Monday, January 15, 2018

The Loser Who Won

Contributed by B F Koch
ITITY Political Theater Critic

Do you know that guy? That guy who says they just take his hard-earned money and hand it over to “those people” who are too lazy to work for a living. That guy who says if we let “those people” move into the neighborhood they’ll just ruin everyone’s property values. That guy who says we could fix this place if we just put all “those people” on a boat and send them back to where they came from. Maybe you’re lucky, maybe you’re not related to that guy, maybe you never even met that guy, but a little over a year ago almost 63 million Americans thought it was a good idea to put a guy like that in charge of our country.

It didn’t matter that a few million more Americans voted for the other candidate. It didn’t matter that the electoral college was supposed to prevent the office being occupied by someone, in the words of one of our most popular founding fathers, “not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” President Pussy Grabber, anyone? Nice try Mr. Hamilton, but hey, you’re killing it on Broadway.

Naturally, the cable news networks played their part too, conveniently refraining from any criticism that would interfere with their ad revenues, and covering the campaign as if it were the latest reality TV spectacle. Responsible reporting? Journalistic integrity? Don’t worry, it’s all just entertainment folks, he’s not going to win this thing anyway, and hey, our ratings are through the roof.

We’ll never know of course, but it may not have turned out the way it did without the FBI bringing up his opponent’s e-mails again on the eve of the election. Was this something significant? Was this something we needed to know? No, they just thought it was important to protect themselves from appearing to have held anything back after she won. So much for fidelity, bravery, and integrity. Strange thing is, these are the same bunch we’re now trusting to tell us this shameful mistake wasn’t our fault. Hey, a little help here, Russia?