Doug Basham for BuzzFlash: "The Truman" Reality-Show Movie and the "The Trump" Reality-Show Presidency
November 12, 2020
Donald Trump is the star of “The Trump Reality-Show Presidency” (Gage Skidmore)
By Doug Basham
The Truman Show vs. The Trump Show
We’re hearing much talk of “unity” from President-Elect Joe Biden. Admirable – but is it possible?
How do those of us who live in the real world unite with millions of Americans who live inside a right-wing, media bubble and echo chamber – operated by those who are paid to lie to them - who have have conditioned them to demonize “others” who aren’t just like them? A media that dishonestly scandalizes tragic, yet acquitted events like the Benghazi attack? How do we unite with those who believe that anybody Donald Trump mentions in a pejorative manner should be locked up – seemingly unaware or uncaring of the authoritarian undertones in such a premise?
How do we unite with those who voted for a man they saw mock a disabled person; called Gold Star families liars; separated infants and babies from their parents, and who failed this nation with his lies and incompetent, ambivalent response to Covid-19, just to name a few of his betrayals and boorishness?
This weekend, I recalled the motion picture “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey. (Full disclosure. I know Jim. I’ve performed with him.) For those who haven’t seen it, “The Truman Show” was actually a reality TV show starring Carrey’s character Truman Burbank. The producers of the show created this phony bubble of a city - in which Truman had been raised. There were thousands of cameras that had been following Truman’s every move from child to adult. The catch was – Truman had no clue he was living in a manufactured world; was the star of his own reality TV show; and was being watched by millions of Americans who lived in the real world. Everyone else in the city knew – including Truman’s friends, wife and mother – but not Truman.
And I realized the striking - almost frightening parallels - between “The Truman Show” and “The Trump Reality-Show Presidency”– with two major plot twists. First, in “The Truman Show, “Truman was the only one who didn’t know he was living inside a fabricated bubble in the form of a reality show created for television. In The Trump Show, none of them know – in short - they are all “Trumans.” And while they are aware they’ve been viewed by the real world for the past four years - they don’t care - because their media has convinced them that supporting what history will record as the worst president in our nation’s history is not just perfectly acceptable, but actually patriotic.
Those who inhabit “The Trump Show” are spread out all over the country. The question became how to ‘“Trumanize” them and isolate them in a bubble - detached from reality and real world events? Answer: Invest millions upon millions of dollars in the creation of a massive, media, misinformation and propaganda industrial complex, that unremittingly dismisses any real world information as being from the “biased liberal media,” or of late, “fake news.”
The creators of both “The Truman Show” and “The Trump Show” both knew their ruses would only work if they appeared realistic. And in “The Truman Show,: they had all the bells and whistles and state of the art technology to make their fabricated bubble seem real. Similarly, Fox News is equally equipped in order to make their propaganda bubble disguised as a news organization seem real.
In the real world outside “The Truman Show” bubble, a “Free Truman” campaign arose. That’s in essence, what I’ve tried to create on my radio show – a “Free the Trumpians” campaign. But one local Las Vegas talk radio show is hardly enough to turn the tide. So how do we fix this problem nationally? And how do we unite with these millions of “Trumans” who have been convinced they are living in the real world, and not an alternative universe created by people it seems copied "The Truman Show" playbook and script?
I have maintained for years that the Democratic Party should create and invest in its own Trump Show-style media infrastructure - but one that would only report real world truth and not propaganda. With a comparable reach, they might finally penetrate “The Trump Show “media bubble. Then - like Truman Burbank - its inhabitants could finally escape their alternative universe and live the rest of their lives in the real world - where long-term truth mattered more to them than short-term, self-satisfying - but divisive and democracy eroding - partisan propaganda.
But time is short. And the number of “Trumans” grows daily.
Doug Basham is the only liberal talk radio host in Las Vegas. His show airs on KDWN AM 720 and 101.5 FM Saturday afternoons at 2 pm.
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