The media's obsession with all Trump all the time for over two years was all about ratings, bucks and sensationalism: literally years of (free) coverage for Trump, pontificating from every angle as to the mangled train wreck this political contest became. Twenty-four-seven sound bites and shock shots. Ex-lovers and alleged rape victims in the studio audience of a presidential debate. Neocon talking heads like Ann Coulter on MSNBC. The candidate himself in active litigation for fraud, rape and racial discrimination. The same aging talking heads making predictions and incessant chatter signifying nothing, filling the airwaves with fear and ferocity and leaving us all feeling as if we've been groped, wild-eyed and tossed from a speeding car on the freeway.
Facebook and Twitter bickering, boasting, bantering and blathering till you feel as if you want to punch the next person you see right in the face. Unfriend, delete, all caps, bully bye bye. The American way of staying informed, engaged and enraged – all manipulated by what makes for network ratings, sensationalist entertainment and perpetual astonishment. Marketing, messaging and madness. Cue the theme song from “The Apprentice.” Money money money money. Slo mo Donald getting on planes and gliding down golden escalators.
Now as we sit on the precipice of something our country has not experienced before, we find ourselves shattered and shell shocked (well, some of us do.) Those who supported Trump justified their vote by referencing his wealth and business experience, his "tell it like it is" way of unfiltered, unprecedented malice toward others – the media, the disabled, the brown, the black, the baby, the birth certificate, politics in general, opponents, Obama and women. None of that, of course, will personally affect Trump's voters because they feel entitled to their rage, their own view of patriotism, to white entitlement “trumping” all under the guise of a veiled racist slogan to “take our country back” to 1952 led by a narcissistic sociopath they perceive as tough, straight-talking and authentic.
The media likes to spin the Trump victory as though it originated from “white” pain: the white working (mostly male) pain of being shocked by change, and being made to merge into a changing cultural landscape of earthy tones rather than perpetual beige as far as the eye can see. The talking heads think there is empathy or complexity in that diagnosis of the uneducated white male who feels ostracized, ripped off and diminished by his losses – of job, status, or any other footing – in a rapidly evolving population and scope of employment.
We saw the rise of the Tea party, birtherism, and unprecedented bigotry living out loud in reaction to the election and re-election of Barack Obama. Now, the very same portion of the population that justifies the election of Donald Trump on the premise of white pain – the wounds of a furious white entitlement and the ownership of “patriotism” – or rejects multiculturalism in a country built on immigrants and diversity, will need to age and die-off like a foot with gangrene. There is no cure for what truly ails them.
The rich white men in charge use this fear and loathing to further their business agenda under the guise of patriotism and Christianity. They are the management that govern the worker bees, concerned only with the bottom line of cost-cutting, profit margins and out-sourcing.The working classes are disposable commodities. Inconvenient. Replaceable. Gristly fat on a Trump steak.
Nonetheless, the Trump voter puts his faith in these stiff suits, in Wall Street moguls, the guys who know how to make money, do the deals, run big business – as if profit sharing was ever included in the trickle-down theory of rigged economics, or mercy for the under classes. On the 32nd floor no one can hear you scream.
Cue Kevin Spacey from House of Cards, speaking to a raging ragged homeless man cuffed to a pole: “Nobody cares about you. No one can hear you. Nothing will come of this.”
So the left readies itself for the resistance, the love army and radical ongoing civil disobedience, while the militarized police forces slap their palms with bully sticks and strapped on riot gear. Occupy Wall Street was ahead of its time, swiftly crushed and labeled, like the 60s opposition to Vietnam. Kids these days.
We continue to witness the relentless, treasonous obstructionism of the radical corporatist right that gave birth to the Trump presidency. We have experienced the swift dismantling of American standards, values and civil rights, not to mention basic civility. Divide and conquer, right?
White pain does not own patriotism. White pain does not “trump” America and its richly textured, multiracial culture. There’s a line from the movie Bulworth where Warren Beatty states that the only real resolution to our differences and prejudice is to keep fucking each other until we are all one color. Pardon his French.
I tell myself that I’m not the only one worried about what I’m witnessing unravel, that there are far more intelligent people at work than me who are reasonable, sane and experienced. Right? I tell myself that I’m lucky to have what I still have, but it’s not enough. It’s like standing on the shore watching the sand pull away with the tide under your feet.
I tell myself that finally, on every level, people are awake to the atrocities, the dismantling and the sham that has taken over our democracy, and those who are inspired will stand up, show up and speak up. Time to disrupt business as usual in America. There are more of us than them, and whatever the odds, love always wins....Right?
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DH Fabian replied on
Ongoing, not new
Eh. We will continue seeing reruns in media of old stereotypes -- race, gender, age, whatever -- that no longer fit, and that have served well to keep the proverbial "masses" split apart. That "swift dismantling of American standards" has been ongoing since the 1980s. People just don't seem to notice until it personally effects them. The US has implementing fascism for years, from the bottom up. Now it's nipping at the heels of the middle class. We expect only a continuation of the agenda that was set years ago.