Next Stop: the Trumplight Zone
You're traveling through another dimension... a journey into a terrifying land of chopper talks
Submitted for your consideration: A white, overweight septuagenarian grandfather suffering from mild heart disease stands on his lawn in the late August heat, dressed in a dark suit and wearing slight makeup.
He paces back and forth in that heat for half an hour, pouting, shouting and talking. On the other side of a rope line stand perhaps 100 or more people dressed in suits and casual attire. They’re shouting questions, photographing the grandfather and competing to be heard over the overwhelming sound of an idling helicopter engine.
Of the 100 or so gathered, most have questions that deeply concern millions of people. The people asking the questions know Grandpa is going to lie to them as he has for the last two and a half years. Unsung heroes with boom microphones manage to record usable audio of the rants passing for answers and some usable audio of the questions.
These people gather to listen to the septuagenarian though many would rather be somewhere, anywhere else. They have shown up to this blistering scene only because it is their job. More than a few of them entertain the idle thought they could pass out from heat exhaustion or suffer a stroke or a heart attack in the fetid heat. They wonder how Grandpa manages.
Grandpa yells about immigrants who won’t get off his lawn and how his Chinese neighbors are putting the squeeze on him—but he and his wife love the little snot-nosed kid on the block who keeps firing off his skyrocket pipe bombs. Most of Grandpa’s neighbors are the enemy, including all those “nasty” women. Grandpa seems angry about how his neighborhood has changed. He wants it to be how he remembers it growing up. Meanwhile he’s making money hand over fist off of the people he seems to hate.
Of the 100 or so gathered, most have questions that deeply concern millions of people. The people asking the questions know Grandpa is going to lie to them as he has for the last two and a half years. Unsung heroes with boom microphones manage to record usable audio of the rants passing for answers and some usable audio of the questions.
These people gather to listen to the septuagenarian though many would rather be somewhere, anywhere else. They have shown up to this blistering scene only because it is their job. More than a few of them entertain the idle thought they could pass out from heat exhaustion or suffer a stroke or a heart attack in the fetid heat. They wonder how Grandpa manages.
Grandpa yells about immigrants who won’t get off his lawn and how his Chinese neighbors are putting the squeeze on him—but he and his wife love the little snot-nosed kid on the block who keeps firing off his skyrocket pipe bombs. Most of Grandpa’s neighbors are the enemy, including all those “nasty” women. Grandpa seems angry about how his neighborhood has changed. He wants it to be how he remembers it growing up. Meanwhile he’s making money hand over fist off of the people he seems to hate.
Trump lies when he doesn’t need to, probably because he cannot remember or doesn’t care what he’s said before or what the facts are—even when they’re in his favor.
Grandpa has managed to rile up most of his neighborhood. His vocal supporters feel he’s onto something with all of his anger, and they share it. Some of Grandpa’s neighbors don’t get what Grandpa’s so mad about. Some just see him as a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot. And some of them get mad when anyone questions or criticizes Grandpa: How dare they?
All of this is submitted for your consideration in this episode of The Trumplight Zone.
As oddly familiar as that scenario is, last Wednesday’s so-called “chopper talk” on the South Lawn cannot be dismissed as easily as satire. President Trump called himself “the chosen one” and vilified Jews who vote Democrat. He exposed himself, once again, as more irrational, more obtuse and more willing to lie than any of the previous 44 occupants of his office. Trump lies when he doesn’t need to, probably because he cannot remember or doesn’t care what he’s said before or what the facts are—even when they’re in his favor.
Worse, his communications staff has the ability and experience of a high school detention hall filled with members of the AV club caught stealing overhead projectors. They are so unable to help craft a message that they have been relegated to the menial chore of wrangling reporters for their boss and occasionally evading questions on the driveway of the White House North Lawn.
All of this is submitted for your consideration in this episode of The Trumplight Zone.
As oddly familiar as that scenario is, last Wednesday’s so-called “chopper talk” on the South Lawn cannot be dismissed as easily as satire. President Trump called himself “the chosen one” and vilified Jews who vote Democrat. He exposed himself, once again, as more irrational, more obtuse and more willing to lie than any of the previous 44 occupants of his office. Trump lies when he doesn’t need to, probably because he cannot remember or doesn’t care what he’s said before or what the facts are—even when they’re in his favor.
Worse, his communications staff has the ability and experience of a high school detention hall filled with members of the AV club caught stealing overhead projectors. They are so unable to help craft a message that they have been relegated to the menial chore of wrangling reporters for their boss and occasionally evading questions on the driveway of the White House North Lawn.
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Meanwhile, reporters are showing signs of PTSD. Most still try to do their job even as the president makes it harder and harder to do so. The noose over the free press has been tightening at an accelerating rate since Sean Spicer showed up in the James Brady Briefing room on day one and lied about the size of Trump’s inaugural crowd.
The press, hampered somewhat by its competitive nature and a variety of other uncontrollable factors (and some controllable ones), continues to cover this president as if he were any other and every other president. Reporters striving to operate as they had in previous administrations find previously unseen roadblocks—not to mention anger and petulance from an administration that only respects a ghoulish fealty that raises the bile in rational people’s throats.
Donald Trump is unique among presidents in that way, and he would find no argument in that statement; his narcissistic id would eat it up. But while Trump’s open contempt for the Constitution and many of his presidential duties are unique among presidents, he certainly isn’t a unique human being. He is not an aberration of the system, but a product of it. There are millions like him across the country, and they love Trump.
Some of those Trump lovers will never be reached by facts or compassion. Some are true believers and some are merely lost or dangerously naive. Some, like Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, pledge their loyalty to Trump as a means to an end. As long as they’re loyal, Trump doesn’t care.
