What happens when you elect a reality show host to be the president of the United States? You get a reality show host instead of the President of the United States.
Hiring and firing has nothing to do with a potential employee’s experience, qualifications, integrity, or achievements.
The rules are made up by the host (and his favorite “board members” du jour) as he goes along rather than by the three branches of government and the United States Constitution.
Decisions are made based on the all-important ratings (polls), who and how many are watching and cheering, rather than real-life effects the government’s decisions have on real people’s lives.
Project costs and the host’s unlimited expense account are paid for directly by the people of the United States rather than from a budget replenished with money from advertising.
When ratings are down for one of the shows on the Republican’s Incompetence Parade channel either do a special live episode to whip up some anger, hate, viewer worship, and nationalism; drop a bomb or shoot some missiles (without any plan) into another country; or devise a publicity stunt to either get attention for the host or to direct attention away from one terrible episode/shitbag host onto another.
Also, keep the producer’s names out of the credits because the American people, well some of them, don’t want to know for sure that the show is brought to them (in part) by Vladimir V. Putin. If the host slips and tells anyway, see previous “when ratings are down.”
We have some special episodes this week as our host is doing shows on location in the Middle East and Europe. Tuesday’s episode of Hate Speech (hosted by Trump) comes to us from Israel (we hear canned applause and “ooooohs” since our host is not paying a live studio audience this week so someone will applaud his bullshit-it’s a real audience in Bethlehem):
“I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term,” Trump said in Jerusalem on Tuesday (of the Manchester bomber and. . . others). “They would think that’s a great name. I will call them from now on losers, because that’s what they are. They’re losers. And we’ll have more of them. But they’re losers. Just remember that.”
He prefers to call his “them” “evil losers.” He figures this will make a good soundbite and be positive for ratings.
Also part of Tuesday’s Hate Speech, a tweet about the suicide bomber at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
All civilized nations must join together to protect human life and the sacred right of our citizens to live in safety and in peace.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2017
Viewers are expected to forget, again, all the horrid things he says about beating up minorities, how bad Mexicans and Muslims and refugees are, and how women have no value unless they’re young and beautiful and claimed by a white man. We’re also to forget that when ratings are down he’ll bomb someone. It doesn’t really matter who. At least he didn’t spill any more state secrets yesterday. As far as we know.
As we mourn Manchester, remember: for a moment of ignorant boasting, the president betrayed one of the West’s best sources inside ISIS.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 23, 2017
Was it Monday’s episode that had the curtsey?:
Try to keep up with 45. What will his positions be today? pic.twitter.com/rhGE1YRtLR
— E. Brooks (@GrayMattersTwit) May 24, 2017
Did you catch the Pence show this past weekend? Mother, May I? The episode where Vice President Mike Pence was invited to speak at Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony? It wasn’t good for ratings as a lot of the stars of the event, the college graduates, had to leave to avoid having to listen to his drivel. You might recall Pence from previous episodes where he attacks women’s rights, LGBTQ people, women’s health, and tries to put more (of his) religion in government. Like I said, it wasn’t a great episode, and you can’t help but feel bad for the stars since they put in a lot of years to get to that one special episode only to have that fucking guy show up. Still, fans of Pence’s Show like Franklin Graham (who has his own God show but is going very far out of his way to drive away viewers) believe that the stars of that Pence episode, the graduates, should not get their diplomas even though they paid for school ($47,929 – $64,775 per year) and worked their asses off to earn said diplomas. That crazy guy. What a knucklehead, right?
They do love their plot twists and their manufactured drama.
Franklin Graham: Notre Dame Should Rip Up the Diplomas of Students Who Protested Mike Pence https://t.co/nDuvT2SKCx pic.twitter.com/bHu6p6yXuC
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) May 22, 2017
This episode, though, was one of my recent favorites. Here’s my representative and Speaker of the House of Representatives talking about the attack on the concert-goers in Manchester, England. Many similar versions of this episode were played and replayed (until you want to throw up in someone else’s shoe):
Freedom, compassion, and peace will always prevail over violence and hate. We will never bow or bend to radical Islamist terror. pic.twitter.com/SbzZb1Rrlq
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) May 24, 2017
(yes, reader, you read that right: one of the muckety-mucks of the Party of Violence and Hatetm is telling you oh-so-sincerely that freedom, compassion, and peace will prevail over his party’s – um – I’d call them “bugs,” or “huge fucking problems,” but they’d call them “features”)
If we don’t like an episode of any of these shows we are to forget it and move on to the next one. Well, I haven’t forgotten.
