Photo by Jakob Owens, Unsplash
Photo by Jakob Owens, Unsplash
The cliffhanger is Trump's tried-and-true method of riveting the attention of the press and his hard core supporters to his every utterance.
The art of the “Cliffhanger” dates way back before the days of television. In the early 1900’s short adventure films like “What Happened to Mary” or “The Perils of Pauline” would appear weekly in theaters. There were actually dozens of titles in this genre. Of course, the idea was to keep the public coming back week after week, so the creators would plant a mystery of “what is about to happen” at the end of each episode.
This technique has of course been a classic success generator even today and is used liberally in current episodic TV and streaming shows. It is also used is “Reality TV” productions—the use of ironic quotes is intentional since there is nothing real about “Reality TV.” That actual hallmark of reality shows is contrived or faked reality. It is all about the manipulation of circumstance to create a false sense of drama and then at the end of episodes comes the mystery to stick one’s attention on what is going to “happen next.”
It is not hard to see that this is the total description of how Trump operates his administration. There is never a well-reasoned statement of how a conclusion for a course of action was determined. We never hear about how various important aspects of a situation were discussed before a knee-jerk decision was made. No. The idea is that we are presented with a contrived drama, a war, mass roundups of people, military attacks on the civilian population, deprivation of Constitutional rights, murder in broad daylight and then, we’re supposed to wait for what will happen next.
This is Trump’s tried-and rue method of riveting the attention of the press and his hard core supporters to his every utterance. This is why he could care less if he makes any sense or not, or whether his flunkies commit high crimes in his name. He only cares about the “ratings” he has between people ears, how much of people’s attention he can own.
It is true that this is in sharp contrast to previous administrations from both parties. Things in the governmental sphere could be deathly boring on an exciting day. Obama with his deep Constitutional education and law degree could drone slowly on. But who said government was supposed to be episodic TV with daily life and death struggles thrust on the American public?
Trump came to power with his formula of outrage followed by pugilism—just as his odious mentor Roy Cohn taught him. The fact that his father was a blatant racist—associated by historians with the Ku Klux Klan—set him up with a ready faction of racists to take up his banner. But it was his laser focused ability to capture the attention of the media that gave him his escalator into our lives. And the news media outlets, desperate for the eyeballs that Trump could deliver, played right into the swirling cesspool that now engulfs them, with Trump’s allies buying them up like trading cards.
But here we arrive at the real point. We have a carnival barker con man in charge of the government and the execution of laws in this country, which is based theoretically on the rule of law. How many of us have reminded members of Congress that they have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I know at least two people who communicated with members of the House and Senate in recent days and one of them was me.
We get what we tolerate in our lives. How many of us are content to tolerate the status quo of a decrepit sex offender felon calling the shots of our nation? Are we content to wait for the next Trump cliffhanger two weeks from now? Already his cease-fire agreement announcement is turning out to be laced with lies.
If it is 3:00 in the afternoon and you ask Trump what time it is, you won’t get that answer. Everyone should have learned by now that every single statement issued by him or his press secretary lie-factory Miss Wannabe Riefenstahl can’t be taken as fact, ever.
Time to get the message to every member of Congress so loudly—from every direction so they can’t change the channel—that we now don’t care about what Trump will do next. We care only for what Congress will do next and it better be impeachment of him and his whole criminal bunch.
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
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