But really, can't we just strip the pretense from how we talk about Donald Trump? Do we have to careen over the precipice to grasp what's going on?
People with a background in the media are like car salesmen: we really understand people. We read people and discern their real motivations. I have been nothing if not a journalist in my life. My critics would say I've been nothing. But maybe my post of today will end up as something akin to a time capsule: a totally revealing analysis of what's going on.
Being president of the U.S. normally requires years of grounding in the political process. You need to understand the system and its subtleties, the kind of relationships that need to be developed. You must understand accommodation. Donald Trump?
Trump was one of something like 17 candidates for president in the Republican Party. It was such a dense thicket, debates had to be organized with a "kids table" for the second tier. I believe Rachel Maddow coined that term and it stuck. Think back to 1968 and 1972, when the urgency of dealing with Vietnam was so marked and how there were no televised debates, none through the primaries and none with the last two standing. None, and then by 2016, the debate routine became comedic with one after another, ad nauseam. (I used to spell that "ad nauseum," I guess influenced by the word museum.)
Did you all not see the absurd nature of all that? And it all happened because of media marketing impulses in our media-drenched digital age. Everyone competes for "eyeballs."
And how redundant the GOP debates were, especially. That's because the Republican arguments on all issues follow a simple and predictable pattern. The Democrats, because they advocate for more government involvement in our lives, make issues a little more involved. It's far easier to say "let's just toss out government" than to try to plan a national health care system with government oversight, something that is surely coming whether we like it or not.
So we had the ridiculous series of GOP debates where analysts got way too carried away slicing and dicing everything. It really just became about image. And so, who's likely to stand out in a "beauty contest" like that? We had the TV star Donald Trump from "Celebrity Apprentice." Why was this such an ace in the hole for him? Good marketers know that people can be manipulated even when they don't know it.
I'll try to illustrate this by reflecting back on the O.J. Simpson trial. What should have been an obvious cut and dried case - did you read Vince Bugliosi's book? - became drawn out and contentious with people starting to think of it as a "whodunit." Obviously it was a media madhouse. So, why were so many among us determined to think there were actual arguments to be made for Simpson's innocence? Why did one of the witnesses in the trial go out of his way to run over and shake O.J.'s hand? Why?
Amid the sea of daily analysis, I heard a point that stuck with me. Simpson as a long-time celebrity made us want to feel some deference, some sympathy, because "we had allowed him into our homes." In the perverse manner of celebrity, which the celebrities themselves know full well about, they can become like guests of the family. We of course don't know these people at all. But we surely think we do.
Trump knew he could press certain buttons with his rhetoric. He probably became scared of his own power? He probably looks at the broad American public and thinks privately "are all of these people nuts?"
It has been said often that Trump likely did not even want to win the presidency. The candidacy would be a plum for him and his family to leverage well in their business, a very overrated business incidentally. Trump was actually considered a joke in New York City business circles. But he was a con artist who could go on TV and make an impression. He learned to sharpen his image over time, to reach all the lemmings who were out there.
Much has been said of the right wing media talk world. I was going to say "pundit" but that gives them too much credit for their thought formulation. Limbaugh and Coulter are like Trump, guests in our home and they are familiar to nearly all. We of course do not know them! They have gigs in what might be called in pure terms "entertainment." They deliver a product which they present as intelligent commentary. It is really nothing more than a dog whistle for rubes. We all know that.
As the 2016 campaign got going, such commentators found their ratings weren't really setting the world on fire. Some yawns were called for. In entertainment that's not called for. So, do you know what happened? These commentators who initially wanted to laugh off Trump like everyone else - some were unabashed in saying so - found that if they started talking up Trump, their ratings went up!
Behavioral psychology tells us that people repeat behavior that gets rewarded. Presto, the right wing Republican talking heads learned to build up Trump and to parrot his rhetoric. A snowball began rolling downhill. The consequence of all this with our nut in the White House could be existential for our United States of America. Why are we even debating impeachment? It's well known that the Washington D.C. crowd, people in Congress, say in whispered tones everything I'm maintaining in this blog post.
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Jeff Sessions was sensible enough to recuse. We have now lost that semi-rational person, never mind he was far right and from the old Confederacy. Now we have this Whitaker oddball and others.
Why can't this all be turned off, the sooner the better? Just shut off the spigot of madness, immediately if not sooner. Let's drift back to normality even if it means another George W. Bush, now put on a pedestal for saneness even by political progressives! What hath God Wrought?
Here's Howard Beale from "Network":
Television is not the truth. Television is a (profanity) amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business.
OK I'm perhaps vain here but maybe my post of today, in the future, will come off sounding like the "firebell in the night" that it is intended to be. The great Alistair Cooke hosted a documentary about the Civil War with that title.
Trump stays hard-conservative because he knows law enforcement is hard on his heels with Mueller, and he'll need political support or cover to deal with that, and his only hope for such support is from his hard conservative base. Because, from where else would he get it now? He's willing to sell his soul. To make a deal with the devil.
Does anyone really think the White House is set up for Trump to deploy nuclear weapons on his own, on impulse? Don't you think this has very quietly been dealt with?
Yes, it's all a "firebell in the night."
Re. Trump's TV appearance Tuesday night, can't you knaves grasp what is happening here? Trump is feeding his obsessive need to get on TV, to be the constant center of attention. This he does even on Sundays. It is a psychological issue with him and we certainly needn't play into it. Media executives back off because he gives them ratings. If he were a mere entertainer, as he once was, fine. He is in a position now to hurt countless people. Sober minds must take over in dealing with this. Conservatives by nature are not supposed to like drama in government. They want calm and steadiness even if they don't always get their own way. Trump is dangerous drama. Our nation OD'd on this long ago.
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Mike Huckabee has talked about how he has considered moving to Israel. How much do these men really love the United States of America?
Is Trump more "reined in" than we think? Here's something that sticks in my mind: when Trump said "I don't see why they would" and then a few hours later, did a correction where he said he meant "I don't see why they wouldn't." The reference was to Russians meddling. For crying out loud, I grew up when the "Russkies" were the enemy. I remember attending a pro wrestling event at the UMM P.E. Center where a guy playing the "Russian" offered a handshake to his opponent at one point. It was a trick! You see? "You can't trust the Russians!" Trump I am sure did not want to correct himself, to say "I meant 'wouldn't.' " I was suspicious of all that, wondering if there are indeed times when people in his cabinet say to him "you must do this" or "you must not do this," or else.
The cabinet people might surprise, even Whitaker: as much as they act like automatons for Trump, you might be surprised. Whitaker once caught a touchdown pass in the Rose Bowl. Maybe Whitaker is thinking more soundly than we think, and if he and other apparent sycophants eventually react to Trump leaving office, it might be in the way the servants of the Wicked Witch of the West reacted to their boss "melting." They'd be joyous and relieved! Man, I can only pray.
I keep thinking that Kirstjen Nielsen is a fundamentally good person.
Trump is assaulting our senses daily. What is this doing to our collective psyche, to the attitude of our young people, their basic attitude toward life?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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