Business
The Inland Empire's once-unstoppable warehousing industry falls into a slump
For years the growth of warehousing in the Inland Empire was relentless. At the confluence of port-bound freeways and rail spurs along the eastern edge of Los Angeles’ sprawl, box-like fulfillment centers popped up in business parks by the millions of square feet. They were an economic engine, a bringer of jobs, a shortener of commutes, and a workhorse during the pandemic.
But now that’s come to a halt — bringing uncertainty for thousands of workers and an industry that has been an economic bellwether for the region.
After the COVID-19 pandemic slammed the nation in spring 2020, the Inland Empire recovered all of the jobs it lost by the summer of 2021 — more than a year ahead of Orange County and almost two years earlier than Los Angeles County. Despite pandemic restrictions, the area’s machinery of storing and transporting goods kicked into high gear, outpacing better-paying and more glamorous sectors in the state, such as entertainment and tech.
But the tables have turned in the last year. Warehousing and storage jobs in the Inland Empire shrank for the first time in more than two decades. Once-booming truck transportation has been down since early in the summer, and the area’s wholesale trade employment is dropping fast, according to year-over-year data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Industrial building vacancies are up and rents are down.
Logistics businesses nationally are cutting back amid declines in freight volume. United Parcel Service said it would shed 12,000 jobs worldwide over the next several months after more than a $9-billion drop in revenue last year. A company spokesman said it didn’t have a breakdown of where those layoffs would hit, but UPS employs tens of thousands of workers in California.
“Everything is different,” said Victor Ramirez, a Pomona resident who’s worked in warehousing for about 20 years. Speaking in Spanish, he remembered when times were better — much better.
The 59-year-old recalled not only getting full 40-hour workweeks in the past but bonuses during the pandemic. These days, things have slowed so much at his current place of employment, a warehouse that builds pallets, that he has taken on additional work as an Uber driver and canvasser for nonprofits.
“One job isn’t nearly enough,” Ramirez said.
With related business services and real estate also down, the Inland Empire’s overall job growth last year averaged just 1.2%, about half the rate for Southern California and the state as a whole. “We could be the weak link,” said John Husing, the region’s longtime economist based in Redlands.
The pandemic-induced surge of consumer purchases, transportation gridlock and prolonged labor negotiations at the ports all played a role in disrupting the flow of goods and exacerbating an oversupply of warehouses. But even before COVID, the industry was feeling increasing strains from environmental regulations, disputes over independent trucking and rising operating costs that have pushed more businesses to leave the state.
The Inland Empire’s troubles come as the U.S. economy faces an expected slowdown and the tech sector continues to shed jobs. California’s tourism industry, another big economic engine, hasn’t fully recovered, and high interest rates have taken a bite out of the housing market. All of that has left the state trailing the nation in job growth. The latest unemployment rate statewide, as well as for the Inland Empire, was 5.1% in December, well above the U.S. figure of 3.7%.
“Right now I am not an optimist on this economy,” Husing said.
The long shadow of logistics
Thanks to lower housing costs than in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the Inland Empire’s population has been growing for decades. Over the years, many residents found work in a logistics industry that has surged along with the region. Since 2000, the Inland Empire’s population has increased by 45% to 4.7 million last year. And jobs during that period have jumped even faster, up 68% to 1.7 million. That’s about as many as in all of Orange County.
A lot of that came on the back of the logistics industry, which got a big boost from soaring trade with China. Today, about 40% of all containers entering the U.S. from Asia are handled by the ports of L.A. and Long Beach. More than 37,000 heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers based in the Inland Empire haul that cargo to rails and some 4,000 warehouses that are scattered across Riverside and San Bernardino counties’ 27,000 square miles, double the land area of the next largest metropolitan area, Phoenix-Scottsdale in Arizona.
The growing number of jobs brought the promise of greater economic security and quality of life as more residents were able to get jobs closer to home. But the growth of the logistics industry has exacerbated environmental concerns in communities with some of the least-healthful air in the United States. And analysts say too many households in the area are struggling to make ends meet as earnings have not kept up with rising costs.
Sheheryar Kaoosji, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Warehouse Worker Resource Center in Ontario, said many logistics jobs are still too close to minimum wage, are temporary or seasonal and are often quick to disappear when the economy softens.
