Who You Callin a Dotard?
Every day we get out of our bunks and before the coffee has time to percolate or our brains haul into full consciousness, some new Tweet or soundbite ruins the morning. I’m living as part of a live audience for the Donald Trump Show, a reality nightmare that considers itself bingeworthy despite the sinking polls.
The plot — if you’d pitched it to HBO execs a couple years ago — would’ve gotten you laughed out of Tinsel Town. Some reality show huckster, see, a phony self-promoting real estate developer with ties to the mob and an empire fueled by banks too nervous to let his Jersey casinos fold and drag them down too, decides to run for office. Not just any office, mind you, the Highest Office. And to keep his name in the tabloids he starts the rumor the current president wasn’t born in the United States.
You still with me? So this bombastic know-nothing knows this: how to keep the press interested in every outrageous pronouncement he makes. He tweets constantly. Angry accusations. Outright lies. Mostly hysterical nonsense, but the media eats it with a silver spoon. And then the guy starts winning primaries. He attacks his own party and the voters go wild for it. TV ratings go through the roof. Then he wins the nomination and you guessed it, he wins the election too, all the marbles.
You turned off the TV yet? No? Well, okay, now the mutt is president. What’s he going to do now? Well, he doesn’t have an agenda really, so why not keep on doing what’s always worked for him. Angry tweets, personal attacks, more lies. The citizens can’t get enough. They’re part of the show now. We’re part of the show now, an interactive plotline.
At the United Nations he stepped onto the world stage, top hat and cane, perpetual sneer, and threatened to destroy North Korea and little Rocket Man. You expected Diplomacy, you haven’t been watching the entire first season. And today Rocket Man called him, get this, a dotard. No, it’s not a Korean slurword, it’s English. It means, if you’re like me and didn’t know, an old guy, probably sick and feeble. Oh … and he said he would shoot an ICBM into the Pacific and detonate a hydrogen bomb.
I know, you can’t wait for the next episode. I’m just hoping this wasn’t the Season Finale and we have to wait for Season 2. But what a cliff hanger! Great for the ratings!
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Tags: north korea icbm, rocket man
All these shows run their course. After a while, as plot lines get recycled there’s bound to be fewer surprises, and it’s harder to keep we the viewers engaged.
In the biz that’s when the protagonist will “jump the shark,” named for an episode in which Fonzie on Happy Days thought he’d give it a try. Or rather, his writers put him out on the ocean in water-skies, sailing through the air over the aforementioned shark.
I would definitely watch an episode of The Donald Trump Show titled “Trump Jumps Shark.” Or perhaps settle for the less peppy, “Dotard Walks Shark.” Although, I suppose that too could result in a pretty lively episode, depending on the writers.
I will happily watch the Ken Burns/PBS 10 part documentary on the Trump Years, a rerun basically of the McCarthy Era, Ken’s previous documentary in the year 2023. Might need some time to digest this shark meat and anyway, I don’t think I could sit through the ads on The Trump Show, all those Trump Resort, Trump steaks, Trump tours of the Kremlin, Ivanka clothing lines, Jared time-shares, Melania save-the-victims-of bullying spots.
You’re right, I forgot about the interminable commercials, it would hardly be worth sitting through that.
Ken Burns should be able to knock off a Trump retrospective for PBS in short order. Edit just about anything together and call it “Trump – The Blooper Reel Years.”
I like that, Skeeter, “a rerun of the McCarthy years.”
I’m tired.