Why Trump?
Have you been listening to main-stream
media pundits wringing their hands and scrambling to be the first to figure out
how their pollsters and professional prognosticators failed to predict the
outcome of our 2016 election? Maybe instead you’ve been rejoicing with the
alt-right media and others who claim to understand and celebrate the victory of
Donald Trump? (If that’s you, you’re probably not reading with an open mind any
further). Perhaps you’re among those incensed at the coarse speech and
insensitive comments by our new POTUS about women, Muslims, Mexicans, racial
minorities and disabled journalists. Then, again, it may be that you’re among
the happy Americans who are glad our next Chief Executive and Commander in
Chief is (apparently) a wealthy and successful businessman who has “what it
takes” to say publicly your quiet thoughts, who doesn’t observe “political
correctness”, and who “tells it like it is”.
The past couple months have
been entertaining, whether we are chewing our nails in terror or strutting with
renewed pride in this “USA! USA!” Hardly a day goes by when something
sensational doesn’t emerge from “Trumpworld”.
I think we need to face it. Entertainment
is what Americans expect from our politics these days. The entertainment industry
has taken over the central role we used to assign to the business of manufacturing
and engineering in the country. “News” – whatever that means anymore – is produced
and packaged as entertainment. Today we veritably live for movies, pay-per-view
TV productions, casino gambling, global travel, tourism, Caribbean cruises, sports
paraphernalia, amusement parks, theme parks, water parks … even shopping trips
to the malls fall flat if they’re not spiced up with something that grips or
startles us emotionally, raises our heartrate or resonates with our hidden
aspirations.
Of course, that includes our
darkest ones.
I find it instructive that
the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus will be closing this coming
May after 146 years of entertaining audiences. Donald Trump appears to me as
the 21st century incarnation of P.T. Barnum.
“Entertain” is a word that
comes from Latin words meaning "hold together”, “stick together” or “support". It has the sense of galvanizing attention or
coalescing energy. This is exactly what the “entertainment industry” has
accomplished in the modern era. My parents’ generation was enthralled by post-WWII
musical recordings like “That’s Entertainment”, sung by Judy Garland:
“Everything that happens in life can happen in
a show;
You can make 'em laugh, you can make 'em cry,
Anything, anything can go!
The clown with his pants falling down, or the
dance
That's a dream of romance, or the scene where
the villain is mean,
That's entertainment!
The lights on the lady in tights,
or the bride with the guy on the side,
Or the ball where she gives him her all,
That's entertainment!
The plot can be hot, simply teeming with sex,
A gay divorcee who is after her ex, it could be
Oedipus Rex,
Where a chap kills his father, and causes a lot
of bother.
The clerk who is thrown out of work
By the boss who is thrown for a loss
By the skirt who is doing him dirt,
The world is a stage; the stage is a world of
entertainment!”
Clearly, this is the world
according to Donald J. Trump, our American President in 2017.
So, my answer to the first
question in the title of this article is as follows:
Donald Trump is now the
President of the United States because Trump was the only entertaining
candidate to step into the center ring of the 2016 campaign for President of
the United States.
Donald Trump is nothing if
not a master of holding our attention. We hear him referred to as a
“businessman”, “real estate tycoon” and “commercial developer”, but his real
business is promoting his “brand”, aka his last name – “Trump”. “The Donald” is
nothing if not an entertainer. He keeps
us tuned in. His brand IS unpredictability. We love the thrill, the drama, the suspense,
and the surprise endings. Media pundits desperately try, and uniformly fail to
predict his next move.
We Americans have to come to
terms with the truth that we are first and foremost consumers of, and ever more
deeply addicted to, entertainment. We have
just inaugurated our Entertainer in Chief.
Why Now?
Asked another way, what are
the circumstances that have led up to the U.S. Presidency of Donald J. Trump? My
answer to this question has several components.
