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| Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey! Eat your heart out. |
Now that the Ringling Brothers have done away with the circus, Trump has promised an ongoing show that can currently be described as Smoke, mirrors, and other tricks of the trade.
During his years behind the "Apprentice" desk, we never really knew he was being sued for the failures of Trump University, nor did we quite understand that those Trump Towers are not at all owned by Trump, he simply negotiated the deal to keep his name on them. We never even suspected he ran a charitable organization in name only, with nearly none of its money coming from Trump himself. Now that we do know, we can't even decide if his Alternative facts impress us from their clever convention, or disgust us from the constant scamming they display.
Whether we like it or not, he is the man at the oval office desk now, and it is vital that we come to grips with exactly who this man is in order to recognize who and what he is not.
First and foremost, he is not really a democrat, but he damn sure isn't a republican either. He chose to pursue the presidency following the most plausible path towards success, but he alienated most of the people who populate the path he chose, and only gained their commitment when it was clear that he could really win it all. He insists that he'll never allow for an America that continues to disregard it's poor and beleaguered, all while scaring every last one of them with his ability to say really stupid stuff directed at the most disadvantaged among US.
Stupid stuff! Like his answer to the question about those 11 million undocumented workers. He's still adamant about building a wall, however, will it trap the 11 million inside, or is Trump's round up Gestapo plan still in the works? When asked in his very first one-on-one interview as president, "should the 11 million be afraid", Trump says, "not very afraid", as if being a little afraid is still an absolute necessity. Is this just Trump the promoter realizing how he used immigration to get elected or is there really a significant reason to be afraid some? Shouldn't his billionaire buddies also be afraid about the massive loss of cheap labor?
As we listen to what he does say (The wall, No TPP, nobody loses insurance), it's just as vital to recognize what he no longer talks about as well (E-verify, term limits, or deportation forces).
Trump has waged an all-out war against all three legs of American politics- republicans, democrats and the media- and part of that war includes bogging them all down with deciphering silly stuff and trying to target what he'll do by virtue of what he says. The media is right and fully responsible for keeping the heat on Trump and both of his hired mouthpieces (Sean Spicer and Kelley Anne Conway) who get to handle Trump's silly stuff and twitter tirades on a daily basis. What he does and what he says are of vital concern to America. But let me remind you all of a few commonly known facts.
WE DON'T LIKE THE MEDIA EITHER.
Well, we might tolerate the media outlets that lean our political way, but we hate the rest of them and commonly criticize them all for displaying a nature that seems much more focused on the bottom line than the God's honest truth or fair and balanced reporting.
WE DON'T LIKE THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM EITHER.
After the shock of the 2016 election, we might understand it and relate better to the necessity of it's being, but we all complain about the Two-Party hustle and the Electoral College game they use to trade power back and forth between themselves to our demise. If in fact, we are to be a nation that finally confronts the folly of our political design, what exactly will that confrontation look like, and are we fully certain that Trump isn't it?
When the war against two-party domination does begin, wouldn't we expect to see the leaders from both sides coming together to confront the only foe whose ever been able to call them both out on the carpet together? Shouldn't we expect to see some dissolving lines between the two parties as they come together to fight off that foe? Is John McCain (R) and Chuck Schumer (D) sounding like members of the same party because Trump is threatening America or because he's threatening them?
When it comes to scrapping the TPP, Trump has pleased the unionized left immensely even though he's only promising to win our trade deals, not to end them or even curtail them. As for this claim of 3-5 million fake votes? I can guarantee you that the voter suppression South (or (Alt-right if you will) is not at all disagreeable to his claim, even as mainstream republicans and democrats alike find his comments laughable. It's not very clear if he will truly launch an investigation into his concerns over losing the popular vote, but it is very clear that he wants each of US to think he will and to remain skeptical of the motives of those who never wanted him to win in the first place, which was essentially everybody currently considered a Washington insider.
We can go into a really deep analysis of Donald Trump and we might even agree on the psychological conclusions we make, but it will all come back to one basic analytical question of what's wrong with Trump? In the quest to discover what is wrong with him, there is simply no clear delineation of what might be right, or what about his approach could be helpful to America for a time like this.
