Well, friends, it looks like the Republican party isn’t the only institution which Donald Trump has managed to lay waste to and salt the ground below it. Heather Cox Richardson has an opinion about why the reality TV bubble has basically burst for good. Reality TV was the go to answer during the writers’ strike of 2008 but the writers’ strike of 2023 was a completely different kettle of fish, to the dismay of those who made their living in the industry. Gee, wonder what happened between 2008 and 2023 which might estrange people from reality TV?
From April to June, reality TV production in the Los Angeles region fell by 57% compared to the same period in 2023; that’s a 50% drop over the five-year average, excluding the Covid-induced production shutdown. The immediate reasons for the dropping production are systemic to the business, Carras reports, but the change seems to represent Americans’ souring on the blurring of reality and entertainment that gave us the Trump era.
Trump rose to political power thanks to his appearances on reality TV, which claimed to be unscripted but was actually edited to emphasize ruthless competition among people striving for ultimate victory in a closed system. The Apprentice launched in 2004, and its highly edited episodes portrayed its star, Trump, as a brilliant and very wealthy businessman despite his past failures.
Since 2015, Trump has offered a simple narrative of American life that did not reflect reality. Using the sort of language rising authoritarians use to attract a disaffected population, he promised those left behind economically by forty years of supply-side economics that he would bring back manufacturing, close tax loopholes, promote infrastructure, and make healthcare cheaper and better. He also promised sexists and racists who wanted to roll back the gains women and racial and gender minorities had made since the 1950s that he would, once again, center white, heteronormative men.
He never delivered on his economic promises: manufacturing continued to decline, he cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, “infrastructure week” became a national joke, and rather than expand the Affordable Care Act, Republicans repeatedly tried to kill it. But Trump and his followers did center those who had gravitated toward the MAGA movement for its cultural promises. Now, in 2024, that gravitation means that the Republican Party has become an antidemocratic vehicle for Christian nationalism.
Trump empowering Christian nationalism is no small thing. Do not underestimate it. I’ve studied those people at length and their Seven Mountains theory. The Dominionists, or Christian Nationalists believe that “God revealed to them that our culture is broken up into these seven categories: Church, Family, Arts & Entertainment, Business, Education, Media, and Government.” True believers are taught to vote according to the “Biblical” principles of the church running the country, which is not Biblical, plus in America it’s contrary to the Constitution. Nevertheless, the end game is to control these seven mountains and thereby control the culture, and change our form of government from democracy to theocracy.
And Mike Pence was, probably still is, right there for all this. This is what Erik Prince (who bankrolled Pence) and Betsy DeVos and that sector of the Republican party are all about. This is their blueprint for a theocratic takeover. Pat Robertson came up with this plan in the 80s. Jeff Sessions was all in for this and Stephen Miller worked for Jeff Sessions. It’s not too difficult to connect the dots.These people would have you and me living in the Handmaid’s Tale tomorrow if they could swing it.
I make this point here deliberately because right now the GOP is sick of Trump because of how he has destroyed the party, but they were only too thrilled to capitalize on his reality TV persona if it would get them federal judgeships and Supreme Court seats and, voila, it did. We will be living with the results of the disastrous Trump administration for at least a generation. But let’s look on the bright side: Americans are seeing the difference between Trump talking the talk and the Biden/Harris administration, (soon to be Harris/Walz) walking the walk.
The difference between sound bites and the hard work of governance was illustrated last week when Biden and Harris were the ones who pulled off a complicated multi-country swap that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich—whom Trump had repeatedly boasted that he alone could get Russian president Vladimir Putin to release—along with fifteen other Russian-held prisoners.
That focus on complicated governance rather than sound bites has paid off in the Indo-Pacific region as well. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote in the Washington Post today that “enhanced U.S. power in the [Indo-Pacific] region is one of the most important legacies of this administration.”
They note that “[n]o place on Earth is more critical to Americans’ livelihoods and futures than the Indo-Pacific.” It generates nearly 60% of global gross domestic product and its commerce supports more than 3 million U.S. jobs, while the area’s security challenges—North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and China’s provocations at sea—have far reaching effects.
