Lawrence O’Donnell lays out our inconvenient truth
Lawrence O’Donnell points out an inconvenient truth all Americans must take responsibility for, the creation of Donald Trump. O’Donnell pointed out the path taken in striking detail.
“I think we have to widen the frame to explain how Trumpism has gotten this far,” Lawrence O’Donell said. “I use to try to explain it just by looking at the evolution of our politics — Sarah Paling for vice president in 2008 is an obvious antecedent to Donald Trump as the Republican front-runner eight years later. We can find points on the political map like that, that are explanatory. But our political culture is inextricable from the rest of our culture, our popular culture.”
O’Donnell then drew the map that detailed America’s decline. Americans provided huge ratings for a show that made fun of a kid, Honey Boo Boo. American’s anointed celebrity to people whose infamy was built on murder or made up reality. The American mindset went from being one’s brother’s keeper to that of a type of degeneracy that made exploiting the pain of others vogue as if laughing at someone else’s pain minimizes one’s pain. Is it any surprise then that Donald Trump, the master of reality shows would get the same following from those who have been programmed to accept a fake reality as real?
“Celebrity is now easily achieved without any admirable talent or ability, which of course brings us back to Donald Trump,” O’Donnell said. “Who managed to stoke his fame by being the guy everyone hates in real life but who they then think is fun to watch on a reality show. The guy who fires people. That’s what reality TV does. It takes behavior that we should be ashamed of, embarrassed of, that we should condemn, that we should hope our children never engage in, and reality TV presents it as fun. And so today, people go to Donald Trump rallies for the fun.”
Lawrence O’Donnell hit on the most important subject, education.
“Most of our voters are products of those struggling schools,” O’Donnell said. “All our politicians and pundits who’ve been telling you how bad our public schools are for fifty years still try to tell you that those schools are producing the smartest voters in the world.”
Sadly that is not true. Americans do not learn civics anymore. No longer are Americans empowered into the reality that the government is in fact, ‘we the people’ and as such we have a responsibility to be informed. We have a responsibility to engage our democracy. We have a responsibility to prevent charlatans who would corrupt us.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump understands America’s middle-class decline both financially and mentally.
“Donald Trump knows better,” O’Donnell points out. “He credited his big win in Nevada to among others, his beloved poorly educated. … Millions of our voters don’t have the basic skills of separating fact from fiction.”
O’Donnell pointed out all the fallacies millions of Americans, specifically Trump supporters, believe.
“It would be impossible for our educational system to slide into decline without our collective our collective intelligence, our values, our popular culture, sliding into decline with,” O’Donnell said. “Donald Trump needed all of us play our parts in all of that for decades in order for him to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. A year ago none of us knew we had slid this far into decline so far that Donald Trump could be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Nevermind being the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential Party nomination. Bu here we are.”
Decline does not have to be permanent. Education and enlightenment are the antidotes for the decline.