th<\/sup> 2020<\/i><\/p>\nTrump wrote in a tweet Friday, \u201cRalph Waldo Emerson seemed to foresee the lesson of the Senate Impeachment Trial of President Trump. \u2018When you strike at the King, Emerson famously said, \u2018you must kill him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t for an instant believe Trump wrote that. It\u2019s unlikely he\u2019s ever even heard of Emerson, let alone be able to quote any of the man\u2019s writings. He may have heard the Prohibition-era quip that strong drink will make you shoot at \u2018revenooers\u2019 and miss. He may well think that assassination is a viable political tactic, since Hitler said, \u201cDemoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even he might think twice about making a remark about his potential assassination that some people could take as a challenge<\/i>. Unpopular leaders and even popular ones don\u2019t, as a rule, suggest to potential assassins that competence in their craft is a desirable feature. For obvious reasons, right?<\/p>\n
One of Trump\u2019s hirelings doubtlessly thought the Emerson quote would be good braggadocio<\/i>, a kind of a \u201cwe can do whatever the hell we want\u201d statement in the wake of the shameful and sham trial in the Senate.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s cabal\u2014and this is their one saving grace\u2014is that they are riddled with morons and incompetents. Even leaving aside the utter lunacy of a public figure saying what amounts to \u201cCome shoot at me if you\u2019re hard enough,\u201d there\u2019s the fact that very few American politicians ever gained much mileage out of comparing themselves to kings. With the exception of Huey Long (\u201cEvery man a king\u201d) most politicians prefer to avoid the term altogether, since memories of English tyranny, rightly or wrongly, are a part of the American DNA.<\/p>\n
Braggadocio<\/i> usually backfires. George W. Bush is still trying to live down \u201cBring it on!\u201d which got several hundred extra American troops killed in the middle east. About the only time it\u2019s warranted is when the circumstances are so dire that only over-the-top persiflage will do. Churchill\u2019s splendid rallying speeches in the darkest days of the Battle of Britain would have been deemed utterly ridiculous if the threatening invader was only Denmark, or Tonga.<\/p>\n
People don\u2019t like braggarts, outside of pro wrestling matches. Perhaps Donald thinks of the country as just another part of his pro wrestling empire. It\u2019s hard to say. Even pro wrestling has a term for that sort of posturing: kayfabe. It\u2019s a part of the act, just there to entertain the schmucks. But apart from the resolutely stupid people who still support Trump, Americans aren\u2019t schmucks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s dumbfounding that Trump\u2019s people would even want to put the notion of assassination on the table for public consideration. It\u2019s a horrifying concept on the face of it, right?<\/p>\n
But then I thought of an American movie that was made in an entirely different America some 45 years ago: Network<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall, this brilliant 1976 satire featured such things as doctors advertising their medical corporations, and news anchors who were loud, opinionated and dishonest. This was still the era of Cronkite, when newscasters were respected and trusted, and there were still firm restraints on corporate depredations. So the idea of a mad television anchor, Howard Beale (Finch) shouting things like \u201cI\u2019m mad as hell and I\u2019m not going to take it any more!\u201d was very foreign to American sensibilities of the time. This was a era when nobody could imagine the Rush Limbaughs and Faux News, and the populist shouters and screamers in sideshow religious and neo-nazi reactionary movements were relegated to small, lightly regarded AM radio stations out in the boonies.<\/p>\n
Network executives realized that Beale was developing a following amongst the dissaffected, and rather than sacking him (their first impulse) they kept him on, and he got crazier and crazier and his ratings rose.<\/p>\n
However, he turns on the corporate entities that own his network, and exposes corrupt Saudi dealings behind many of the corporate buyouts. Beale is ordered to evangelize in favor of corporate globalisation, and his ratings drop. People want crazy populists, not grimly efficient corporations that are out to suck them dry.<\/p>\n
Finally, it\u2019s decided: the only way to eliminate Beale and restore the ratings up is to arrange to have him assassinated, live on TV, during his news show.<\/p>\n
Thus, he is assassinated on screen, the most watched TV show in history. Beale dies a hero, a martyr to causes that he himself despised.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s widely reported that people in the White House, despite endless purges and cleansings, famously regard Trump as out of control and uncontrollable, a danger to himself and others. More than one \u201cinsider\u201d book has claimed that there is a cabal, a resistance, dedicated to preventing Trump from effectuating some of his loonier and more destructive impulses. Clearly this resistance has had little effect, and Trump is consolidating his power. The fact that the front runner against Trump is Sanders may increase the level of desperation of this resistance, since the only thing worse, in their eyes, than a mad, stupid Hitler is a democratic socialist.<\/p>\n
So this tweet might not be just bad judgment on the part of some flunky: it may be a signal that persons in the administration may be getting ready to Howard Beale Trump\u2019s ass. It wouldn\u2019t be hard to take the ensuing chaos, confusion and outrage and turn it to their own advantage. President Pence would be a hero who \u2018saved America\u2019 by tracking down the head of the evil conspiracy that took the beloved leader from us: Bernie Sanders. Yeah, yeah, I know. Doesn\u2019t matter if he had any involvement or not, though. He would be a serviceable villain for the Trumpkins, though. Rally the base, all that.<\/p>\n
Think it\u2019s far-fetched? Gawds, I hope so! I think it\u2019s far-fetched myself.<\/p>\n
But go rent a copy of Network and watch it.<\/p>\n
Then ask yourself if it\u2019s a possible scenario \u2013 or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Where\u2019s Waldo? Is he with Howard? February 17th 2020 Trump wrote in a tweet Friday, \u201cRalph Waldo Emerson seemed to foresee the lesson of the Senate Impeachment Trial of President Trump. \u2018When you strike at the King, Emerson famously said, \u2018you must kill him.\u2019\u201d Now, I don\u2019t for an instant believe Trump wrote that. It\u2019s … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Where\u2019s Waldo? – Is he with Howard?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,2,60,735],"tags":[325,937,938,936],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-humor","category-politics","category-terror","tag-assassination","tag-howard-beale","tag-network","tag-ralph-waldo-emerson"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere\u2019s Waldo? - Is he with Howard? · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=814\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where\u2019s Waldo? - Is he with Howard? · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Where\u2019s Waldo? Is he with Howard? February 17th 2020 Trump wrote in a tweet Friday, \u201cRalph Waldo Emerson seemed to foresee the lesson of the Senate Impeachment Trial of President Trump. \u2018When you strike at the King, Emerson famously said, \u2018you must kill him.\u2019\u201d Now, I don\u2019t for an instant believe Trump wrote that. 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