Trying To Make Sense Of The US Election

Above image by Rene DeAnda

In what can only be called a series of moments of schadenfreude artistry, brilliance, and chutzpah, Donald Trump has spent the last few months verbally and vindictively stumbling his way through one public appearance after another on the campaign trail to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

At times, his invective against imagined and potentially real enemies was so violently and colourfully alienating, that it left some witnesses wondering if he was deliberately trying to lose rather than win the election. At one rally, he seemed to have given up altogether as he danced his way through a playlist of his favourite pieces of music, like a bad circus clown who had forgotten his lines.

In other public appearances, his incessant barrage of insults included thinly veiled threats to particular ‘enemies within’ (Liz Cheney) as well as to other left-leaning opponents, illegal immigrants, legal immigrant Haitians, the Jews, Mexicans, Latinos, and just about anybody else he felt were the cause of his suffering. Many of those on the wrong end of his tongue were ironically the very people he would need to vote for him if he was to get anywhere near the front gates of the White House. And yet vote for him they did! In the millions!

This puts me in mind of the cult classic movie The Producers by Mel Brooks. On the off chance you don’t know the film, it is the story of an attempted financial scam in theatreland.

‘Max Bialystock is an ageing Broadway producer whose career has veered from great success to the depths of near failure. He now ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence while romancing lascivious, wealthy elderly women in exchange for money for a “next play” that may never be produced.

Leopold “Leo” Bloom, a nervous young accountant prone to hysterics, arrives at Max’s office to audit his accounts and discovers a $2,000 discrepancy in the accounts of Max’s last play. Max persuades Leo to hide the fraud, and Leo realizes that, since a flop is expected to lose money, the IRS will not investigate its finances, so a producer could earn more from a flop than from a hit by overselling interests and embezzling the funds.’ Wikipedia.

In search of a perfect flop, Max and Leo find the ideal play to execute their cunning plan, ‘Springtime for Hitler.’

‘Max sells 25,000% of the play to investors...To guarantee the show’s failure, they hire Roger De Bris, a flamboyantly gay transvestite director, whose productions seldom make it past initial rehearsals.’ Wikipedia.

Mulling over how the 2024 election was conducted and won by Trump and Vance, the thought occurred to me that perhaps it was masterminded by Mel Brooks. Here was an opportunity to produce something unique, art imitating life imitating art.

Trump is Max and Vance is Leo. One night in July 2024, Max invites Leo to Mar Milagro to discuss the upcoming election. Sensing that after the events of J6 2020 there was very little chance of Max or his party winning the next election, the two chumfucks settle down to watch a movie on the Turner Classic Movie channel, The Producers, which gives them the big idea.

They decide to garner big donations from billionaires with the promise of billion-dollar government contracts once they get into power. However, the big idea all along was to fail to win the election and head for the hills with the donations. All they had to do was double down on their unsuitability as candidates and it was as good as in the bag.

During the ensuing campaign, Max, a repulsive ‘six-times bankrupt, alleged rapist, 34-times convicted insurrectionist felon, so-called ‘racist, sexist, and misogynistic bigot,’ piles on the disagreeable behaviour to the point of absurdity. In a televised debate with Candy, his female opponent, there is a moment of high drama when stung by her negatively commenting on his rallies, Max becomes enraged.

Like some demented granddad in a retirement home cum mental institute, weaving between moments of clarity and total and utter apparent madness, Max blurts out “They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats!” All Candy can do is look on with an expression of ‘What The Fuck!’ However, rather than a sign of madness, Max’s outrageous comments were intentionally designed to wrongfoot Candy and her attack on his popularity.

Other elements of the election campaign also make for yet more high drama. Two apparent, thankfully failed, assassination attempts, plus worrying undercurrents of fascism and foreign interference. When you add it all up, you could be forgiven for believing that since Candy runs an apparently impeccable campaign, it’s a slam dunk for her party and jail for Max and Leo.

In real life, what really happened was that against the odds, Trump and his running mate Vance won, hands down. And that my friends has left not only half of America but also half of the planet scratching their heads, muttering very publicly “What the fuck,” indeed.

The puzzlement is not born of a preference for one party over another, it is simply how one side can perform so badly with a bad actor and yet still win the game, stealing victory from a side that played a blinder. How can somebody of such questionable character win and one of the most decent politicians in modern times lose?

If Mel Brooks is still in the game, even at ninety-eight years old, this idea for a film could become a box office hit. As for what comes next in real life, who knows?

Maybe a lot of what Trump said he was going to do was just rhetorical bluster, designed to appeal to his target audience, pandering to their prejudices just to get elected, with no intention of doing even half of what he said. Besides, there are checks and balances in a government with a strong opposition on the other side, as well as some pretty smart people on his own side. Let’s just hope for the best, that is all we can do.