“The average worker is always in a position of uncertainty,” he said.
For all occupations, Inland Empire workers made $27.96 an hour on average in 2022, the latest according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is compared with $33.43 for L.A. and Orange counties combined, and $45.37 for the San Francisco Bay Area.
More than 270,000 people in the Inland Empire work in transportation and material moving occupations. Their median hourly pay in 2022: $21.13. Stockers and order fillers made even less — $19.01 an hour, on average.
California’s statewide minimum wage for larger employers was $15 an hour in 2022. It went up to $16 this year, and for fast-food workers it’ll go to $20 an hour in April.
“It’s a good starter job, but as far as long-term, a lot of people think they’re going to do it for life,” said Byron Williams, 48, of Moreno Valley, referring to logistics jobs at Amazon.
Williams once worked at Amazon, though on the finance side of logistics. The e-commerce behemoth operates more than a dozen distribution facilities in the Inland Empire. Williams said he left because of the pay. “It’s not a for-life position.”
The new boom and bust
Going through boom and bust cycles has been part and parcel of life in the Inland Empire. The area tumbled during the early 1990s downturn that was marked by defense cuts and overbuilding. And it was one of the hardest hit by the subprime mortgage crisis that brought the Great Recession in 2007-09.
The pandemic, at first, seemed to be an exception. The Inland Empire’s economy quickly rebounded thanks to surging orders for all kinds of stuff from people stuck in their homes. Rounds of government stimulus checks added fuel to consumer spending.
But in the last year the industry suddenly fell back, in part as consumer spending shifted more to services, such as travel and entertainment , and less on things such as cars and groceries. High inflation also was a factor, as was the unusual situation at the ports.
Early in the pandemic, dozens of ships were lined up at sea waiting to berth in L.A. and Long Beach ports. When the logjam eased, merchandise flooded into the region, prompting wholesalers and distributors to double down on warehouses and workers.
“We couldn’t hire fast enough,” said Jeff Baldassari, who until August was president of U.S. Rubber Recycling in Colton, which got a burst of pandemic orders of rubber mats for in-home gyms and other uses. “Now the party ended, and it’s the hangover the next day,” he said.
Drawn-out labor talks with longshoremen that lasted more than a year prompted some companies to divert cargo to the East and Gulf Coast ports.
In the last few months, warehouses and distribution centers have shut down in Rialto, Fontana, Jurupa Valley, Perris and Chino, among other cities, according to WARN Act filings with the state. During the summer, the bankrupt trucking firm Yellow Corp. shuttered several terminals in the Inland Empire that eliminated about 1,000 jobs.
The downturn in logistics has spread to other industries too, including finance and real estate. San Francisco-based Prologis, the world’s biggest warehouse developer and a major player in the Inland Empire, reported a 7% drop in rents in the fourth quarter for Southern California. The company said its construction pipeline in the region was half of what it was at year-end 2022.
During a recent conference call with analysts, Prologis’ chief executive, Hamid Moghadam, said it’s always been difficult for retailers and wholesalers to correctly forecast demand and manage inventories. “They’re schizophrenic. They always have too much or too little. You can never get it right.”
Still, he and other developers said they are bullish on the future. The logistics business in Southern California is getting back on its feet after the pandemic, they said. And key drivers of growth remain intact — e-commerce, global trade, demand for larger, more efficient distribution centers, said Iddo Benzeevi, chief executive of Highland Fairview, a developer working on a massive logistics center in Moreno Valley.
But that will also bring more consolidation, he said. Older, smaller facilities will get phased out, and payrolls aren’t likely to grow as fast as before. In the long term, logistics jobs may require higher skills and pay better as facilities become more automated and employ technologies such as driverless trucks — but they could employ fewer workers.
Mauricio Perez, 33, a UPS truck driver who has been at the company for 15 years. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
For truck driver Mauricio Perez, a 15-year veteran at UPS who lives in Rancho Cucamonga, it’s the near term that worries him.
Work usually slows after the busy Christmas season, but he said this year looks different. During the holidays, Perez saw 53-foot trailers stacked to the brim with items and packages to be delivered. Nowadays, 28-foot trailers have barely two or three pallets inside.
