IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING OR JUST A CHRISTMAS MOVIE?
From time to time, there is an event that has broad implications in that it is part of a larger pastiche that tells us where we are as a society. Several Trump-related stories fall into this category. He was elected the first time even after he ridiculed a handicapped reporter and after his remarks about where he could grab a woman and get away with it. In a previous era, these would have been game changers but not in 2016.
This Christmas, a plot unfolded that could have been written by Kafka or Lewis Carroll.
On Christmas Day, Beyonce put on a half-time performance at a football game in Houston. She has a “country” album and this performance was in support of the album. She is arguably the most popular entertainer today, although Taylor Swift fans may disagree. In any event, Beyonce is a mega superstar. While this is not a critique of her music or of her trying to branch out into country music, the show itself struck me as a joke. Large cowboy hats do not make the music “country” nor do skimpy Vegas showgirl outfits. These days, live performances tend to be over produced with the implication that the music alone is not enough. Frankly, the show itself was disrespectful of country music’s roots and real performers.
This show would not trigger this commentary except that it occurred the same day that President Elect Trump posted about making Canada the 51st state, buying Greenland, taking back the Panama Canal, among other threats and rants. The man who had his lawyers seek delays in all his cases called out “Radical Left Lunatics” for obstructing the court system. To those who Biden commuted their death sentences, his message is “GO TO HELL.” Adding to the unreal aspect of this same day occurrence is that Beyonce’s show seems to have gotten more media coverage than Trump’s rantings. We have accepted Trump’s outrageous statements as the new normal. Orwell would understand.
Trump’s Christmas message was the most recent in a series of bizarre statements and appointments. Without going into each one, his appointee for the FBI head, Kash Patel, has a list of people he will have the FBI go after, although no particular crimes are mentioned. The health czar nominee, RFK, Jr., is a former long-term drug addict with a worm in his brain. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk is always at Trump’s side and was instrumental in taking pediatric cancer research out of the bill to keep the government open. He and Vicek Ramaswary, another billionaire, are teaming up to advise in cutting trillions from the federal budget, which, of course would have huge implications for ordinary people if enacted.
Musk is noteworthy since he is the wealthiest person in the world. Those of us without his vision would think that $450+ billion would be enough and would think about ending world hunger and poverty and other woke things. Yet he is now at the hip of Trump with a goal of essentially shaping the federal government to his needs. Cuts of the nature proposed would gut government regulations to the point where oligarchs like Musk would have a free hand to operate their myriad enterprises not just to increase their wealth but also to consolidate their power.
What all of this adds up to is that we are now living in a dystopian movie that should be streaming on Netflix, except that it is real. An R&B singer doing a “country” act with a Las Vegas look, a president elect who sounds more unhinged each day, and billionaires with a goal of taking away support and benefits that will impact people on the lower part of the economic ladder, most of whom voted for Trump, give an air of unreality to what is really happening. If a movie contained all these elements, we would find it hard to believe. Yet here we are as things get stranger by the day. The very fact that Trump was elected after everything he said and did before, during and after his first time in office is enough to make a fiction plot too unbelievable to accept. Yet this is actually true. And perhaps, the strangest thing of all is that it all got worse on Christmas. This time there was no apparition or visitation to make things right.
