In the early 1920s, famous pundit/critic H.L. Mencken wrote that the American republic would fall within a hundred years.
The two reasons, Mencken wrote, would be ignorance and greed.
This prediction might not have come true yet, but I for one think its lifespan might have been extended for a few years beyond Mencken’s 100 by World War II and America’s dominance in the years immediately after.
We may be seeing it happening in the present time, though. It is difficult if not impossible to imagine the American electorate in the 20th century even coming close to electing Donald Trump president.
— A businessman who had declared bankruptcy multiple times and who had been sued thousands of times.
— A man with a history of racism, both in business and in his personal life.
— A husband who had been divorced twice and who had been chronically unfaithul in all three of his marriages.
— A man convicted of 34 felonies.
— A serial liar.
— A man who failed to display even a minimal level of courtesy, let alone respect, to his opponents. “Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Lyin’ Kamala.”
There was never a serious candidate who spoke as negatively about America or who spoke as aggressively to its foreign allies.
Of course there has never been the confluence of circumstances that exist in the present time — 24-hour media unfettered by fairness, wild disparities in income, human interactions based on sarcasm and disrespect.
And of course, hero worship of celebrity, particularly that of people on television.
Producer Mark Burnett, who had pioneered so-called reality television with “Survivor,” cam up with a series that would star Trump as a businessman wildly different from what he actually was. The fictitious Trump was intelligent, insightful and reasonable. He didn’t cheat anyone and he didn’t lose his temper.
He was a man to be admired.
At least we thought he was.
But of course, television isn’t reality.
It never was.