What’s more, he said that the work-bidding process at UPS suggests that a lot more truckers in the Inland Empire are likely to be on a more flexible schedule that can vary week to week or shunted to the package hub, where they’d work fewer hours. That means drivers who don’t get assigned work may end up taking a “layoff week,” in which they won’t get paid unless they cash out vacation time or accrue pension benefits.
“It’s not looking like the economy is going to get any better in the next few months,” Perez said. “We just gotta brace ourselves for the worst.”
The Na’vi won the battle of the box office this weekend, as “Avatar: Fire and Ash” hauled in a hefty $88 million in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend.
The third installment of the Disney-owned 20th Century Studios’ “Avatar” franchise brought in an estimated total of $345 million globally, with about $257 million of that coming from international audiences. The movie reportedly has a budget of at least $350 million.
Box office analysts had expected a big international response to the most recent film, particularly since its predecessor “Avatar: The Way of Water” had strong showings in markets like Germany, France and China.
In China, the film opened to an estimated $57.6 million, marking the second highest 2025 opening for a U.S. film in the country since Disney’s “Zootopia 2” a few weeks ago. (That film went on to gross more than $271.7 million in China on its way to a global box office total of $1.1 billion.)
The strong response in China is another sign that certain movies can still do well in the country, which was once seen as a key force multiplier for big blockbusters and animated family films but has in recent years cooled to American movies due to geopolitics and the rise of its domestic film industry.
Angel Studio’s animated biblical tale “David” came in second at the box office this weekend, with an estimated domestic gross of $22 million. Lionsgate thriller “The Housemaid,” Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies’ “The Spongebob Movie: Search for Squarepants” and “Zootopia 2” rounded out the top five.
The weekend’s haul likely comes as a relief to theater owners, who have weathered a roller coaster year.
After a difficult first three months, the spring brought hits like “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners” before the summer ended mostly flat. A sleepy fall brought panic to the exhibition business until closer to the Thanksgiving holiday, when “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” drew in audiences.
Dear Liz: When I retired, I had a small 401(k) with about $12,000 in it. Instead of rolling that money into an IRA, I took a distribution and paid taxes on it. I had no immediate need for the remaining funds, so eventually I opened a new IRA account and deposited the money.
I now realize I should have put it in a Roth IRA so I wouldn’t face double taxation on the money. This is the stupidest thing I’ve done in recent memory. Is there any legal mechanism I can use to get that money out and into a Roth without paying taxes the second time?
Answer: You made a mistake, but probably not the one you think.
You can’t contribute to an IRA — or a Roth IRA, for that matter — if you don’t have earned income. So if you’ve fully retired, you should contact your IRA administrator and let them know you need to withdraw your “excess contribution” as well as any earnings the contribution has made.
If you contributed this year, you have until your tax filing deadline — typically April 15, 2026 — to remove the funds without penalty. If you contributed in a previous year, you’ll typically face a 6% excise tax for each year the money remained in your account.
Now, a warning about financial mistakes: They tend to become more common as we age. That can be incredibly unsettling, especially to do-it-yourselfers used to handling finances competently on their own. Retirement is a good time to start implementing some guardrails to protect ourselves and our money.
Hiring a tax pro would be a good first step. Anything to do with a retirement fund should be run past this pro first to make sure you’re following the tax rules.
Dear Liz: In response to a reader who asked about creating a will, you suggested options for low-cost online resources. That is great! But, I would encourage you to remind readers to designate beneficiaries on accounts and assets where that option is available.
While they should still have a will, many readers may not know that they can add beneficiaries to brokerage, checking, and savings accounts (in addition to IRA and retirement accounts) so that their assets will pass directly to the designated beneficiaries and not have to go through probate with the extra hassle, time and expense.
For those without a trust, designating beneficiaries may be the easiest way to pass on many of their assets. In California (and some other states), even houses may pass without probate with a transfer-on-death deed. Many readers may not know about the option to add beneficiaries, and you would do your readers a service by educating them about it.
Answer: Anyone adding beneficiaries to accounts needs to be aware of some major potential drawbacks.
A big one involves settling the estate. If all available funds are transferred directly to beneficiaries, the person settling the estate may not have enough cash to do their job.
Beneficiary designations can also result in unintentionally unequal distributions if there’s more than one heir, and complications if the beneficiaries die first or aren’t changed appropriately as life circumstances change.
That’s not to say that beneficiary designations are the wrong choice, but they’re certainly not a one-size-fits-all option.