My imaginary interview with Paul Fucking Ryan, you know, kind of post-game style:
Twisting my face into a big, game show-host smile, I try not to spit while I ask “How the fuck do you think we are suddenly going to buy that you, Paul Ryan, have even the slightest idea what compassion is? You, who are pushing that garbage tax plan as a “replacement” for a literally life-saving health care bill that allows millions of people to afford health insurance?
(not me, of course, because I live in Wisconsin)
“And, Paul Ryan, what makes you so sure that all of the viewers at home have forgotten your party’s, your fucking channel’s, hate and divisiveness? ‘Peace?’ You want to talk about peace? You wouldn’t know peace if it bit you on the ass. All you guys do is make war almost my entire life for profit. Wars that I pay for as well as my child and grandchildren. They will pay for their entire lives. And you want a tax break so your profiteering is in a lower bracket. You may not have spines, but you guys sure borrowed your balls back for that one.
“‘Freedom.’ There’s a fun one”. . . (keep the toothy smile going, don’t punch him in the neck, punching is bad, don’t punch him) . . . “It’s the Republican Party that is trying to morph our beautiful constitutional republic into a theocracy while you whine about Muslims and Sharia Law and ‘oh, I’m so persecuted, poor me.’ You tell us who we can love, who we can marry, who can take a piss (and where), who can get health care, which women can have birth control on their health plan, and if a woman can get an abortion when she needs it. All of this shit courtesy of your personal holy book. (Not mine because fuck your imaginary god. He’s an asshole, and I want nothing to do with such an awful construct.)
“You tell us you’re all pro-life when what you mean is you’re ‘pro-birth’ (if we can’t afford health care, we sure can’t afford childbirth), but once we pop out all these babies you want us to have (since we can’t get birth control or an abortion because God) you will be long gone with our money – no support, no help on food or day care or health care. You can’t even find it in your” . . .(what do republicans have where their hearts should be?). . . “lung to work toward a living minimum wage and fair pay for all. Many American citizens work their asses off just to survive and pay taxes without being able to get health care and other such ‘luxuries.’ If we can’t pay we also can’t afford bankruptcy. But not paying our bills can land us in jail where there is nobody to take care of all these babies. By the time all the babies are old enough for school if we can’t afford Christian school with your vouchers our kids won’t go. We all pay our taxes, we pay our part, but we won’t get the benefit of it. You and your rich buddies will.”
If I had let him get a lie in edgewise it wouldn’t matter anyway; Ryan’s not listening, and he doesn’t care. (Let’s agree not have me do an actual interview with him, shall we?) None of them care as long as they get theirs. It’s time to end this shitshow.
Our tax money goes to us, not building the already HUGE military even bigger. They have more money than they can spend making airplanes and tanks and such, as it is. I still want to know why a chunk of the surplus they claim they have can’t go to salaries and to veterans, consumers who will spend the money and help the economy. Tax money goes to benefit us, not religious schools. We make our own decisions. We get affordable health care, clean air and water, public schools/libraries/roads/police/etc., and the freedom to make our own decisions (including family planning and who/if we marry). We work; we pay our taxes; we take care of each other; you mind your own business.
We don’t forget your previous episodes, republicans, your lying, your stealing from us, your hate, talking down to us as if you’re the boss. You’re not. Neither is the president, and do not forget it. We citizens (“viewers,” to you) are the bosses of this country, and we make the choices in our lives. The Constitution protects us. You are disobeying us, breaking our laws. We are watching as you guys sell yourselves, us, and our country to Russia or anyone else who’ll give you the power you want.
Don’t think you can come on the show this week doing the “compassion and caring thing;” we know who you are. We’ve been watching this channel for years.
I don’t want to hear/read one more condolence from a republican official regarding Manchester. The Republican Party, and its members and voters, are part of the hate and division, part of the problem. Until you can fix the programming and be part of the solution, your ratings will continue to drop, and your advertisers will leave. You’ve jumped the shark.
(A person can only take so many threats, lies, and so much hypocrisy before they snap – this is the prettied-up, nice version – the whole party can take their hate and their hypocrisy and shove it. Sideways.)
Link: Comic at the top of the article – by Gary Markstein