Trump as wallpaper
Like many of you, I put on something familiar while I’m cooking or cleaning. It’s background. It’s wallpaper.
Peep Show is my perennial wallpaper. Lately, however, I’ve ditched Jez and Mark in favour of Donald Trump. As he makes his way around red states to whip up support for ailing Republicans in November’s midterm elections, I’ve taken to playing his speeches in full.
And because Donny trots out the same points whether he’s in Texas or Nebraska, I don’t have to pay much attention. Night after night, he says the same things. So while the spuds are in the pot and Trump is in my ear, I’m disgusted, entertained, and amused at the spectacle. As a little game between me and myself, I try to see how many points I can score on my mental Trump Bingo card.
Here are some:
Iran will never have a nuclear weapon
Mutilization [sic]
$21t in investments
Dumocrats
25m illegal aliens
Venezuela
Think of it
Radical left communists
Sleepy Joe Biden
Numbers we’ve never seen before
I rebuilt the military in my first term
Accordion hands
OK, accordion hands isn’t something he says but it is something he does. Frequently. Which is why it feels a bit like cheating at Trump Bingo. Sleepy Joe is another mainstay, in use well before this campaign blitz.
You might be wondering why someone who finds Trump repugnant, oafish, and such a transparent liar, would make rambling, familiar speeches his wallpaper. You know, I wonder about that myself.
Maybe it’s the tango between serious and unserious. This guy, THIS GUY, is the Leader of the Free World™.
At least when Obama was in charge, his urbane hipness helped to disguise some of the truly awful things the US does in order to maintain global hegemony. Wiping out weddings with unmanned drones is more palatable for those at home and abroad when the guy in charge can handwave everything away through diplomatic acuity. With Trump, insane has replaced urbane and realpolitiking wears a wig.
Maybe it’s because Trump rails against things like critical race theory when he himself is bit of a postmodernist: statements need not be true in order for him to repeat them ad infinitum, news outlets that don’t kiss his ass can be denounced as ‘fake’, and proclaiming each accomplishment of his—real or imagined—to be ‘unlike anything we’ve ever seen before’ quickly loses meaning. Were he still alive, Foucault would be raising an eyebrow.
Or maybe it isn’t as deep as all that. Maybe it’s just like the cartoons. Where the funny character says stupid shit in a funny voice, stupid shit you’ve heard a million times before, and will go on hearing… until.
Anyway, the spuds are done. Bye, Donald.