Dear Liz: Your recent column about advanced directives said that people could get a free version at PrepareForYourCare.org. I found there is a charge. Is this for all online directives?
Answer: Prepare is a free site supported by donations, grants and licensing agreements. If you were asked to pay, you either clicked the donate button or weren’t on the correct site.
Liz Weston, Certified Financial Planner, is a personal finance columnist. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the “Contact” form at asklizweston.com.
To understand how Mr. Trump has achieved this omnipresence, The New York Times reviewed the first 329 days of his second term, finding at least one instance each day when he attracted the public’s attention to himself and his actions.
The review encompassed more than 250 media appearances, more than 320 official appearances, and more than 5,000 Truth Social posts or reposts. The analysis shows that while Mr. Trump has lagged his predecessors in his number of official appearances, he has pursued a raft of innovative methods to force himself into the public consciousness on a daily, and sometimes even hourly, basis.
The battery of activity started from the moment he was inaugurated, when he traveled from the Capitol Building to the Capital One Arena to publicly sign a flurry of executive orders.
Since then, he has stayed in the public eye in part by doing things no president has ever done. High-stakes Oval Office meetings, like his negotiations with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, are held on-camera and broadcast live on global news networks. His Q.-and-A. sessions with reporters frequently last an hour or more.
He regularly airs his opinions – on social media, in discursive asides at rallies – about idiosyncratic subjects that range widely across the zeitgeist, from Sydney Sweeney’s sexy denim ads to the redesigned logo of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain to the mysterious fate of the aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
And his engagement with the news media has soared well beyond the start of his first administration.
Through Dec. 14, Mr. Trump took reporters’ questions on 449 occasions, compared with 223 during the same period of his first term. On average, Mr. Trump has interacted with journalists roughly twice a day, doubling his rate from 2017, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University political scientist who tracks presidential press interactions. Mr. Trump limits which news outlets can ask questions at small events, but in sheer volume, he is the most media-accessible modern president, and far outpaces his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“Reporters will be in my office asking me for the president’s reaction to a breaking news story,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in an interview. “And I’ll just say to them, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you ask him yourself in 30 minutes?’”
President Trump’s media appearances have soared this year, more than doubling both the Biden administration’s and those of his own first term.
Finding the Cameras
Many of his public moments go viral online, like his diatribe about restoring the name of the Washington Redskins, or the A.I.-generated video meme he posted of himself dribbling a soccer ball with Cristiano Ronaldo in the Oval Office. They take on a life of their own, rippling across social media and dissected and amplified by influencers and mass media platforms alike.
The result is a president whose not-so-inner monologue is injected into our daily lives in myriad ways, when we are watching TV on the weekends or idly scrolling the web – a Greek chorus for our national narrative.
“He’s the most ubiquitous president ever,” said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian.
The media strategy aligns with his political strategy.
Dating back to his years as an outspoken real estate developer and reality TV star, Mr. Trump has relished being unavoidable for comment. But at age 79, he has been outdoing his younger self. And there is a logic to his logorrhea.
Mr. Trump’s allies often speak of the political benefits of flooding the zone: pursuing so many policies, ideas, and dramatic restructurings of the normal ways of governance as to overwhelm the system. “All pedal, no brake,” as Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s one-time adviser, has called it.
“We joke internally that he is our ultimate director of communications,” Ms. Leavitt said. “He has incredible media instincts, and he is the final decision maker on all policy, and he has been in a ‘flood the zone,’ ‘do as much as possible’ mindset since he walked into the Oval Office on Jan. 20.”
All presidents benefit from the awesome news-making powers of the office, with its agenda-setting influence over a dedicated global press corps. But Mr. Trump has outstripped his predecessors in whipsawing the public’s attention onto matters small and large – and limiting the level of scrutiny that any one shocking remark or policy proposal receives.
“People can really only focus on a handful of things a day,” said Bill Burton, a deputy White House press secretary under former President Barack Obama. “This attention flood is working for Trump because he is able to do an extraordinary amount of executive actions and very little of it can get attention.”
Or as Mr. Brinkley put it: “He plays to win the day, every day, around the clock.”
His commentary takes on a life of its own.
One of Mr. Trump’s political assets is his instinct for virality.
