----------------------- [excerpt continued / Frank Rich article, NYMagazine, September 20, 2015 -- "Donald Trump Is Saving Our Democracy"] ------------------
He is, as many say, making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, as "dangerous to democracy."
Trump may be injecting American democracy with steroids. No one, after all, is arguing that the debates among the GOP presidential contenders would be drawing remotely their Game of Thrones-scale audiences if the marquee stars were Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.
When most of the field -- minus Trump -- appeared ahead of the first debate at a New Hampshire forum broadcast on C-SPAN, it caused little more stir than a soporific pageant of congressional backbenchers addressing the empty floor of the House.
Without Trump, even a relatively tame Trump, would anyone have sat through even a third of the three-hour-plus trainwreck that CNN passed off as the second debate?
What has made him more entertaining than his peers is not his superficial similarities to any historical analogues or his shopworn celebrity. His passport to political stardom has been his uncanny resemblance to a provocative fictional comic archetype that has been an invigorating staple of American movies since Vietnam and Watergate
ushered in wholesale disillusionment with Washington four decades ago. That character is a direct descendant of Twain's 19th-century confidence man: the unhinged charlatan who decides to blow up the system by running for office -- often the presidency -- on a platform of outrageous pronouncements and boorish behavior.
Trump has taken that role, the antithesis of the idealist politicians enshrined by Frank Capra and Aaron Sorkin, and run with it. He bestrides our current political landscape like the reincarnation not of Joe McCarthy (that would be Ted Cruz) but of Jay Billington Bulworth.
Trump's shenanigans sometimes seem to be lifted directly from the...1998 movie [Bulworth], in which Warren Beatty plays a senator from California who abandons his scripted bromides to take up harsh truth-telling in rap....
Bulworth insults the moderators of a television debate, addresses his Hollywood donors as "big Jews," and infuriates a black constituent by telling her he'll ignore her unless she shells out to his campaign. Larry King, cast as himself, books him on his show because "people are sick and tired of all this baloney" and crave an unplugged politician who calls Washington "a disaster."
----------------------- [end, article excerpt] --------------
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I looked up a couple of words from this segment:
soporific
tending to induce drowsiness or sleep
bromide
a trite and unoriginal idea or remark, typically intended to soothe or placate
(Sigh. Grrr.)
placate
make someone less angry or hostile
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Sometimes I kind of know words, but I wouldn't like to be asked to explain their specific meaning, because I'm not sure, I only have a sense of it...
Sometimes when I'm reading if I don't understand something, I just keep on reading.
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showcasing and sharing a blog I love:
Jacqueline's Cat House
The proprietor of this blog posts seven days a week.
Each post is one or more photographs of her cats, sometimes with a line or two of typed thoughts and notes; sometimes just the picture(s).
This blog is so consistent. I like that.
Each Thursday is "thankful."
Every Wednesday is "wordless."
Every Tuesday is "Tummy Tuesday."
(As Cat People know, many cats typically like to lie down and -- rooolllll gently, and show you their lovely furry tummy ["hello!"])
That blog is a Gentle Funny Happy Space. And aesthetically pleasing: good photography.
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