No More Sparkles
Jan. 7th, 2018 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloOnce upon a time - actually not so long ago- there were people called spin-doctors who interposed themselves between the powerful and the powerless and farted clouds of lovely pink mist with sparkles in it. Then along came Trump and said, "Sod you, I can do my own farting," and proceeded to do so- only what he produced was rather less pink and sparkly
It's not that Trump is wickeder or grosser or less competent than other presidents (that's up for debate) but that he's more clearly visible. It's something to do with him being a reality TV star and something to do with his access to Twitter and something to do with not his understanding the game he's in (and allowing Michael Woolf to sit on a couch in the West Wing for months) but there's never been a president who was less of a mystery. And by demystifying himself he has demystified government.
I had a look at Jarry's Ubu Roi yesterday because I thought it might be helpful to compare and contrast. And it is. Ubu is everything that is ghastly in humanity rolled up into a ball of grease that pinballs around the stage doing appalling things- and there's a scene where he has invited a bunch of power-brokers to dinner and they're all troughing away and he comes in and throws a filthy toilet brush onto the table. And, yes, that's government as we've always known it to be but have never seen so clearly- on a day to day basis- as we do now with the Trump administration.
I find it hard to imagine what politics will be like in the post-Trump era. But I don't see how we can revert to the pink mist and sparkles and pretend we never glimpsed the void. If Trump prompts a rethink and reform of the way we do politics he'll have served his turn.
It's not that Trump is wickeder or grosser or less competent than other presidents (that's up for debate) but that he's more clearly visible. It's something to do with him being a reality TV star and something to do with his access to Twitter and something to do with not his understanding the game he's in (and allowing Michael Woolf to sit on a couch in the West Wing for months) but there's never been a president who was less of a mystery. And by demystifying himself he has demystified government.
I had a look at Jarry's Ubu Roi yesterday because I thought it might be helpful to compare and contrast. And it is. Ubu is everything that is ghastly in humanity rolled up into a ball of grease that pinballs around the stage doing appalling things- and there's a scene where he has invited a bunch of power-brokers to dinner and they're all troughing away and he comes in and throws a filthy toilet brush onto the table. And, yes, that's government as we've always known it to be but have never seen so clearly- on a day to day basis- as we do now with the Trump administration.
I find it hard to imagine what politics will be like in the post-Trump era. But I don't see how we can revert to the pink mist and sparkles and pretend we never glimpsed the void. If Trump prompts a rethink and reform of the way we do politics he'll have served his turn.