With a natural feel for the web, Mr. Trump has a knack for amplifying wacky memes and pop culture curios that can drive days of online discourse. Sometimes, coverage of his offhand remarks or late-night social media posts can crowd out the more significant, norm-shattering changes he is making to American governance.
Late one Friday night in May, the president posted an obviously A.I.-generated image of himself as the pope. It struck a nerve.
Mr. Trump had already courted controversy days earlier, after the death of Pope Francis on April 21.
“I’d like to be pope,” the president told reporters who asked about who should become the next pontiff. “That would be my number one choice.”
The comment disturbed some Catholics, who said the notion was crude and insensitive. That reaction seemed only to prompt Mr. Trump to double down, posting the A.I.-generated image to his Truth Social account days later. By the weekend it had become a cultural phenomenon, mocked on “Saturday Night Live” and called out by experts as an example of misleading A.I. content.
After Mr. Trump posts the A.I. image …
May 2
Trump posts A.I. image of himself as Pope
There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.
May 3
NYS Catholic Conference says “do not mock us”
May 3
“Saturday Night Live” covers fake image
May 3 Vatican asked about image, declines to comment
May 4
Cardinal Joseph Tobin of New Jersey criticizes image as “not good”
May 4
JD Vance defends Trump on X, calling it a joke … some Catholics were outraged, prompting a news cycle focused on the controversy …
5
Says “the Catholics loved it”
… before Mr. Trump suggested he had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Trump, who is not Catholic, had plenty of defenders, too. They said his commentary and the A.I. image were simply jokes, part of the president’s unique comedic style.
“As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, wrote on X.
In his quest for attention, the president is often aided by a cottage industry of right-wing influencers and activists who are primed to syndicate, reinforce and defend whatever content he pushes out each day. For this conservative media ecosystem, Mr. Trump’s messaging and commentary are the raw fuel that drives clicks, shares and views.
On June 7, the president’s visit to a raucous U.F.C. fight – complete with a “Trump dance” entrance into the arena – generated an immediate spike in online interest, including about 50,000 posts on X. Five days later, when he promoted a “Trump gold card” visa, his announcement led to roughly 30,000 posts on X.
A barrage that distracts from bad news.
One pattern in Mr. Trump’s behavior: When his administration is faced with bad news, he launches a fusillade of distraction.
This can take the form of outlandish, out-of-left-field claims about political opponents. Or he might weigh in on a pop culture subject far afield from Washington politics – from the ratings of late-night hosts like Seth Meyers to the physical appearance of a megastar like Taylor Swift.
The events of July 2025 offer a case in point.
As the Jeffrey Epstein files returned to the news – along with speculation that Mr. Trump might appear in them – the president embarked on a breathtaking series of tangents. Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that former President Bill Clinton had bankrolled an effort by senior intelligence officials to frame him for a crime, mused about stripping the actress Rosie O’Donnell of her U.S. citizenship, and accused the singer Beyoncé of accepting millions of dollars to endorse his erstwhile rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
July 8
F.B.I. publishes memo about Epstein files On July 8, the F.B.I. said it would not declassify more Epstein files.
10
Claimed intelligence officials tried to frame him
10
Pushed to defund NPR and PBS
10 Directed ICE to arrest protesters
12
Threatened Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship
15
Claimed Adam Schiff engaged in mortgage fraud Over the following days, Mr. Trump seemed to lash out in every direction.
On July 18, the Justice Department filed a request to unseal grand jury testimony about Mr. Epstein, again raising questions about Mr. Trump’s involvement. The president promptly lobbed insults at late-night talk show hosts, dismissed the Epstein affair as “fake news” and shared fresh claims about a supposed Obama administration plot to undermine him after the 2016 election.
July 18
Request filed to unseal grand jury testimony
On July 18, the Department of Justice filed a request — later denied — to unseal grand jury testimony.
20
Criticized Washington Commanders name
21
Called the “Russia hoax” the “crime of the century”
22
Called Epstein controversy “fake news”
22
Criticized Kimmel and Fallon
24 Criticized Federal Reserve chairman
Over the following days, Mr. Trump bounced from topic to topic.
On July 25, The Wall Street Journal published a major scoop: The paper had unearthed a risqué birthday letter that Mr. Trump had apparently written to Mr. Epstein in 2003. Mr. Trump responded with his attack on Beyoncé and revived his threat to revoke the broadcast licenses of TV networks. Then he announced the imminent construction of an enormous gilded ballroom at the White House, at a cost of $200 million. (He has since revised the cost upward to $400 million.)
