Guest Post: Trump as Executive Producer of Hit Reality Show

Guest Poster: Thad Guyer

Peter Sage:   Here is another guest post by Thad Guyer, an attorney who primarily represents whistleblower employees.  He looks closely at how messages are shaped and what is persuasive to judges and juries.   Thad has developed a view of this election and this guest post is a further elaboration of that theme.  It is not a pretty one.

The single most important thing Americans do is direct our own government.  Americans have self government.   We elect our leaders.   Thad presents a picture of American democracy that has disintegrated into a TV reality show, rather like "American Idol,"  only with lower ratings and lower participation rates.   

Americans don't want self government, he suggests.   We want good TV.   And Donald Trump provides it.

(Do I agree with Thad?  I will explain in a subsequent post.)
                                
Here is Thad Guyer's comment:

Cruz is Just What Trump Needed to Save America from Cruz

Again, Up Close provides us with critical data in its fascinating report about Trump in his comfort zone. Most pundits now lauding Trump say he is getting better at debating and controlling his rhetoric. I don’t buy the simplicity of this “Trump is changing” narrative. Instead, I think it’s the start of the third stage of Trump denial. Stage 1 held that he is a clown and would quickly fade. Stage 2 said he is a vicious xenophobe and policy ignoramus who Republicans will never accept. Both of those stages having collapsed, we now enter Stage 3 that holds Stages 1 and 2 weren’t wrong, but rather Trump has miraculously morphed into a credible candidate. The unstated assumption of Stage 3 denial is that Trump is politically brilliant, keenly insightful, and possessed of remarkable humility to so quickly have accepted he must change. Michael Finnegan in his December 23, 2015 analysis dissented from Stage 2 in his article “Donald Trump's Campaign: It's Less Chaotic and More Calculated than it Looks”, http://lat.ms/1YxQ8OG. Only denial could make intelligent pundits so grossly underestimate a billionaire global resort developer and television executive producer of his own super-successful media franchise. One thing should by now be clear: We see what Donald Trump wants to show us exactly when he wants us to see it. He is the CEO and executive producer of one of the most successful reality programing franchises of all time—the Donald Trump Campaign. And we are all glued to every episode, each planned from the well thought out storyboards used in the entertainment industry.  

Storyboard #1: “Campaign launch”-- star regally descends escalator into lobby at Trump Tower filled with a sea of reporters. 

Storyboard #2 “Pilot- the Mexican illegal invasion”, with catchphrases “rapists, murderers and great wall that Mexico pays for” to unite America in central issue debate, pro and con. 

Storyboard #3- “Obama and Hillary wrecking America, Trump to the rescue”.  

Storyboard #4 “Don’t trust the mainstream media”, insult NY Times and Washington Post to provoke them into shrill over-reaction undermining their objectivity; follow-up with chant “dishonest media liars” and disempower “fact checkers” and media opposition to campaign. 

Storyboard # 5 “Special episode from San Bernardino on homegrown Islamic threat”- provoke Clinton and Obama to rebuke the public as politically incorrect for being terrorized by terrorists—follow-up with pitting Clinton-Obama “love Muslims” message against campaign message of “2nd Amendment defense against Muslim murderers”. 

Storyboard # 6 “Trade deficits, the Art of the Deal, and feckless Obama-Clinton negotiations with China, Iran and Mexico”.  

Storyboard # 7 “Neutralize Cruz- backfill his campaign with doubt about citizenship and presidential eligibility”.  

Storyboard # 8 “Mr. Niceguy, the Spirit of America, and the Hero of New York”. 

Viewership of Trump’s franchise only grows. Who can even wait for the next few episodes with the Trump vs. Cruz bombast? We’re dying to see how well Trump can take a punch! This is American primetime entertainment at its best with a middleweight climbing into the ring to take on the champion slugger known not for knock-out punches, but for body blows round after round until the polls declare technical knockout. Bush, Fiorina, Carson all limping with broken ribs as the TKO declared. I’ll concede that the ratings for 2008 first season of “Inexperienced Black Community Organizer Wants to be President” will be hard to beat, man that season was so incredible. But since “suspended disbelief” is the key to every Hollywood blockbuster, I think Trump has a real shot at eclipsing even the Obama ticket sales.