Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, recently introduced a panel segment on Donald Trump’s continuous lies. He laughed and recited a line supposedly given by Woody Allen, “What did reality ever do for me?”
As virtually everyone knows, or at least should know, so-called “reality TV shows” are anything but real. Possibly this was what Kellyanne Conway was referring to when she talked about “alternative facts” and what Rudy Giuliani meant when he blurted out that “truth isn’t truth.”
Networks manufacture reality shows for the titillation and mindless entertainment of the viewing public. Contestants have anywhere from their one hour to a full season of fame. Some may go on to appear in future seasons of the same show. Some get their own shows. Some might even get the questionable honor of working in the White House for a former reality personality.
Trump, arguably a successful star on NBC’s The Apprentice, could not get his fill of reality TV, so he created a new show on his presidential network.
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He patterned his recent project on much like what he saw in the Hollywood movie, The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey in the lead role as Truman Burbank.
The film documents a man who, for most of his life, remains unaware that he lives within a human-made artificial set of a reality television show, broadcast 24/7/365 to billions of people around the world.
The show’s executive producer and director, Christof, placed Truman at birth in the fictitious town of Seahaven, and he manipulates every aspect of his life. (I will leave it up to you to analyze why the director of this farce has been given the name “Christof.”)
To dissuade Truman from exploring past the limits of the constructed set, Christof pretends to kill Truman’s father in a fabricated storm to teach him to fear the water. In addition, actors playing the part of TV news reporters warn of the dangers of travel and promote the benefits of staying home.
However, stemming from some unforeseen glitches in the scenery and unexplained and habitual coincidences in the placement of the actors around him, Truman becomes suspicions until he discovers the truth about the artificiality, manipulation, and control Christof has perpetrated on him for the past 30 years.
Truman eventually outwits Christof and escapes the fabricated set into the warmth and brightness of a true sun, and the coolness and wetness of natural rain.
Like Christof, Trump has attempted to fabricate an artificial set in his desire of placing us all in the role of the unassuming Truman. Trump severely over-blows his skills and talents while fabricating enemies (Muslims, southern border invaders, Democrats, U.S. former allies, past treaty agreements, fake news, the lying press) to instill fear in the people whom he tells that “only [he] can fix it.”
Trump’s White House staff, cabinet, and advisors function as conscious and unconscious co-directors in this drama each time they go along with this president, and each time they fail to expose the truth of his manufactured dome of artifice.
The difference between Christof of The Truman Show and Donald in what he intended as The People’s Show is that while Truman spent 30 years in ignorance of his plight, only approximately 38% of the people in the latest polls still do not have a clue, while mostly everyone else saw the obvious flaws in the scenery and plot long ago.
Also different from The Truman Show, the people have been aided by the free press, many of which have exposed the truth about Trump and his regime even before the beginning.
Soon the people will dismantle this unreality set from within our voting booths, where hopefully we will never again vote for any reruns.
Donald Trump’s newest ‘reality’ show is a flop & should be cancelled