Asked if there was a deliberate strategy to distract from negative news, Ms. Leavitt noted that every administration seeks to minimize unhelpful headlines.
“Yes, there have been times in which we’ve tried to do that, but also often it just happens naturally, because the president is willing to weigh in on so many subjects,” she said. “Sometimes it’s really not deliberate. It’s just him speaking his mind on whatever news cycle or news story is brought to him in that moment.”
He has added tricks to his arsenal.
Mr. Trump’s devotion to Truth Social mirrors the hair-trigger Twitter habit of his first term; on one recent December evening, he posted 158 times between 9 p.m. and midnight. And he has continued to appear on Fox News with certain preferred hosts.
But this year, he has added to his media arsenal by appearing in many more public spaces that fall outside of a president’s typical itinerary.
Mr. Trump has stopped by a Washington Commanders N.F.L. game, popped up in the New York Yankees locker room, attended the Ryder Cup golf tournament and the men’s tennis final at the U.S. Open, sat ringside at numerous U.F.C. fights, and traveled to the Daytona 500. He is the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. When FIFA staged the Club World Cup final in New Jersey, Mr. Trump not only attended, but joined the winning team onstage for the trophy ceremony.
The net effect is a sense of inescapability, that no corner of American life remains Trump-free – which itself amounts to a potent expression of presidential authority and command. “His power, in part,” said Mr. Burton, the former Obama aide, “comes from the attention that people give him, or that he forces on them.”
Can it ever be too much?
In the fall of 2009, President Barack Obama appeared on David Letterman’s talk show, gave interviews to CNBC and Men’s Health magazine, and made the rounds of all five major network Sunday shows. Washington was abuzz about whether he was overexposed.
That debate sounds quaint today. But the question of whether a president can be too visible remains open.
“The public is being desensitized” to Mr. Trump’s omnipresence, argued Mr. Brinkley, the historian. “It starts becoming blather. The enemy for Trump isn’t Democrats; it’s the public being bored with the show.”
Ms. Leavitt said that if there was a risk to his ubiquity, “President Trump would not be president right now.” She added: “He is a businessman who speaks his mind and tells it like it is, and sometimes people don’t like that. But obviously the vast majority of our country does, or else he wouldn’t be in this office.”
During Mr. Trump’s first term, the public eventually tired of his frenzied pace. And in some ways, Mr. Trump appears to be slowing down physically as he approaches his 80th birthday in June (which he will celebrate in part by staging a nationally broadcast U.F.C. fight on the White House lawn). He has appeared to doze at some Oval Office meetings, and he is holding fewer formal public events than he did at this point in 2017.
Still, Mr. Trump and his team have embraced the everywhere-all-at-once nature of modern media. Average Americans, busy with work and family, do not tune in for daytime news conferences or Cabinet meetings. And 6:30 p.m. newscasts and local newspapers are no longer the primary vessels by which Americans learn about their commander-in-chief.
Instead, politics now suffuses our lives as a kind of ambient noise – via TikTok videos, social media posts, YouTube talk shows and family Facebook messages – never fully separate from our leisure pursuits. “Right now the game is attention, in terms of what’s culturally breaking through,” Mr. Burton said. “The fact that so much message exists is the point.”
Mr. Trump has both propelled this merging of culture and politics, and continues to strategically exploit it. In December, he became the first president to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors, comparing himself onstage to Johnny Carson and musing that he would do a better job than Jimmy Kimmel.
“This is the greatest evening in the history of the Kennedy Center,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “Not even a contest. There has never been anything like it.”
His performance will air in prime time on CBS on Dec. 23.
Photo and video sources: Graham Dickie/The New York Times; Doug Mills/The New York Times; Roll Call Factba.se; PBS; Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Kenny Holston/The New York Times; The New York Times; Annabelle Gordon/Reuters; Eric Lee/The New York Times; Fox; Cheriss May for The New York Times; Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press; Margo Martin, via Storyful; Mark Abramson for The New York Times; Global News; Al Drago/Getty Images; Fox News; Dave Sanders for The New York Times; Pete Marovich for The New York Times; Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press … Show all
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