Personality Politics; Washington DC Is The New Hollywood
More like the New Hollywood Squares.
Hedda Hopper would have loved this gig. Washington DC these days makes her infamous Hollywood gossip column pale in comparison. She was famous for stirring up the glitterati, a flamboyant personality herself famous for wearing outlandish hats.
We are a country that loves to be entertained, and we love mean spirited gossip. Perhaps America’s genius is the ability of the general public to forget and forgive from one news cycle to the next. Conversely, a short attention span could be our undoing.
Hollywood is a place where commanding personalities revel, clash, and where big deals are made and broken. Likewise, Washington DC is also a place where assertive personalities carouse, clash, and where big deals are made and broken as well.
And the media is not only our window to all this gossip and reveling, but is itself part of the show. If our government and politics were a late night comedy variety show, which they seem to be, then the media would be our glib host. We seem to never tire of watching the truth or consequences of our governmental showmen or their ballyhooing good-cop-bad-cop performances with our voting sensibilities at their mercy.
And now, President Donald Trump has led America into unchartered political show biz waters. The critics are hot, the media is out for blood, and there’s is a storm brewing on the horizon. In fact, lots of storms, maybe an iceberg or two ...and there are not enough lifeboats!
Are you keeping track of all these metaphors for our new America? ...Hollywood, Hollywood Squares, gossip columns, late night comedy shows, truth or consequences, good-cop-bad-cop ...Titanic. They all sadly apply, and I’m sure there will be a lot more. You can even make up your own!
A political pundit on a cable news show recently compared Donald Trump’s running of the White House to “Hogan’s Heroes” Colonel Klink and his wacky staff running Stalag 13. Good one. “I know nothing ...nothing!”
But is this all really funny? Well, yes it is, up to a certain point. It’s funny to watch the shameless dance of the man-made distractions, and the legitimately convenient distractions, from the lunacy and larceny in the White House. These would be the more bewitching smorgasbord of issues like North Korea, China, Syria, Russian collusion, Jared and Ivanka, all distracting from the mundane, less sexy, day-to-day impossibly difficult issues of health care, education, tax reform, infrastructure and the drinking water in Flint, Michigan.
But we are getting close to the point of no return.
The health care debacle is just one example of how unfunny things are getting in Hollywood East, formerly Washington DC. America’s health care trouble has been disguised, and anointed by our president as being a super complex issue. But it’s really a simple problem to solve isn’t it. The health care issue players -- the doctors, the hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, the lobbyists, the politicians, the insurance companies -- all simply need to take less money for their products and services and stop playing the American health care consumer like a Las Vegas casino. Take less profit. And good luck with that. It will never happen, and likewise health care reform in America will never happen. Period. It would be like trying to solve the gun issue by passing stricter gun laws. No can do. Why? Don’t ask, just accept it. Second Amendment.
Always follow the money ..and forget your conscience and your heart. Logic is out the window. It seems to be the new American way. And you can’t blame that on Donald Trump. It’s systemic to our government and way of life, and how we do business. President Trump didn’t invent greed and excess, he just exemplifies it.
After all, he’s the guy who wanted to make America great again.
What we can blame him for, however, is confusing us. People are most vulnerable when they are confused, and America is now most vulnerable because we are confused as a nation. And the rest of the world sees and knows this.
Trump’s defenders call him a “fighter” regarding his sophomoric tweeting. His detractors say there is either an idiot or a lunatic in the White House. Former Obama campaign strategist and political pundit, David Axelrod, recently said that there is “a difference between a fighter and an epic jerk.”
Trump apparently can’t control himself. How can we expect him to guide America’s future and standing in the world? It’s like our bus driver is either distracted or underage.
Or, our plane has been hijacked.
Trump may be well intentioned, and I’m beginning to seriously doubt that, but it’s not working and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end well. American can’t afford to have its apprentice learning on the job any longer, and he’s showing no signs of having learned anything. Trump is coming off like an “epic jerk” and we are drowning in our president’s arrogance.
There is no turning back. We will, unfortunately, have to play this out to the end.
America and Washington DC indeed are looking like the Hollywood Squares as every zany character wants to get into the act. And the media is more than willing to play along keeping this gig alive.
With all the distractions coming and going as this show moves forward, and regarding the special council investigating the Trump administration and Russian collusion issues --remember those?-- I am not hopeful there will be a decisive outcome either way. We’re headed for another Warren Report.
I’m afraid it’s good bye Robert Muller, hello Vladimir Putin.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
http://newsbout.com/a/John+Kushma
