couch potato US voter
© Steve Cutts
Go ahead, elect, appoint, anoint—whatever it is you do with Prezzidents. It won't matter. Because it didn't matter who was President, and will matter even less who plays "The Prezz" on reality TV for the next four years.

As far as actual Presidents, we had Bush, who told lies about Iraq and Afghanistan (to name a few), who was owned by a bunch of Wall Street insiders and whose foreign policy team was stocked with murderous Neocons. And then we had Obama, who told lies about Libya, Syria and the Ukraine (to name a few), who was owned by a bunch of Wall Street insiders and whose foreign policy team was stocked with murderous Neocons. The only difference is that Obama promised a bunch of things—you know, "Change!"—and they didn't happen. Bush played dumb, Obama pretended to be smart, but both are just sleazy. To find a President who wasn't a sleazy slimeball, you have to go all the way back to Jimmy Carter. But it didn't matter that he was President either; everything he did was undone by the next sleazebag in line.

But Trump is different. He is actually a good fit, as an ornamental figurehead, for what the United States has become in its senescence and decrepitude. Here is a short list of things that make him an ideal pick for the role of "the Prezz" on reality TV.
  1. Trump is just a brand—a picture of his likeness with the word "Trump" over it, and a salesman's cant: I am a smart guy, I know how to strike deals, blah blah blah. And, it turns out, by this point in time the United States is also just a brand—a stripey flag and some verbiage that rings increasingly hollow: indispensable nation, freedom and democracy, world policeman, blah blah blah. Now, the United States did at some point stand for something: the rule of law, the right to mind your own business, the ability to get things done. But now it stands for lawlessness. How many Wall Street types got jailed for their transgressions in recent years? None. They don't even get juvenile detention; they just get off by paying a fine. How many unarmed people got shot by police lately? Lots. Do the cops get any jail-time for what amounts to murder? No. It also stands for a surveillance state that would make Stalin blush: your right to privacy has been eliminated. And the ability to get things done has moved overseas; all that's left in the US is a bunch of corporate scams—in medicine, in education, in housing, in energy, plus a hyped-up "tech bubble" based on short-lived imported widgets and bits of software cludged together by overcaffeinated hipsters. Do any of these things make you want to jump up and down and yell "Rah-rah?" or "USA #1?" Well, no, so all you have left is the stripey flag; go and wave it about then!
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