Imagine, if you will, it’s 1943. The Nazis are at the height of their power. The Nuremberg trials are nothing but a pipe dream, and the National Broadcasting Co. announces Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, will be the special guest on the next episode of The Texaco Star Theater - one of the most popular variety shows of the thirties and forties.
Now, imagine it’s 2019. The most criminally corrupt president in the history of this Republic is knee deep into his third, horrific year in office; separating families, deporting terminally ill children, rolling back environmental protections, using the Treasury as his personal piggy bank, funding his failing resorts with taxpayer dollars, stealing from the kids of our servicemen and women to construct an obsolete wall, pulling us out of every potential peace-keeping treaty there is, habitually siding with dictators over his own country/citizens, lying about national disasters, forcing us to the brink of war just to deflect from possible impeachment/whistleblower hearings, putting us on the verge of destroying our Democracy as we know it - and, in the midst of all this, Disney/ABC decides it would be a Great Idea! to put the original, spineless mouthpiece of this racist, ignorant, misogynistic, megalomaniac on television, on one of their highest rated shows, in effect making a mockery of every lie told. Every family destroyed. Every hurricane victim ignored. Every female accuser discredited.
As a business decision, it’s about as deft a move as Daffy Duck swallowing a match after drinking all that kerosene (The hashtag #BoycottABC and #BoycottDWTS has been trending for months since the story broke, and will hopefully continue to do so, forever). On a human/patriotic level, it’s about as bewildering a turn as any I can recall whilst breathing.
Why on earth would any citizen of this country, even the lowest of the low, run-of-the-mill, sleaze bag T.V. producer-type, presumably watching the same shit show we all are, decide to potentially flush his/her show - and network, as well as their career down the toilet just for a shameless ratings grab? Isn’t he/she aware of the fierce opposition/Resistance currently being put forth by ninety-nine percent of Hollywood? James Woods, Scott Baio, and Jon Voight, notwithstanding. With the exception of Roger Ailes, are T.V. producers really that much worse than their legendary, morally bankrupt cousins, the movie producers?
We are smack in the midst of a Constitutional crisis. There is literally a scandal an hour. As we speak, the President is directing everyone under the sun to ignore Congressional subpoenas, the Attorney General is his personal bidet, the Dept. of Justice is bowing to his every wish as if it was his private security force, so is the Pentagon, the Republican Senate is perfectly fine with this, and a few, inexplicably misguided, tone deaf television execs think it’s a good idea to add insult to injury and put the first, pathetic sycophant - in what would turn out to be a never-ending line of pathetic sycophants -, on television, as if what’s been happening all around us the past three years is fodder for a Mel Brooks movie?
There’s a reason the formula for comedy is “Tragedy+Time.” Looks like ABC thinks they can do comedy while the tragedy is still playing out right before our eyes. What’s next? The El Paso shooter joins the cast of The View? Stephen Miller does a Ted Talk? Sarah Sanders gets her own show? She what? Jesus.
It took years for Watergate burglar Gordon Liddy to begin making the talk show circuit. He definitely didn’t do it on the heels of Woodward and Bernstein breaking their story. Oh, right. He went to prison, because that was when Congress actually did its job.
And, please don’t talk about Spicer on the Emmys. First, it was 2017. Only nine months into this nightmare, and, as bad as it was then, it was nowhere near where we are now. Babies had yet to be caged. Sexually assaulting Supreme Court Justices had yet to be appointed. American citizens weren’t being tortured/murdered by foreign dictators, only to see those nations rewarded in the form of State visits/weapons sales, etc. etc. Makes you long for the days of inaugural crowd lies and stolen Obama Twitter pics. Second, its the Emmys.
What do we tell our kids when they say they want to be like Sean Spicer when they grow up and dance on television? Judging by how things are going, I guess we can tell them, if they put their minds to it, and hitch their wagon to the most dishonest, corrupt, deplorable human being they can find, bury their conscience and do exactly what they’re told, the sky’s the limit.