Shawn Thew/EFE

Politics

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A Day without Trump

Wouldn’t it be nice to take a break from the exasperating routine America has fallen into? A holiday free of his angry incoherent infantile tweets and/or twenty four hours during which you wouldn’t have to see the self-satisfied smirk on his glowering face. You wouldn’t have to see those pudgy pink hands applauding himself that never did an honest day’s work. Nor would you have to see the Vietnam War draft dodger pretending he’s a super patriot.

But no, you may say. He’s the President of the United States and the most important and powerful man in the world. The fate of the Nation lies in those tiny unblemished hands. Everything he says, no matter how witless or asinine, must be reported. But does it all need to be reported? Eliminate the lies, the name-calling, the insults, the misinformation…ditch everything he’s repeated more than 50 times, and what’s left? Nothing save for the occasional new enemy to be attacked. And just how “important” is he anyway? Look to your history books America! We’ve had a raft of stupid incompetent misguided corrupt…and unimportant Presidents like Fancy Frank Pierce? Wurrin’ G. Harding? Silent Cal Coolidge? Trump will easily make it into that eminently forgettable bunch.

You’re not ready to give up yet? You argue that even if what he says isn’t worth reporting his accomplishments are. So what has he accomplished anyway? Does a bull trashing a China shop qualify as an accomplishment? Is playing footsie with thuggish dictators an accomplishment? Is being the first American president ever laughed at in the UN to be called “mission accomplished”? Maybe I’m just from the old school but I’ve always thought presidential actions must be positive to be accomplishments. Is starting a global trade war that threatens to wreck the U.S. economy an accomplishment? If it is then so was The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Now I’m not saying Trump should be banned. I’m just saying he’s no longer news. Remove him from CNN and Fox and all the others and reclassify him under “entertainment.” There’s no accounting for taste in that department. There are people who’re entertained by freak shows and cockfights and women’s mud wrestling. There are even Norwegians who’re entertained by live coverage of 27-hour train rides to Hammerfest. Let them have Trump and all his kin. I know that will be a blow to the news media. Ratings may go down. They’ll have to work harder to find stories. Celebrity legal experts will have to go back to practicing law, if they’re members of the bar and can still remember how to practice it. Fox News yammerers will have to transfer their skills to other jobs like being greeters at Walmart or handing out free samples in grocery stores. Elderly retired politicians and government operatives will have to go back to living off their pensions.

Trump came from the fiction-rich world of Reality TV. Let him return to it. How about a made for cable TV series titled “King of Trumps” starring a Mad King who’s surrounded by dissembling conniving reptilian courtiers including his own family bent on stuffing their pockets with gold while he becomes increasingly tangled in his own web of lies with each new episode. “High Concept” as they say in Hollywood. “King Lear” meets “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” He’d like that. He always wants to be the star.

I’m sure there are people who’d be more than happy to watch his performance. I wouldn’t. Perhaps there are other folks who’re as tired of him as I am, even folks who didn’t hate his guts from day one. Some of them might be Republicans which is just a theory of course, though last month’s election lends it some support. Do I detect the chorus of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Yer Man” growing softer? Are some of the MAGA mob just mouthing the words now? Only time will tell. Until then I’m going to celebrate my own “Day Without Trump” on January 6, 2019, the day the new House of Representatives convenes. Maybe then there will be some news worth reporting