of not-actually-funny physical joke that appeals to jackasses of a certain age. It’s stupid, but it’s not stare-at-the-sun stupid.

I’m not harping on this point to defend Trump. The point I’m making isn’t about him—it’s about us, the populace, the consumers of news and makers of consensus. As a culture, this image has become an icon representing something we communally agree to be true. Trump is a dumbass, and this is the illustration of it. An image. A meme.

When this story popped up as news in 2017, I saw the photograph before I saw the video, and I chuckled knowingly. Trump did what? That tracks.

The story—and the word “staring”—made headlines across the U.S. and abroad.

But then I saw the video, and realized this was, in fact, a rare example of that accusation Trump himself so often voiced: fake news.

I wrote to an editor at a mainstream publication, where I’ve placed stories before, and pitched a story. It would have been a piece of social criticism and media theory—a smarter, more carefully constructed version of this very blog post. The editor told me they would only publish the story if I could get a White House spokesperson (he suggested Hope Hicks) to comment on the record that Trump was merely joking around when he looked at the sun. Hope didn’t return my voicemail.

Fortunately, Christina Prignano and Brian White at the Boston Globe noticed the same thing I did, and published a story setting the record straight. Except it didn’t. Because the story is too good not to be true.