“If Fox News Told the Truth About Who’s Really Too Old To Run For President” It Would Look Like This

We live in a world of smoke and mirrors, friends. It is the world of television. Television has reshaped our world since its inception. It came into our homes en masse, in the 1950’s. It was both a member of the family and a window into another dimension; a dimension of sight, a dimension of sound, a dimension of mind, as Rod Serling put it. Yes, he was describing the Twilight Zone but he was also describing TV and the impact it was having on our culture. The advent of television was the advent of the Twilight Zone in American, and later, world culture.

Serling would not be all that surprised if he was here now to see all this. I say that because the genius of Twilight Zone is that it captured the zeitgeist of the 50’s. Not only was television reshaping our world, but the study of psychology was new in the world. And living on a planet which now had the ability to totally destroy itself was also something new. Mankind had moved into a new era. Serling was a veteran of WWII and his worldview was molded by that experience, as was fellow veteran Kurt Vonnegut’s.

Serling was not a sci fi or speculative fiction writer. He and Ray Bradbury, who was a consummate sci fi/fantasy writer had a bitter falling out, which caused them to not speak at all the last 20 years of Serling’s life. Bradbury said Serling “didn’t understand the genre.” And quite probably he was right. But it was his skewed vision of the genre, coupled with his grasp of the temper of the times, that made Twilight Zone the iconic show that it was.

So Serling would grok the Trump phenomenon, if anybody would. What you’ve seen in the era of Donald Trump is how television is used to sell a man as a leader, when that man is no more qualified for world leadership than he is qualified to fly to the moon, with or without a spacecraft. But with television’s help, he did manage to market himself in such a fashion that, with the help of a progressively shattering GOP, he was elected president of the United States in 2016. The camera always lies, as Dick Cavett opined in the 70’s, but even the camera can’t lie about this for too much longer.

Doesn't it make you wonder what ever did he do to or for the people who originally saw his defects and character flaws but somehow decided they didn't matter, and that he would be the perfect person to lead America and the free world. How did they lose sight of the obvious?

— MsBeWildered (@MsBeWildered) February 12, 2024

2017: Trump was ALWAYS unfit! At the start of his admin, he bragged about firing 59 missiles at IRAQ. But it was Syria. https://t.co/Fu2xE9ojGDpic.twitter.com/AXtosYIxFY

— 🌻Justice⚖Now 🌟🇺🇸 (@ChrisJustice01) February 11, 2024

Excellent point. Nothing has changed with Trump — except to get worse.

It’s not about Trump. Obama said that early on. He said Trump, “is not the problem. He’s the symptom.” And indeed he is. He’s the symptom of two things: what the worst of our country is, fear ridden, ignorant and racist. Those people have always been with us, but never in the ascendency, as now.

And the second thing is the collapse of the Republican party. That’s the main thing, actually. The GOP is in a state of collapse or else it never would have been so utterly devoid of leadership as to send a clown to the palace, with the belief that that would make him a king. No, elevating the clown only made the palace a circus.

But still they persist. The tragedy of politics in 2024 is that the GOP is fully on board for its own annihilation and America’s. That’s what you’re looking at, is the suicide of the Grand Old Party, live and in living color on television, with its star, the spraypainted, hairsprayed begirdled rapist accused felon. What a show.