Geo-political. American global economic and military superiority
has been steadily increasing almost without a dip from the earliest days of the
republic. These United States, beginning as 13 colonies in the coastal
northeast portion of the middle section of the north American continent, now are
constituted by 50 states from sea to – and across – shining seas. That
expansion over a mere two and a half centuries has involved purchases of land
from previous imperial owners, and armed incursions and installations among
people who resisted (and continue to resist) European domination. American
empire, like every empire, must expand to survive. Capitalism, in fact, only
works when it can expand into new markets. It can only build capital by
expanding the empire’s boundaries. That means getting access to resources that
belong to people in other lands. In 2017, most planetary real estate is spoken
for, and there is growing pressure to leave remaining resources alone for the
survival of life on Earth.
Economic-technological. “The Media” has
become the principle provider and purveyor of entertainment. Scientific
advances in communication, and new technological applications have, over a momentary
span of history, exponentially empowered our species to wildly amplify and
transmit sound and light. Information (what we now call “data”) arrives to our
eyes and ears instantly. We “communicate” constantly, our flat-screen TVs,
laptops and “smartphones” bring us immediately whatever sponsors pay for. Yet,
we appear to remain under an illusion that “The Media” passively “transmits”
information that originates elsewhere in our political, social or natural
environment. We haven’t yet recognized that “The Media” mediates information. That
means “The Media” collects, organizes, distributes – and bills us for - information
according to “market demand”. “Market demand” is today modulated and regulated
via algorithms – complex strings of computer commands that operate our “smartphone
apps”. These algorithms are designed, ultimately, to accelerate transactions
(movement of money from our wallets to corporate bank accounts) and maximize
profits and stock values for the 1%. Information itself is now among our chief
commodities. The distinction between marketing and propaganda has all but evaporated
in this age of cell phones, wireless internet and satellites.
Ideological. Ideas are powerful. Ideas are constructed by human
thought. “Ideology” occurs when a person or a group is singularly attached to a
particular set of ideas. Religion has classically been associated with
ideology. As religion’s influence has waned in the aftermath of the scientific
revolution, other powerful ideas have filled that vacuum. Ideas like the
primacy of the individual, life as an evolving phenomenon, natural selection
and the un-centered, universe-as-morally-relative – among lots of other ideas -
now exercise almost universal influence over American decision making and
behavior.
What Now?
Good question. Who knows? Possibly
the most important thing each of us can do now is whatever it takes to snap
ourselves out of the trance we have gradually been falling under. Maybe it
means watching fewer video clips on our cellphones, less of the television drama
that lures us into vicarious thrill. Maybe it means reading again, when we’d
rather get lost in the seductive miasma of our latest techie toy. Maybe it
means learning how to enjoy the richness of civil, respectful, face-to-face
conversation around the dinner table, and leaving social media to the cat
videos.
The popularity and ubiquity
of dystopian movies, serials and books might suggest there is a considerable
amount of imaginative work being done to express our cultural apprehensions
about the future. That isn’t a new phenomenon. And it still offers a clue to
how we’re feeling. We all should read H.G. Wells and George Orwell. (Sorry – I hate
to “should” on people). We could all benefit from some form of meditation, some
discipline of mind and heart to center ourselves in order to “walk our walk” in
a balanced way.
I intend to re-assert my
rights and privileges as a U.S. citizen, which include laboring to protect and
extend liberty and justice to my fellow human beings. I also intend to
participate in organizing other citizens – and those who are being deprived of
citizenship – to exercise “citizen power” in a collective way. “Citizen power”
depends on organizing people, whereas “political power” and “corporate power
depends upon mobilizing money and resources. Revolutionary America has always
emerged as a movement of people-power in defiance of all other forms of power,
each of which is susceptible to abuse. It’s going to mean training for the
coming fight.
Maybe “what now?” also means learning
about and practicing effective, non-violent means of social change. These have
been refined, tested and practiced, and are available to those who will
dedicate ourselves to fighting for a safe and beautiful world into which to
welcome generations yet to come. Our species has endured and propagated more
than enough violence in our short visitation upon this planet. It’s time for
all of us to step up and do battle on behalf of what really matters. In my
heart, and in my mind, what matters is love.
No comments:
Post a Comment