Source: Anti-Trump hotel set to open in Washington, D.C. – UPI.com
It’s been over a year since the earth shattering election in the US which ushered Donald J. Trump into the national presidency. During the course of the election, all manner of hysteria was on full display from all quarters of the rabid opposition; from other politicos, the entertainment industry and of course from the national news outlets. After a year of digging into the dry hole which is Russia Russia Russia, they are still poring over any scintilla of a hint of evidence that the Trump presidency was the result of an elaborate Russian plot.
While there is no time limit on the terms of an investigation, any rational person would conclude that given the monies and effort spent on finding any kind of link to Russian collusion and finding none after a year, that it’s a waste of time and more likely an exercise driven by partisan opponents still incredulous on the election result. Does Monty Python’s black knight in the forest skit ring true for anyone? The phenomenon of slightly unhinged partisan opposition is given more and more credence by the news of the soon to be opened anti Trump hotel in Washington DC. The Eaton Workshop hotel, scheduled to open in the spring, bills itself as a haven for political activists who long for the days when President Barack Obama resided in the White House. As the link shows, i am not making this up.
For those of us seated with a big tub of popcorn watching the left eating themselves through revelations of corrupt Hollywood practices or exposes by a former DNC officer on the workings of their candidate processes, it’s been a joy to watch as the left gets consumed by their own sanctimony. Looking for any ring to grasp as their ideology sinks, the most recent idea is to corral Joe Biden back to run in the next election. Sure he’s likeable enough, but he’s as close to being a cardboard cutout of a person as you can get. However his main shortcoming is, just like the past President, he’s done nothing his entire life but work in government. The left are so bereft of ideas other than “not Trump” that they’d reach for an anchor if it was offered to them.
The great political divide revealed by the results of the last election has only become wider. However the events that have transpired over the past year indicates that it is not the superior arguments of one side that will sway the other. We can see that there is a deeply seated intransigence on the left that is immune from any rational tonic. Which means that going forward, it won’t be favorable policies that will sway the public, it will be partisan victories regardless of their consequences.
Source: The Creator Of ‘Blackish’ Doesn’t Want To Talk About Diversity
Finally, someone gets it. Hollywood is the font of what eventually becomes the pop in pop culture. They’ve always enjoyed the role of being shapers of opinions and creators of reality out of mostly fantasy. From the early days, TV shows portrayed the idyllic American family in shows such as Leave It To Beaver, My Three Sons and Father Knows Best to name a few. Much of the narrative and accepted norms of American culture were shaped by such shows.
In reality, the squeaky clean lives portrayed by most of these Wasp-y scenarios likely didn’t necessarily reflect the experience of the average viewer. Westerns were also a big part of pop culture in those days and undoubtedly they were also stylized romantic depictions of the cowboy life. But in most cases, the stories revolved around characters and situations linked to otherwise normal people. Characters exhibited many of the bedrock values of American culture; unimpeachable honesty, strength, resilience and bravery. Those values came to represent Americans worldwide regardless of the actual reality. People globally embraced these ‘American values’ portrayed in entertainment because there was an aspirational aspect about them and likely different than their native experiences.
Somewhere along the way in recent years, the stories took a back seat to the background as the hurty feely sensitive crowd started to require characters that aligned with some idealized quotient of demographic representation. In efforts to eradicate perceived stereotypes of races, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. As an example, it’s hard to find any cop show on television today which doesn’t feature a black supervising officer. When and if Asians are portrayed at all, they are typically doctors or Kung Fu experts…or both.
When stories specifically revolve around the day to day angst about being a minority, the entertainment value collapses and the show resembles a social studies class at Berkeley. Nobody enjoys a sanctimonious lecture disguised as entertainment…think Al Gore and Michael Moore. More importantly, one note shows are boring…think Al Gore and Michael Moore.
Far from being inclusive, the balkanization of race as portrayed by socially ‘responsible’ television shows serves only to exaggerate differences in people rather than to portray their stories as…just stories. The obsessive need to be inclusive ironically creates more division as stereotypes become reinforced and caricatured, probably the opposite of the intent. The laudable aspect of American culture as portrayed by entertainment was that color and race were not explicitly played up. They were about themes and about “us” as in the royal “us” which includes everyone. Now it’s popular to showcase “us” and “them” with the implication that the audience will identify with a featured clique. This is not entertainment and it is not art. It is the dulling of the edge of creativity that artists are always railing for. They are forcing stories to be told only through a certain acceptable prism. It’s as if someone were forced to submit a financial report via the medium of interpretive dance. We don’t want lectures. We want entertainment.