Reality TV Show Democracy
The elite entertain themselves (and us) with sham elections that won't change the System.
The narrative was set a long time ago now: trump “the buffoon”, “the incompetent”, “the fool”. The Walking Twitter Troll is mocked by late-night hosts for not being able to walk down ramps and stairs. He's mocked by the press for his unintelligible rambling, and there's pics all over of him needing to hold a water glass with two hands to drink:
The mainstream media bombards us with his constant mistakes and chaos.
In the pro-trump media, however, trump swaggers with military brass. And at his rallies, he makes fun of the mainstream media for even talking about his walking and drinking.
Then, he drinks water with one hand and gets his fans to howl and cheer him and 'boooo' the idiotic MSM. It’s a great gig, if you can get it. But it can’t be done without mainstream media help.
Kayfabe, noun | modern origin: Pro-Wrestling Entertainment
The term refers to the fact that professional wrestling matches are scripted. Further, people “in the business” (wrestlers, managers) play characters that must be maintained even outside of shows, especially around fans.
So, trump constantly calls the media “Fake News” even as he invites them to press conferences daily to tell them so to their faces, never forgetting to highlight how much money he makes them:
Of course, trump reminds them Biden isn’t as good for ratings as he is.
They say he's just incompetent, the White House is in constant chaos, yet he’s remarkable at getting Institutions purged and refilled with loyalists, he’s weathered impeachment and got two seats on the Supreme Court, as well as over a quarter of all active judges. He’s avoided consequences on okay-ing the Russian bounties on his own soldiers. He’s got a loyalist Attorney General, and the military has forced out people on his orders. He’s got every crony who didn’t turn on him out of jail and hanging out like it’s the old days again.
But hey, remember guys, the media says he doesn’t even know how to tie his own shoes!
Orrrr… mayyybe… this guy knows what he’s doing? Maybe, he was a star of Reality TV for a decade and learned a thing or two from the media about how to act, stage things and get reactions that benefit his personal brand and wealth?
Perhaps, just as he reads Hitler's speeches at night, he’s read a bit of Sun Tzu?
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
So, the media tells us he needs two hands to drink, and then we never stop to think: for such an incompetent fool, how come he’s getting everything he’s wanted?
The ‘Rona
As coronavirus ravages America, the refrain of “he doesn’t know what he’s doing” was a drumbeat in media coverage. As he jumped from telling people to take malaria medicine or drink bleach, and Congress couldn’t manage to give citizens more than $1200 or make a proper stockpile of PPE somehow… somehow trump managed to get money to his fellow billionaires and most importantly, to top donors (and Kanye).
They are “dumb” enough to send out contaminated test kits but smart enough to quietly seize PPE from hospitals rerouting them to unknown locations, leading to the Governor of Maryland to call in the National Guard to protect his supply from trump.
We can’t forget trump and his family themselves walking away with millions just from the PPP loans. Add in the money he’s raking in from charging secret service for protecting him in his own hotels/golf courses, or the giant reservations followed by empty rooms at trump hotels, and corporations straight-up paying his people reams of cash.
Taken from this angle, he doesn’t seem so stupid now.
Kakistocracy, noun | origin: Greek: kakistos (worst) and kratos (rule)
A system of government that is run by the worst, least suitable citizens.
Kleptocracy, noun | origin: from Greek: kléptēs, (thief) and krátos, (rule)
A government with corrupt leaders that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political powers.
The former obscures the latter; but the latter really is the Truth. It’s not incompetence it’s a meticulous heist. It’s not accidental chaos, its malicious distraction of the people while the elites steal the loot.
Like: why force kids back to school when the virus is worse than when schools shut down in the first place?
Especially when his own experts say schools are the “highest risk” for spreading the virus? The media will tell us this is just another incompetent trump thing, as opposed to a ruthless tactic to distract millions of people who will have to spend mental energy daily on keeping their child from getting a potentially deadly disease. In addition to keeping themselves safe and fed amid the coming housing crisis. (All of this during election season.)
“Housing Crisis?” you say, “like the one that led to the last Financial Crash?”
Yep, the very same. The one where the rich got even richer right after. They snapped up real estate and business opportunities from newly impoverished citizens, at the same time as receiving bailouts from taxpayers that they then used to reward their execs with $100 million bonuses.
But only one Banker went to jail, and no one in the George W Bush administration went to jail for torture, or starting an illegal war that made the Vice President Dick Cheney’s company billions of dollars.
The “Opposition” Party
Yes, it was Barrack Obama who told us all to “look forward, as opposed to looking back” when it came to torture and warrant-less wiretapping by the Bush admin. And, yes, it’s the Democratic Party members sitting back and letting trump do whatever because “he self-impeaches”.
Unlike Republicans, who are always in a fighting stance, ready to spin everything in their favour and go on every media outlet (Left and Right) accusing their opponents of everything under the sun.
Democrats (with the exception of very, very few) sit back and let trump and the media hash out between each other whether they are treasonous baby-killers or not.
And when they do appear, its with an air of “Keep calm and vote in 2020.”
It’s not like the last election was sabotaged, and Republicans have blocked every election security bill and the Supreme Court has ruled that coronavirus precautions aren’t needed in elections.
Still, the media presents the two parties as pro-wrestling opponents:
[T]his sharp-tongued grandmother of nine has reached a new level of celebrity stardom amid the 24/7 media circus that is the Trump administration. She has emerged as his staunchest opponent in government.
“Nancy Pelosi is the perfect character in the Donald Trump story,” says Jeff Zucker, CNN chief and WarnerMedia chairman of news and sports. “She knows how to play him better than anyone else.”
But then why didn’t she impeach him when he stole babies from their parents? Or on emoluments? Why did she and Kushner (and white nationalist Steve King) work hard to commute the sentence of a meatpacking billionaire accused of using child labour and abusing his undocumented workers? Why did she expand trump’s spying powers? Why did she give billions for his wall but can’t fund the US Postal Service? She has stern words to counter many of overtly cruel policies, like “send them to school to die”:
But on the issues that point to Systemic Problems? Silence.
Like the upcoming housing crisis. (Below are the results that come up when you search for specific words on Pelosi's Official Twitter:)
She's not mentioned housing or mortgages since the coronavirus, and mentioned rent exactly once. (Twice in the entirety of her Twitter! Come on, man!) This is the side of the regular people?
And what about how are people going to vote for her Party in the middle of a pandemic when trump is attacking absentee ballots as ‘rigged’, and she won't even defend mail-in ballots or the Postal Service.
Pelosi: *crickets*
(Fitting that only two tweets come up with rigged, and the one about elections is from 2016 telling us “rigged election fears are unfounded and we must all accept the result!”)
Pelosi has mentioned George Floyd and crafted bills around him but:
hm.
(And this isn't about her not being on Twitter, she posts multiple tweets a day!)
So we circle back to the first K of the three I posted:
Kayfabe means that the lines between fact and fiction, character and real self are blurred. But one thing remains true: the people writing the script have the true power and make the most money. And who is making out like bandits these days? Corporations, Plutocrats, oligarchs, our filthy rich elite.
So, it's hard to see the upcoming election as nothing more than the Season finale of the DC Reality TV show. Whatever the outcome, both sides are deeply committed to willful blindness to the suffering of the little people.
Like with Putin and President Xi, the US election is theatre to which we already know the ending, but we suspend our belief anyway.