~a column by Colleen O’Brien
The Great American Docudrama cum Soap Opera — “What Was that Orange Streak?” — must be a political PR guy’s dream: how to get people who don’t even vote to watch political forum/entertainment/reality TV . . .AND THEN REGISTER to VOTE.
It’s not believable, and those of us who thought it would just all go away are now standing around scratching our heads and slouching toward Canada. How can the richest guy in the mix get poor, uneducated, non-working white guys to not only vote for him but like him? It goes against all common sense.
The most prissily clean of Republicans have been hauled off the golf course to lambast this candidate for being a bad R while also telling other Rs to vote for anybody but him . . . EVEN HILLARY!. No novelist writing fiction could have come up with this additional part of the plot, and if he had, no one would have accepted any of it because it’s not believable.
For some reason, for many reasons, the idea of this, uh, persona, as our president makes me nervous. But, on the other hand, I’m like many Americans — fascinated to see what he’s going to say next. It is entertainment of a certain cartoonish fantasyland horror genre. I really can’t wait to see each morning what he’s said the day before. It is like a fast-moving soap — (soap opera plots traditionally move along slowly over the days) — and pointless (soaps have no real point; kind of like real life and/or this guy).
One of the giant intellectuals of the country — Noam Chomsky, a scholar and linguist (he talks about grammar a lot) and a lifelong observer and commentator of politics — is afraid that if a self-proclaimed non-politician/outsider becomes president, not just the U.S. but the world will suffer because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He thinks the Supreme Court writes bills.
I think he knows what he’s doing but it doesn’t have anything to do with knowing how to run the most powerful country in the world, a country that both leads and is beholden to other countries in its leadership.
He believes that the media that has criticized him “don’t know how to lead, only how to criticize.” Well, the reason for a free press is so they can criticize; so they can check the background and then inform the reader who doesn’t have the time to do those things. The press is not there to praise, it is in fact there to criticize. So, understanding the First Amendment might be something for someone to bone up on.
He is full of quotes that people like to repeat. Or wonder about. Or think they’ve heard elsewhere because they’re not new thoughts anyway:
- “The networks are making a fortune off me! It’s all Trump all the time!”
- “I’m the greatest, smartest and best-looking guy running.”
- “I’m very rational. I’m a very sane person. I’m not bad. I’m not a bad person at all. I love my country.”
- “Nobody ever calls me and asks me a question. I’ve been treated very badly by the Washington Post.”
- “I get more publicity than anybody on the earth.”
- “If a couple of those teachers woulda had guns, you’d a been a lot better off.” (about a shooting at a school in Oregon)
- “I think the people who love this country are going to love my new hotel.” (on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC, just a ways from the White House; a reporter asked, “So, you’re going to be working on Pennsylvania Avenue one way or the other?”)
- “Our country is disintegrating. I’d create economic zones. I’d work for new companies to come in. I’d look for incentive for the people. Unemployment for African Americans — I would create in the inner cities….” (no end to this sentence in the interview transcript with the Washington Post)
- “A lot of people think it’s a hopeless situation. You have to start off by giving them hope. And spirit. You can see the division, a racial division in this country. There’s a lack of spirit. So much dissatisfaction in this country.”
- “We’ve lost millions and millions of jobs out of this country, to China, to countries all over. Mexico is becoming the new China. We shouldn’t be allowing this to happen. Allowing tremendous people who’ve worked for the same companies for many years.” (incomplete sentence; easy to finish it, though: “…to be fired.”)
- “I actually think I’d be a great cheerleader for the country.”
- “I’m very good at this stuff.” (what to do about the Middle East)
- “I’ve had so many articles written by your paper [Washington Post] about me that are so false and so untrue. It’s so unfair. I have no recourse.”
- “I work hard. I have thousands of employees. Why do people hate me? It’s like I’m this horrible human being. Things are said about me that are libelous. So egregious. So wrong. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Is he going for the sympathy vote, too? Kind of a tough role for someone who calls women “dogs, “slobs,” “fat pigs.” Or calls Mexicans “rapists.” Or calls a New York Times columnist (David Brooks) a “clown” and a “dummy.”
My unfavorite thing is the slogan. “Make America Great Again” is in no way a “cheerleader” kind of statement. Stand alone, it’s a whine and a put-down. Historically, it means . . . when? Which part of our past is where he wants to be right now? When he was eight and thought life was swell? Or when he was in college and having fun at frat parties? Or when the bankruptcy laws changed?
It’s always the best of times and the worst of times, Mr. Frontrunner. And for those of us (sometimes called the 99 percent) who actually are suffering financially, how do you know anything about this, you as a 1 percenter who is living through the best of times? And if you’re a public personality, you’re going to have things said about you — and apparently are allowed to say things about other public personalities — so quit whining. It doesn’t go with your lighthearted unconcern for that devil-may-care hair.
