The American election is drawing near and by all accounts the race for president is going to be a coin toss. If you put aside gerrymandering, the electoral college and misinformation, a casual observer could I think be forgiven, for wondering how and why the contest is even remotely close.
But evidently about half of American voters identify with a narcissistic, invidious, serial liar, as opposed to a blackish woman.
I’ve watched countless pundits speculate as to the why of this particular American identification crisis, and I’ve yet to hear a good explanation. Early on Hillary speculated that the deplorables had found their champion. But all that remark did was offend and galvanize a group of people, and so the media began calling them the base instead of the deplorables.
However, Hillary was in my opinion kind of on the right track. What she missed though was the catalyst that compelled the base to come out of the shadows and make themselves known.
That catalyst was reality television.
First of all, the idea that reality television is in fact reality is untrue. What it really is though, is crafted editing designed to compel a basic reaction, and the base is good at basic.
So they react.
Reality television edits to elicit an emotional response, and the simplest reactions to elucidate are so basic that they’re almost primal. Fear, anger, hatred and a deep sense of satisfaction when someone they dislike gets humiliated, or to borrow a more current term…..owned. In fact, basic reactions don’t even require dislike, but will settle for seeing someone getting screwed over in one fashion or another, regardless of whether the viewer likes them or not.
There were hints that America was headed in this direction as soon as Jerry Springer and the Gong Show hit the airwaves, but it took awhile before the providers of electronic entertainment grasped the depth of appetite for crude and rude.
Once that realization was realized, then the floodgates were opened and the Philistines poured out. The next thing you know, we the public were graced with Honey Boo Boo and the duck whistle hillbillies. Then, once advertisers and network schedulers became cognizant of how low we wanted to go, they began to churn out deliveries that satisfied the demand.
And they did indeed deliver.
With the housewives of everywhere. With Jersey fucking Shore, and Survivor and Big Brother, and then those freaking Kardashians. And what the average viewer gleaned from all this aired horseshit, was that you don’t need to be smart or refined to get rich and famous. You just have to be a combination of confrontational, combative, crude and controversial.
With an emphasis on crude.
As a result of this new entertainment option, any concept of aspiring to being inspirational or uplifting was displaced, as viewers across North America were presented the option to revel in acrimony and malice. And best of all, thinking was entirely optional.
And then came the apprentice.
I’ve searched long and hard for something that Donald is actually good at and I’ve been unable to find anything at which the man excels. But it was staring me in the face the whole time. In my defense, I’ve never watched even a minute of his apprentice act, but I was aware it existed. I just didn’t care, because from the first time I heard the man speak, my stranger danger spidey sense began to tingle, and I avoided him like I would liquid seeping out of a dumpster. At the time I just found him repulsive. Who knew that he was going to become poisonous liquid leaking out of a dumpster ?
And so it took me a minute to acknowledge Donald’s super power. The man can smell a scam opportunity a New York mile away. He had spent his entire life pretending to be something he wasn’t and The Apprentice was perfect for him. His editors could edit out all his racism, basic lack of knowledge and woman degrading behavior, and technology hasn’t provided smell sensors into your smart Sony yet, so his adoring audience couldn’t smell when he shit himself.
It was pretend perfect. In fact, so perfect that it presented him with a chance to become a pretend president. The problem with a reality T.V. president though is that it’s a lot more challenging to edit out his lunacy. So, America has had to settle for republican editors, who get to follow him around and sanitize the garbage that comes out of his mouth.
By telling America that what he said isn’t what he meant. But at the same time there’s a kind of knowing nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean to the base, that maybe he does mean what he said. Especially that part about illegal immigrants with enhanced epidural melanin.
He’s the great pretender. He pretends to wave at non-existent crowds, he pretends to be a flag hugging patriot, and he pretends to be on familiar terms with the bible, and half of America is O.K. with being scammed. It makes me wonder if any of the MAGA crowd would buckle up their seatbelts, and turn off their cell phones on a Spirit Airliner with a pretend pilot.
Probably not, but a pretend president is fine.
And yet the base longs for a return to those halcyon days of Scamelot where a pretend person has his diminutive hands all over more controls than any pilot.
So, I think I understand the ex scammer in chief, but I still struggle with why so many Americans would choose to be willfully deceived. I struggle because the only explanation I can conceptualize is they’re willing to trade reality for an opportunity to feel joy watching their president be a mean spirited uncultivated prick.
Just like their favorite reality T.V.