As the U.S. turned inward during the Trump administration, China’s power grew, and when Biden and Harris took office, America’s standing in the Indo-Pacific was at “its lowest point in decades.” Biden’s transformation of the nation’s Indo-Pacific policy “is one of the most important and least-told stories of the [administration’s] foreign policy strategy,” the authors write. Biden’s team replaced one-to-one relationships in the region with wider partnerships: AUKUS, a new security partnership comprising Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.; a trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea; and a summit with Japan and the Philippines. It elevated the Quad—Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.—and hosted both the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum. With 13 other countries, it created the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.
This is governance. This is America being the country that earned us, at one time, the title Greatest Country On Earth. And this is why a lot of Republicans are pledging to vote the Harris/Walz ticket. You probably read about John Giles, who is the Mayor of Mesa, Arizona and who spoke at the Glendale, Arizona rally yesterday. He said, “I don’t recognize my own party anymore.”
I see his point. The GOP is headed by two idiots right now. Last Monday the stock market went down two points and Trump and Vance literally began talking about the end of the world.
The Dow, which measures 30 of the nation’s older, prominent companies, and the S&P 500, which measures 500 of the largest companies on the U.S. stock exchanges, took their biggest daily losses [on Monday] since September 2022, although they still remain up about 60% from the time of Biden’s election.
In June, Moody’s Analytics assessed that the economy would grow less under Trump’s policies than under a continuation of Biden’s, but today, Trump promptly wrote: “Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, followed that up by blaming Vice President Kamala Harris. “The stock market is crashing because of weak and failed Kamala Harris’ policies and the world is on the brink of WW3,” he said.
The “crash” was 2% on Monday. On Tuesday, the market bounced back and rose higher, even, and Trump and Vance clammed up. Plus, Vance blaming Harris for the stock market is insanity on its face. She has no control over the market, neither does Joe Biden. But it “makes sense” insofar as it’s not campaigning. It’s reality TV. It’s all sound bites, illusion, smoke and mirrors. But the bubble has burst. Both bubbles. Donald Trump is on his way out and so is reality TV, the horse he rode in on. Good riddance to them.
Good riddance indeed. I could never understand the draw for reality tv. Just a bunch of screwups airing their dirty laundry on tv for the world to see how exactly stupid they are.
To be honest, I never watched enough of it to form an opinion. I remember the Kardashians were supposed to be so glamorous or some shit, but I never watched it. And I never saw a single episode of The Apprentice. I regret that now. If I had seen it, I might have been the next Paul Revere, “Trump is coming, Trump is coming.”
When the writers’ strike happened, the networks desperately needed content to.fill the empty hours where there were no new episodes to run. They went toward “unscripted” shows like Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of ______, with an emphasis on boozy hookups and cat fights. Reality TV was desperation. But how many times can you watch the same obnoxious fights and drunken sex portrayed by people you wouldn’t want living next door without getting bored? It’s basically like having to deal.with your nasty niece and alcoholic uncle at Thanksgiving dinner to the point where you decide that next year you will go somewhere anywhere next holiday season?
I think Survivor was the first one that was big. I heard about the concept and learning a retired Navy SEAL wound be among those “stranded” on some island with pretty much nothing and have to figure out how to get by it was a foregone conclusion who’d win so why bother watching? People would talk about the episodes and I’d learn more about how the “game” worked and my opinion of the whole thing dropped even lower. I never watched a single episode of it or any other “reality” TV show. It seemed patently obvious it was a form of Championship Wrestling where winners and losers are pre-determined and that the selling point was all the manufactured drama.
I’ll take even a kind of cheesy sitcom or drama over that so called reality crap any day of the week. Or watch a movie or read a book. Or more often in recent years put in extra time trying to become better informed. Pro sports and even college basketball long ago lost their allure for me (the Olympics too) so I have time to devote to political activism.
