WASHINGTON– Five winters ago, Tucker Carlson declared that “Donald Trump is shocking, vulgar and right.”

The maniac from Manhattan had been wreaking havoc on a humiliated Republican establishment for months, but it wasn’t until the primaveral days of early 2016 that some power players truly, and publicly, registered their curiosity. And tacit approval.

Carlson all but endorsed Trump’s scorched-earth bromides against Republican, and American, decadence; Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie and others soon followed. He then fired off primary victories like a submachine gun.

For the early fans, Trump’s primary run remains his debut rock album in politics, with a legacy replete with the grumbles that his early work was his best. The basic message from Carlson, the dean of Washington writers of a certain age, was simple, and could have been lifted from Bob Dylan’s inaugural effort: Don’t think twice, it’s all right.

That that outsiders’ bet by Carlson has vaulted him to new prestige is self-evident. But being president can be a drag. So, too, I’m sure, can being a television star. Talking about Donald Trump now, but let’s wait five years. 

For the spirit of that 2016 primary has been revived in recent days. 

For the hardcore, the president is but a ghostly image of his former self. But not for the bulk of his backers.

The framework is a familiar one: Donald Trump takes up a putatively unpopular cause, this time opening the economy against the advice of experts, and the fourth estate shrieks.

The president’s press conference yesterday was a tumultuous and tantalizing affair.

Perhaps not since Richard Nixon declared “if the president does it, that means it’s not illegal,” has a member of the presidential fraternity displayed such Bourbon flair. L’État, c’est moi. I am the state. The Supreme Court is going to disagree. 

Should America get a soap opera showdown, between California’s Gavin Newsom, the left’s answer to Patrick Bateman, or Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, coming to a Democratic ticket near you, Trump will be licking his chops.

Trump might not be able to reopen the economy, but he will be able to reopen old wounds, reprising his role as liberal America’s top tormentor. 

As the career entertainer well knows, Trump’s made the presidency must-see tv, for his haters and for those who hang on his every word.

The nationalist has only nationalized interest in politics.

When Steven Nelson of the New York Post asked the president last week about the fate of the cat caliph, Joe Exotic, who as Nelson so aptly put it “allegedly hired someone to kill an animal rights activist, but he says that he didn’t do that,” the gumshoe cleverly prefaced the question. He called the Netflix program “one of the biggest rating hits of the Coronavirus, aside from these briefings.”

Critics complain that Trump’s amused reaction betrays his nihilism. And the spotlight’s bright white in a global pandemic.

But Trump has wagered Americans want levity, not lecture. For the first time since mid-2017, with the ouster of troubled White House press secretary Sean Spicer, Americans are treated to the day-in, day-out gladiatorial arena that is the Trump presser. His opponents would say they display a similar flippancy toward human life. But his defenders counter that a closed economy is the real killing field.

Trump’s hired a new White House press secretary, his fourth, Kayleigh McEnany, in recent days, but it doesn’t matter. Trump does his own comms. He’s both symbol and messenger.

Come November, Trump thinks America wants another season.