Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Donald Trump And Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais is pretty far to the left politically.  But he made his bones as a comedian who pushed discomfort so far that it threatened to move past comedy into genuine human pain.  He was a performance artist specializing in human pain and discomfort.

Donald Trump seems to be cut from the same clothe.  Except, where Gervais made himself the target of the pain and discomfort, Trump projects it outwards.

Trump, in effect, takes all the darkest things in the recesses of the American mind and thrusts them outwards into the light.  He does all the things you absolutely should not do and sees himself rewarded for it in the polls.  He is the perfect manifestation of the American Id.

It all seems more and more like an elaborate performance than a presidential campaign.  As if Trump feels the need to slaughter more and more sacred cows before people finally turn on him.  As if he is exasperated that he has to keep doing this.  As if he hopes maybe THIS time the rubes will turn on him and he can go back to playing golf.

I don't know.  Can you explain it?

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