Flapping jaws over at the Republican hell holes have exhausted any, “NEW”, stuff, Trump’s whirligig, wheel of fortune is slowing down to a crawl, his payback woes in the Court systems are hanging by a well-worn thread directly over Trump’s head … His former cash-flow plans are dead in the water, his family is dried up and floating on their own set of charges to be levied soon, things for us are looking up, Trump’s view is wall-to-wall fire and brimstone, his blood pressure must be sky high, only because he HAS to do knee bends to the Courts because of his innate stupidity, which will drape his huge form in bright orange …
He’s going nuts right now. This is going to be so much fun to watch. That evil man has tortured this nation, is responsible for the death of 1.1 million Americans, and now we get to watch him melt down and wash out publicly.
I track the stocks and funds that I own, which are well diversified, and just for grins and giggles I also track the Trump Media stock (which I don’t own), the stock symbol for which is DJT. Over the past few months I have made an interesting observation. Whenever the majority of stocks are in the green (rising in comparison to the day before, DJT is almost always the deepest red (losing value), at the bottom of all the stocks and funds I am tracking The reverse is also true. When the majority of stocks and funds are in the red, the DJT stock flips to green at the top of the list. However, most days the first condition is the case, with the huge majority of stocks and funds doing well and Trump’s DJT stock descending ever lower in the toilet.
So when Trump speaks of the stock market crashing, he is probably only looking at his own stock. And his own stock performance seems to be diametrically opposed to that of the rest of the stock market.
So here’s what I think is happening. When his DJT investors see the stock market doing well, they get paniky about the great job Biden is doing for the economy, and they engage in panic selling of Trump’s stock. When they see the stock market dipping, that gives them hope that the Biden administration is failing, and that Trump can win. So they rebuy their stock.
In other words, Trump and his investors do NOT have the intersts of the general economy at heart. They WANT our economy to fail. Takeaway from this is that Trump and his investors do not have the interest of the USA at heart – only their own selfish pockets. On most days the manority of stocks and funds are doing really well, so the DJT stock is going lower and lower and lower and lower. Frankly, it’s really fun to watch.
I guess this means more bad sitcoms with laugh tracks. Or maybe crappy weekly dramas. Or bad movies. You know, I’m of a mind to say if it ain’t PBS, it ain’t worth diddly.
Still, the removal of “reality” t.v. (also known as television since it IS scripted) can only make t.v. better even if all that is ever put out again is crap-it’ll never be as crappy as that crap.
Majority, not manority. Damned slipped virtual keyboard! Tends to register the keys down and to the left of what I type. I catch most of the errors, but rarely one gets missed despite my efforts.
Eighteen years ago I got a supposed 2 hr. gig on a reality show. It was 4 hours before they even got to the segment I was part of. What they finally aired was completely staged and not at all what took place. Every single minute of the episode was cut and edited into an entirely different evening. They also tried to stiff me for my contracted pay and after 6 weeks of waiting, I had to threaten to expose them an sick a lawyer on them. This was a show that is still on and I have no doubt it’s as phony now as it was then.
I find “reality TV” phony & boring. I do watch the “VOICE” & sometimes feel the Winner is staged. But there isn’t a lot of good TV anymore. Short seasons SUCK! I Record a lot of PBS, like the Police Procedurals/Series. Love Professor T, All Creatures great & small, Hercule Poirot. Oldies Music series. Problem is most are OLD Series, Midsummer Murders. Cable has some Movies, but mostly show the SOS. Well, we now have Kamala & Tim Walz, what a awesome Team. I’m afraid for them, as time goes by to the ELECTION. So many RW crazies. Dem’s must be prepared for anything!
People are sick of ‘reality’. My advice is head back to fantasy and escapes from reality. You know…like reading books. Stuff like that. Morons on parade have run their course.
The ONLY thing Morons on parade have learned, is what TRUMP prints on all those cards he hands out to his paid-for sign-swingers on the stands behind his mic-podium … If it says, “TRUMP”, it’s the right one, which is good as Trump has to look over his shoulder once-in-awhile to remember these days what his name is …
Trump must be pretty lonely, being dumber that that proverbial ROCK …