Government by stuntmen

What we have is government by “stuntmen“, that’s the clearest thing I can think of to characterize it —Trump taking his little joyride yesterday to assure his boosters he’s feeling fine; the Bible photoshoot a few months ago in front of the church in DC; the proclamations made and photo-ops staged at various places along the real and imaginary Border Wall; Leader McConnell, talking through his mask, continuing to insist that Merrick Garland is not Amy Coney Barrett, is stuntman extraordinaire…

…government by “stuntmen” is maintained by unserious people doing serious business; by unserious people I mean people who have little or no training for the tasks they’ve been elected to perform, no contextual awareness of or appreciation for the crisis moment(s) they and those they govern are experiencing, and a complete disdain for rational political discussion…

…government by stuntmen is popping up all over the world—the latest is the new duly elected dictator of Algeria, Abelmadjid Tebboune, who smoked a whole pack of cigarettes during a recent one-hour interview with an American print journalist. btw: the going price for a seat in the Algerian Parliament is $540,000.

Stuntmen have no real politics, (by real, I mean the sort of politics that creates actual policy enacted for the benefit of the majority of constituents) other than what generates media attention and projects political power to their comparatively tiny base of supporters; therefore, stuntmen are interchangeable. SO that the virus, having taken D Trump out of the picture at least temporarily, could create the kind of leadership vacuum in which the brave and fearless—albeit small in physical stature—Vladimir Putin might feel compelled to move The Kremlin to the USA and run our country for a little while, a Stuntman posing as a Successful Right-wing Strongman; and if Putin is unavailable, the guy from Brazil or Turkey or Great Britain, or The Philippines or Belarus, all stuntmen, interchangeable one with the other, might be up for the gig.

Stuntmen are more to the political right than the left. In the USA, liberal Joe Biden, Democratic candidate for President, may be elected for his past crimes and bring back The Deep State, in which the unsuspecting American public will once again love everything stamped Made in China and drop stuff labeled Made in America like a hot potato.

Meantime, Trump watches poll numbers from his hospital bed in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center; which way the numbers move, up or down, will determine the next stunt. It better be good, as good as Amy Coney Barrett, as good as a quarantine stunt can possibly be that originated from a super spreader event the president organized in the Rose Garden.