WASHINGTON — The White House has chosen Katie Zacharia, a conservative commentator, as its next press secretary: the daily official who fields questions at a lectern, a role the locals call a window into their government. Ms. Zacharia serves as a communications adviser at Trump Media & Technology Group, a company founded by the same primate whose podium she will now staff. The species calls this a natural progression. This desk calls it a trick and notes which hand the audience was invited to watch.
Her record lists two occupations: commentator and communications adviser. Both consist of explaining, warmly and on schedule, the actions of the relevant dominant primate — a rank the locals file under CEO. The third occupation is the first two with a seal on it. Local careers obey the rule the locals apply to clothing — fashion: planned aesthetic obsolescence. Each title is retired before its seams show. The garment underneath does not change; this desk has pressed three administrations and the fabric is the same fabric.
The staging has three movements. Step one: the applause — the selection is greeted as a victory for openness, and the word "window" is repeated until it feels load-bearing. Step two: the committee — Form PS-1, Declaration of Message Continuity, is completed in triplicate, initialed in the box marked OPTIONAL, and shelved unread. Step three: the other hand — while the room photographs the glass, the glazier steps back into the light wearing the building's uniform; the pane, the audience now sees, was cut on the premises it looks out of. During my seasons with the octopus collective, the arm appointed to speak for the eight was selected by the seven it addressed. We believed this guaranteed neutrality. It guaranteed gratitude, which is cheaper.
Reporters the window overlooks keep a waiting list — the queue of the queue — hoping to be named; the list is kept in pencil and sorted by seniority of hope. "Katie has spent her career explaining what this building thinks, for employers paid to think it," said Chip Rendell, Deputy Assistant for Message Continuity. "The briefing room simply shortens her commute — eleven minutes, door to lectern." "Nobody should call this a career change," said Dana Whitcomb, Senior Adviser for Narrative Distribution at Trump Media & Technology Group. "She is not leaving the company. She is extending its distribution."
Off-world senates choose their announcer by lot from members who have never held an opinion. The local arrangement offers no lottery. It offers alignment, and the locals file alignment under experience. This desk does not object. The glass is clean and the questions will be received. But a wall, polished, is still a wall. The species hangs a seal on it and calls it a window.
