Trump's Really Big Lie was that politics is a performing art. Let government return to governing
A long, long time ago, which is to say as recently as five years back, there were intelligent people who argued that popular culture was a more significant force in American life than politics.
Wasn’t any politician of note referred to as “a rock star”? Hadn’t “Hamilton” revitalized democracy by making the Constitution and progressive politics super hot? Didn’t the kudzu-like proliferation of screens turn their content, whether the next “Avengers” movie or the latest meme, into the new realpolitik, shaping our attitudes and actions in ways far more significant than any law, leader or political party ever could?
I mean, hadn’t “Will & Grace” done more for LGBTQ rights than any activist or lawmaker?
So deeply did many of us believe this that we put it to the test by electing (albeit not by popular consensus) a reality TV star as president. Donald Trump’s lack of experience in politics was seen by many as his greatest strength, as his documented business failures and personal-gain politics were papered over by the persona he had conjured for television. That carefully edited and produced image of a tough-talking, rule-dismissing man of action, boosted by the incendiary power of Twitter, is exactly what tens of millions of Americans — having spent years under the spell of television’s ruthless cavalry of “antiheroes” — believed we needed to script this country back into shape.
And now we know how that turns out — with the most ignominious exit ever of an American president. When the reality star realized that the actual reality of his defeat in the 2020 election could not be rewritten through lies, litigation and threats, he incited a bloody, treasonous attack on the Capitol building at one of the rare moments when virtually every member of Congress was present.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-01-29/trump-really-big-lie-politics-is-performing-art
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