#RaiseHail

In the 80’s there were periodic television writers’ strikes. David Letterman made the decision to go on anyway, without the writers. The comedy suffered, and he would improvise with bits like “Hal Gurnee’s Network Time Killers.” The shows exposed the artifice of television; that what you think you know as a relationship with a host is in fact a shallow parasocial construct driven by dozens of professionals, all dancing for the sponsors. A fugazi. The writers are no longer drafting new material for Trump. He’s a character without a support team because as the lamest of ducks, he’s now a man entirely without stakes. He will drift around in the White House for the next two years, fiddling with his sad Washington DC Construction Playset (The Reflecting Pool! The Golf Course! The Ballroom! Trump-Kennedy Center! The Arch!) while Washington’s careerist mob turns its attention to those who might aid their advancement in the future. The sad old man is not a mastermind or writer. He is a television character, animated by professionals. We may think we know him, and maybe we do, a little. But the architecture of his politics and the sources of our rage are constructed by off-camera craftsmen who are quietly moving on to their next projects. It may seem unintuitive that the writers would leave his character without a grand finale, a final sendoff, or a “who shot JR?” cliffhanger. But he’s perhaps not worth the effort. This ain’t TV… it’s real life. In transactional Washington, his worth was always rooted in what he could deliver. He’s now shown he’s a liability, and the writers have moved on. He may improvise, or try to. But the comedy will suffer, and we will all get a glimpse at the difference between the man himself and the complex Oz-machine we have called Trumpism as it, Terminator-like, oozes and morphs into its next carnation, leaving its old avatar behind.