No human or president is perfect, though we, and they, work mightily to hide the areas of our weakness from anyone except those who we are most intimate with. If you voted for Obama for the benefit of what he brought to the table, you might not be willing to admit to the areas in which he lacked as a person. 8 years of a democrat as president, followed by Trump, has somehow turned the much maligned George W. Bush into the kind of republican that some of us actually long for these days. None before Trump were without character flaws and no president after him will be either.
Trump is childish to a fault, and WE have to accept that WE just elected- or stayed home and allowed for the election of- a petulant child as our new president.
He's that big bully kid that finds the facial flaw in the new kid and needles him with name calling until the other kids join in for fear that they might be next up. He is that same bully that never hesitates to retaliate when you give him a dose of his own medicine by pointing to a flaw or two of his.
With all of the childishness problems being noted by many, and generally agreed upon by all, how long does our current media think they should continue to shine a light on the childish tweets versus the signatures he continues to place on paper to enact new laws and regulations?
We have always known that our politics are disjointed in America, and we readily expect the media to be a necessary player in the political arena even as we also see them as a major reason for the dislocation of America's political joints. What we've never really known is what the hell to do about it. We hold this truth to be self-evident, that freedom of speech is the cornerstone of every other freedom we have. Yet, we also have little to no way of reconciling the new wave of fake news or the old and enduring wave of partisan reporting that isn't much better.
Suddenly, I find myself in the midst of a major quandary.
Even an opinion editorialist like myself has the journalistic duty of understanding the facts and reporting my opinions based on firm and confirmable facts.
I'm not sure if that's what I will achieve today because the anti-Trump protest is being reinforced by the media that Trump remains adversarial towards- of which I must include myself. Even when I try to add a link to a statistic that I've researched, or do anything to try to remain the "good media", those who oppose my opinions will oppose my link sources as well.
I'm mostly in favor of all of the worldwide protesting against Trump just as I am in favor of holding our new president to the standard of expectation befitting the office. What I am not really in favor of anymore is hour upon hour upon hour of news media reporting that essentially boils down to the same damn question.
Can Trump maintain the honor and dignity befitting the office of the president while behaving like a kid banished to the office of the principal?
Probably not!
For those of US already embarrassed, it's too late anyway, but WE really don't know what the future holds. If WE're perfectly honest, most of US already lost respect for the office of president even if we don't have any memory of presidential behavior quite so silly. Although we really don't know what behavior is necessary to break the back of tainted media reporting or partisan politics, we do know that no one has done it yet. We may not like Trump's approach, and we should surely point out how embarrassing it continues to be at moments we are overwhelmed by embarrassment. But how many times in a row can you call a baby a baby and expect that your name calling will uncover the man inside of him?
Media polling failures were not the beginning of the mass media failure in this election cycle. Our media had no clue of how to handle our new lying leader when he was campaigning, so they are even more clueless of how to deal with him now that he's won. If, by the end of this race, it felt like the ridiculous repetition of the campaign season rhetoric was becoming enough to shut off the television, what are we gaining from a media that has no new headlines other than "OMG, Trump Said It Again".
When we finally get to see those taxes- or the taxes of some of his unvetted cabinet selections- that will be news-worthy. The daily whining over our brand new presidential baby is not really very effective anymore. In fact, our collective attention is probably just the thing he wants and needs to keep up with all the pettiness. When properly ignored, eventually that crying baby tries a new approach or falls asleep and grows quiet from fatigue.
It bodes well for Trump that WE aren't really pressing the issue of the taxes or the touchy relationship with Putin as we continue to marvel at what appears to be our brand new, 70-year-old presidential baby. As any good marketer knows, you have to shine a strong light on the features and benefits of what you are selling in order to take attention away from the damage or flaws.
There is something severely ballsy about using the three sides of American politics (the left, the right, and the media) against each other for the purpose of destroying them all internally. Is that what he's trying to do? Who knows? But if I were on a mission to do whatever Trump is on a mission to do.....making people discuss election fraud theories in between a twitter beef with John Lewis might be a great way to work your plan. As our covertly neutered media continues to collectively whine about our petulant president, I can't help but wonder who the baby really is.
