I am not a fan of Reality TV. I do watch The Amazing Race and I am a frequent HGTV viewer, but I had no idea who The Situation was when he was mentioned in a conversation. (I had to ask a co-worker.) I don’t know the Kardashians, nor do I know who is the Cake Boss, the best Dancer of the Stars or who won Big Brother or Survivor.
But I bet you most Trump supporters do.
I was at a neighborhood BBQ last night, and of course, the conversation turned to “politics”. I put that in quotes because, in the past, when we did discuss politics, we debated where should our tax dollars be spent, the abortion issue, minimum wage and other issues that affected our daily lives. Friendly debates that ended with agreeing to disagree before moving onto the next topic- sports- which started loud, boisterous debates.
Last night, there wasn’t any debate about issues. There was only “Reality TV recaps.
“Did you hear what Trump did today?”
“Did you read his latest tweet?”
“Did you read that interview?”
There was laughter. There were “holy shit’s” There seemed to be an atmosphere of anticipation- how far will this dude go?
Most of my neighbors are republicans. Trump won my district “bigly”. And here they were- cheering him on, waiting for the next outrageous news report as if they were waiting for the next installment of Storage Wars..
I asked one of them, “Don’t you find his behavior dangerous to the country?”
He replied, “Nah. This country is great. Nothing he is doing will change that. Trump is being Trump. He’s funny.”
I had to ask. “What about Russia?”
Someone else answered. “Oh the shit’s gonna hit the fan on that sooner or later. That’s all about his money- not about our government. In a year and a half, the Dems will control the House, and then Trump will resign.”
“Yeah,” piped in someone else. “Trump’s having fun now. All he wanted was to prove he could win. Stick it to Obama”
Nobody at this BBQ was concerned at all about the dangerous direction Trump was taking the country. They didn’t care that we are the laughingstock of the world. And while some found the Russian story to be ‘fake news’, others saw nothing wrong or illegal about it.
“Kennedy did it. So did Nixon.”
My neighbors are not processing the breaking news after breaking news stories coming out of the White House.
They’re just following Reality TV.
Very very scary.