The Apprentice (w/writer and podcaster Mary Wild)

Waking up to the news that Donald Trump was going to be, once again, President of the United States didn’t provoke an apocalyptic meltdown for me, more a resigned “yeah, of course.”

The media is, naturally, overflowing with Monday morning quarterbacks (to use an Americanism), but just a couple of days before the election, I had coffee with my friend Mary Wild (Psycstar), and we both predicted Trump would win.

Maybe it was my instinctive pessimism—preparing psychologically for the worst is a sport I’m practiced at.

Following the U.S. election through media coverage evokes in me a contradictory sense of knowing apathy yet perverse investment. The Germans surely have a precise word for this feeling. Weltschmerz—the sense that reality can never satisfy the mind’s expectations—might be the closest.

I felt this even more intensely after the Brexit vote. After years of binging on a diet of centrist-left invective and the parochial media spectacle of endless twists, failed votes, and posturing resignations, I was left with a crushing sense of disillusionment.

It wasn’t just about the vote. It was also the self-hatred from realizing how much time and thought I’d spent in a mindless quest to feel what? In control? On the “right” side? That my social media posts somehow contributed?

As with the day after Brexit, I realized just how much the luxury of a center-left, liberal media bubble provides the familiar comfort of righteous indignation toward Trump, and even more so, toward his followers—their supposed lack (of information, intelligence, morals, patriotism, self-reflection…?).

I suppose what I’m getting at here, by way of contextualizing the conversation, is that my reaction to Ali Abbasi’s film The Apprentice couldn’t help but be informed by this mainstream media perspective of Trump as the devil incarnate. Since his initial primary race in 2016, this perspective has arguably overshadowed any attempt to understand the dynamics of his popularity or to create a strategy to combat it.

Here we are in 2024: after years of caricature, dismissal, court cases, revelations, derision, and rhetorical hyperbole, he wins again.

The success of The Apprentice as a cinematic and political portrait lies in its premise: Trump’s mentorship by Roy Cohn, the New York lawyer who previously worked as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel. This relationship was fundamental to Trump’s worldview and modus operandi. Abbasi avoids lazy, cartoonish mocking, yet he doesn’t pull his punches either.

Mary and I had wanted to record our next conversation—hopefully the start of an ongoing series—on The Apprentice after watching it together. Scheduling meant we couldn’t meet until after the election, but in hindsight, this turned out to be beneficial. Discussing our reactions to the film was both cathartic and illuminating.

Donald Trump is undeniably a consequential politician. He has reshaped the political landscape in his own image, repeatedly defying consensus thinking.

I’ve always been fascinated by political filmmaking—not just in the sense that all films are inherently political as ideological prisms reflecting views on how the world should or shouldn’t be—but in the way they engage with political landscapes directly.

Mary and I saw The Apprentice more as a psychological portrait than as an expressly political film.

In focusing on Trump’s relationship with Cohn, Abbasi taps into what Douglas Kellner calls the “spectacle of power.” Cohn’s “three rules”—attack, deny, claim victory—serve as Trump’s blueprint for navigating public life, with devastating consequences for personal relationships and ethical boundaries. Abbasi critiques not only Trump’s psyche but also the late capitalist structures that reward aggressive, self-serving behaviors.

Set largely in the late seventies and transitioning into the Reagan-era eighties, the film invites comparisons to Wall Street (Oliver Stone) and The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese). Mary pointed out an interesting comparison to American Psycho, Mary Harron’s satirical take on Wall Street masculinity through that cypher psychological darkness: Patrick Bateman. Whereas Bateman embodies a surreal, grotesque vision of corporate conformity turned sadistic, Trump in The Apprentice appears more insecure, constantly seeking his father’s approval and societal validation. Unlike Bateman’s detached monstrosity, Trump’s insecurity drives him to assert dominance through a materialist ideal of winning.

There are two kinds of people, the winners and the losers. As the film goes on winning itself becomes an abstraction

In discussing the film with Mary, it was fun lean into psychoanalytic interpretations. Trump’s relentless pursuit of real estate mogul status becomes a symbolic attempt to “conquer” space. His fixation on skyscrapers and branding could be seen, through Lacan’s lens, as a desire to leave an indelible mark on the symbolic order—a need to control his narrative and identity.

Obviously, film has always served as a critical tool for navigating political landscapes, especially in contentious times. But does it still hold the same political weight in the internet era, where cinema may less of a cultural influence?

The Apprentice reminds us that Trump’s persona is inseparable from the capitalist systems that enabled his rise, and indicative of political system that now seems to feed on polarisation, scandal, base fears, and the spectacle of personality.

But maybe the ultimate lesson of The Apprentice is that, whether we like it or not, in ways that remain confounding to an out of touch media, we are living in the era of Trump’s America.

Here’s a clip from the show. Full episode for paid subscribers.