Now with Added Superficiality!!!

Here is a link to The Onion’s satirical celebrity site, Starwipe: http://www.starwipe.com/article/seriously-what-are-we-even-doing-317. It’s an almost biblical cry of anguish. Shouldn’t we all be fed up with inflated inconsequence?

I believe the initial intent for the site centered on tongue-in-cheek parodies of the public’s interest in celebrities. With this piece, however, the gloves come off. The underlying lesson would seem to be, at least in my read: Forget snarkiness, we’ve got Donald Trump to worry about. The Kardashian mystique represents just the open sores of the deeper disease. Even Donald Trump and his celebratoned hair constitute mere symptoms, but these are more ominous. Superficiality has become the fulcrum of our thought and focus of our attention.

I don’t want to write about Donald Trump. He is at best a congested cultural factoid, someone whose provocations you would listen during tv time, if something better weren’t on. The implications of his ascent, however, warrant serious reply. The other day, Flag Day, he turned seventy, and he is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. The idea of this seemed ridiculous eight months ago.

He has no experience whatsoever in political office, no history of serving the public good beyond his entertainment value. Public spats with the likes of Rosie O’Donnell have escalated to loud threats to Mexicans, Muslims, and whatever else top’s the zeitgeist’s rage metre.

His name has floated within my ken since the 1980s. He appeared on talk shows, made highly public real estate deals (so we’re told), dated and married conspicuously, and he had that hair. Yes, he appeared in presidential politics in prior elections, but that seemed connected more to his throttle-less need for attention than any eagerness to assume the office. Frankly, I could believe that this election has exceeded his aim. Does he really want the responsibilities that the position requires him to face?

When the Trump campaign started making noise last year, people said that his presence would make the election interesting. The issues weren’t enough, we needed (metaphor alert!) this loose cannon acting out on the deck of our ship of state. There was, and there continues to be, the idea that he “tells it like it is”. Those two indefinite pronouns within the scare quotes do not refer to the same thing. Blabbing charismatic anger does not equal faithful regard of our country’s political situation. I mean, building a wall to keep immigrants out and intending (making) Mexico pay for it, that’s not practicable, let alone rational. It’s what disaffected people mutter around water coolers, in bars, and anywhere else favourable for griping. Trump just puts it on national television, and makes a cool buck.

And now we can find Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna on national television, tho to be honest, I haven’t yet so found them. Rhizomes of rhizomes of attenuating interest, albeit interest without attention span. What else could these two offer? They need not do anything, the estate of the privileged. I am sure they will be steadfast about not doing anything. Somehow, the public understands them as being something, and that’s enough for them to get paid to marry.

Look, I saw Runaway OJ, this many years ago. I believe I switched from a doleful Red Sox game to the nervous yet enthralling spectacle of the car chase. And I watched the trial quite a bit. This was before going viral went viral. It was a real trial, interesting for just that, not a fabrication.

Of course the participants eventually realized that they were the show, and so played to the cheap seats. Everyone seemed to like that, those participating, those watching, and those commenting. A demeaningly direct line leads from there to Blac Kardashian. And Donald Trump wants to be the president of that. His citizens want to be entertained by their anger. The creative moment has fucking passed.

We could try to be staunch but it seems like unexamined anger wins. Yet anger cannot be mindful. it’s too automatic, too thoughtless. It soothes us with its thoughtless direction and hides our despair. It doesn’t let us understand. Anger leaves us mindless and willing to believe.