How are ya

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

I wrote this column for the Freethinker. Barry found a couple of great cartoons to illustrate. I chose the tweet at the end, because it’s so very Hitler.

Playing the part

Comments

2 responses to “How are ya”

  1. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    Vanity Fair talked to some reality TV producers after the election to get their views on this mingling of show biz with government. Jeff Jenkins had particularly acute (and frightening) insights.

    Jenkins makes a point to note, ‘What you need to hear is that, whether it’s a scripted project or a reality project, the people in front of the camera, they become characters. So, Donald Trump, the judge on his game show, that’s a character. It’s frightening for me to think that other citizens don’t realize that is a character.’

    Asked how conscious Trump might be of this character he projects, Jenkins looks to his own reality-show experience for clues.

    ‘If I were betting, I would place on the side that he is aware that he has [this separate character]. Of course, the character is based on himself, but he’s created a character that is much more than himself. My perception is that he’s aware and he’s running with it because he’s succeeding.

    Regardless of whether this is a persona he can turn on and off, there’s no reason to believe that Trump is concerned with political matters. Is he a student of history? Has he devoted his life to public service? Does he know about American politics and the American system of governance? No, of course not. He’s devoted his life to Donald Trump. And to bilking people.

    He might not truly be a bully deep down (although I’m sure he is), but he’s definitely disastrously unqualified and profoundly uninterested in all the things a president needs to care deeply about.

  2. latsot Avatar
    latsot

    I agree that it matters little whether the Trump we all know and fear is TV-Trump or not. The Vanity Fair quote says:

    My perception is that he’s aware and he’s running with it because he’s succeeding.

    Well, of a certainty. But ‘succeeding’ at what? At having his ego massaged, rather than at being a good president, of course. Given this and his unfailing instinct to lash out at dissent without any regard to proportion, it seems more than likely that he’ll inhabit TV-Trump more and more, if he isn’t actually TV-Trump through and through already.

    I’ve never seen the US Apprentice, but we get it over here in the UK too, hosted by Alan Sugar (Amstrad). The show here tends to focus on the obvious idiocy of the candidates rather than that of the ‘boss’ and TV-Sugar is long-suffering rather than bullying, for the most part, within the confines of the silly, unrealistic tasks and expectations. Part of me wonders whether watching the US show would change my opinions of the UK version, but I’m not in a hurry to watch either.

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