He has said many times he places loyalty above everything else. He's even called himself "loyal to a fault." So when he recently said, on multiple occasions, that he regretted the trade war with China, who did he send to clean up the mess? Stephanie Grisham, his new press secretary, said reporters misinterpreted Trump's words and that the president regrets "not raising the tariffs higher."
The South Lawn rants, which may have replaced briefings, are a source of amusement, copious soundbites and other fodder for talking-head panels, but they are not substantive. They are stream-of-consciousness stand-up routines where Trump hopes to make you laugh, cry and cheer while he ignores or runs over the real issues.
The press, hampered somewhat by its competitive nature and a variety of other uncontrollable factors (and some controllable ones), continues to cover this president as if he were any other and every other president. Reporters striving to operate as they had in previous administrations find previously unseen roadblocks—not to mention anger and petulance from an administration that only respects a ghoulish fealty that raises the bile in rational people’s throats.
Donald Trump is unique among presidents in that way, and he would find no argument in that statement; his narcissistic id would eat it up. But while Trump’s open contempt for the Constitution and many of his presidential duties are unique among presidents, he certainly isn’t a unique human being. He is not an aberration of the system, but a product of it. There are millions like him across the country, and they love Trump.
Some of those Trump lovers will never be reached by facts or compassion. Some are true believers and some are merely lost or dangerously naive. Some, like Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, pledge their loyalty to Trump as a means to an end. As long as they’re loyal, Trump doesn’t care.
He has said many times he places loyalty above everything else. He's even called himself "loyal to a fault." So when he recently said, on multiple occasions, that he regretted the trade war with China, who did he send to clean up the mess? Stephanie Grisham, his new press secretary, said reporters misinterpreted Trump's words and that the president regrets "not raising the tariffs higher."
The South Lawn rants, which may have replaced briefings, are a source of amusement, copious soundbites and other fodder for talking-head panels, but they are not substantive. They are stream-of-consciousness stand-up routines where Trump hopes to make you laugh, cry and cheer while he ignores or runs over the real issues.
While Trump’s open contempt for the Constitution and many of his presidential duties are unique among presidents, he certainly isn’t a unique human being.
The press corps? We keep going. We have to. It is our job. We must show up to talk to the self-proclaimed “most transparent president” in history, despite the side effects. For our efforts, the president routinely calls us “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” to our faces. He has accused us of trying to tank the economy when he isn’t busy blaming Hillary Clinton or former president Obama for whatever ills he can ascribe to them.
But for all of his drama, he wants us and has to have us. Great God in heaven, we know he actually loves us. Because we give him something he needs: attention.
If this were an episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, Trump would soil the neighborhood beyond repair and retire to his home broken, the one tin soldier who rides away from conflagration lonely and bitter. But this is the real world, no matter how much Trump would like life to resemble the ongoing fictional reality show spinning out of his twisted little mind.
This cartoon villain has done a great deal of damage to our national psyche, and it isn’t just the 12,000-plus lies he’s told since he took office. It isn’t the attempted destruction of science, the elevation of the richest among us, the desecration of our nation’s founding principles or anything else he has done. It's all of it.
But for all of his drama, he wants us and has to have us. Great God in heaven, we know he actually loves us. Because we give him something he needs: attention.
If this were an episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, Trump would soil the neighborhood beyond repair and retire to his home broken, the one tin soldier who rides away from conflagration lonely and bitter. But this is the real world, no matter how much Trump would like life to resemble the ongoing fictional reality show spinning out of his twisted little mind.
This cartoon villain has done a great deal of damage to our national psyche, and it isn’t just the 12,000-plus lies he’s told since he took office. It isn’t the attempted destruction of science, the elevation of the richest among us, the desecration of our nation’s founding principles or anything else he has done. It's all of it.
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So it is truly mind-boggling to watch the Democrats stumble across debate stages like Dick Cheney on a canned hunt, taking each other out but woefully missing the big elephant sitting in the room, spreading his flatulence.
As for Trump, he just laughs at the hunters while he continues to embarrass himself unknowingly on the South Lawn and pretty much anywhere else he shows his face—including the G7 conference in France. While others were trying to deal with a burning rainforest in Brazil and additional climate catastrophes, Trump was the only world leader to miss that meeting. Maybe he was watching reruns of The Apprentice?
Rebuffed in his awkward attempts to buy Greenland, roundly criticized for his obsequious nature before the NRA and his continued insults aimed at a wide segment of the overall population, Trump is the boorish, Bermuda shorts-clad grandpa who comes to the neighborhood barbecue, rails at the world and wears out his welcome.
With some 16 months before the general election, the question remains whether Grandpa will be escorted away from the barbecue or this Twilight Zone parody will continue for another four years.
It remains astounding that a president with no credibility, who hires a staff with no ability, could win re-election. Yes, Grandpa, the old saying is true: Truth is stranger than fiction.
As for Trump, he just laughs at the hunters while he continues to embarrass himself unknowingly on the South Lawn and pretty much anywhere else he shows his face—including the G7 conference in France. While others were trying to deal with a burning rainforest in Brazil and additional climate catastrophes, Trump was the only world leader to miss that meeting. Maybe he was watching reruns of The Apprentice?
Rebuffed in his awkward attempts to buy Greenland, roundly criticized for his obsequious nature before the NRA and his continued insults aimed at a wide segment of the overall population, Trump is the boorish, Bermuda shorts-clad grandpa who comes to the neighborhood barbecue, rails at the world and wears out his welcome.
With some 16 months before the general election, the question remains whether Grandpa will be escorted away from the barbecue or this Twilight Zone parody will continue for another four years.
It remains astounding that a president with no credibility, who hires a staff with no ability, could win re-election. Yes, Grandpa, the old saying is true: Truth is stranger than fiction.
