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| Narcissist In Chief (Donald J. Trump) |
One could believe a conniving politician and his equally
avaricious wife team up to gain the most powerful positions in the world. We’ve
had time to adjust to it in a kind of parallel reality filled with all sorts of
drama – accusations of illicit affairs, claims of murder, potential violations
of national security, illegal quid quo
pro deals and actual impeachment. While TV’s “Madame Secretary” shines a
golden light on the Hillary Clinton type, “House of Cards” seems to have been
inspired by the shadowy side of Bill and Hillary.
Though trending upward, Former Secretary of State, Senator
and First Lady Hillary Clinton is regarded unfavorably by more people than
almost any other presidential candidate in history. ALMOST, I repeat. Even less liked and trending downward is the
pretend billionaire, foil hatted conspiracy theorist, fake patriot, race
baiting, incredibly uninformed and unhinged Donald Jong Trump. His antics have set up a scenario more
bizarre than Doctor Stangelove. He is
a misogynist with videotapes to prove it. He makes fun of the disabled. He has
a history of bad business practices and failed casinos, though he runs by
peddling his success as a businessman, and refuses— unlike every modern
presidential candidate before him — to make his income taxes public. Why? Will they
reveal his real income? How little taxes
he pays? Will they show that his very public promises to charity have gone
unfulfilled? Trump is currently on trial
for fraud and racketeering for operating a bogus university. He promises to bring jobs home though nearly
every product with the Trump brand is outsourced. He is anti-immigrant, though
he employs them en masse at his
various golf resorts and spas.
He has picked as his running mate a failed governor of
Indiana who believes the earth is little more than 6,000 years old and that
human activity is not affecting climate despite overwhelming scientific proof
to the contrary. This at a time NASA is sending back photographs of Jupiter?
How could this not make an uproarious satirical comedy much more interesting
than “House of Cards?”
This does not mean Donald Trump is without savvy. Even a ten-year-old
can be cunning. Trump has the knack for self-promotion. Like the jokester in
the back of the classroom or the bully on the playground, he has discovered the
art of disruption. “Pay attention to me!”
But if you do, you realize he has nothing to say. As people tire of his
tantrums, Trump has had to escalate his threats through calculated, carefully
worded statements. About Hillary, he said:
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| Frank J. Underwood (Kevin Spacey) |
“If
she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second
Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
The meaning is clear to anyone who has half a brain. Through
ambiguity, he has deniability. He was only encouraging them to come out and
vote, he said. Trump has one more protective layer. If he’s caught, as he was
here, he claims the “liberal media is after him. The bully is the victim. He whines.
The system, through which he purportedly became rich and certainly
famous, is rigged against him.
The only constant is that it’s all about him. However, in
the end, he has no substance anyway. Even his words are empty. He rarely uses words let alone sentences that
have substance. They are exclamations. Everything is incredible, fantastic,
unbelievable, amazing. Especially him. True. An “amazing “number of “ditto
heads” (remember them) follow him, some with their confederate flags and some
with their pointy hats.
Unfortunately for Trump, the very people who were drawn to
him because “he tells it like it is,” haven’t been told anything useful. They simply worship a man who worships himself.
Yet the world quakes, awaiting his spontaneous threats and
insults. Leaders from major countries —many our long-term allies — cringe, not
because they fear his strength as a leader (or negotiator), but because they
fear his stupidity in a nuclear age. He is our Kim Jong Un, a thin-skinned egomaniac
who inherited his position in life, and who now masquerades as savior.
We haven’t had such a threat to global stability since
Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini. The thing
is: we truly don’t know whether to laugh or cry. He is a truly dangerous
clown. Who could make the movie of a man
who once was the playboy of the western world and became someone who could
actually destroy it? Mel Brooks? The
Coen Brothers? John Waters? David Lynch?
“Certainly House of Cards,’ clever and seductive as it is, collapses
as cutting edge political theater in the face of the surreal nature of the 2016
U.S. election. Yes, yes, and with irony, Hillary represents the establishment,
the “good old boy” network. Not my first choice, or second, but we’re down to
two. The former secretary of state is intelligent, experienced in world affairs
and most important, not a nutcase.
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