Whew! Wall to padded wall media coverage of The Donald and his kooky campaign induces some strange hypnotic state - an admixture of entertainment and irritation.
Trump may have inadvertently created a whole new genre for our viewing displeasure. Call it, irritainment. You'll be vaguely pissed off and captivated at once.
His candidacy, a spectacle of the three-ring variety, would be more entertaining though if there weren't something faintly sinister about the entire enterprise.
Because, it's not just Trump and his wild pronouncements that get attention. It's a conservative message that those pronouncements come wrapped in that gets attention too. Repeated over and over again, this message tends to become accepted reality by mainstream media and seeps into the political subconscious. Because that's the job of the media - to turn right wing talking points into accepted reality. Aren't they a fun bunch.
One message that gets repeated ad nauseam is some variant of Trump's embezzled campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”. As if we are supposed to accept ipso facto that we've been locked in a death march to doomsday.
Really? Make America great again?
A helluva a lot of Americans believe we've been on that path for seven years now. It's been a difficult path to take thanks to the damage wrought by Superstorm W. Yes, that was one helluva storm and it did just a smidge of damage to this path to greatness America is supposed to be on. Wreckage strewn in every direction.
It took Bush and his merry band of nitwits eight years to destroy nearly everything they touched and it may take every one of those years or more to mend things.
You can't name a policy area that Bush didn't deliberately or otherwise bungle. The economy, defense, energy, environment, justice. The list goes on … and on.
Almost seven years since Bush's chopper flew away to chants of "nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, goodbye" and we're still feeling the effects of his cataclysmic presidency.
So, do we still have problems? Of course. Are some of them big? Yup.
That does not mean we're not on the right track. In fact, where we are headed is a helluva lot better than where we came from. But, facts are pesky.
Seven years into a new administration - the grown ups - and you'd be hard pressed to name a policy area where progress hasn't been made. In many cases, significant progress (See VIDEO below).
Yet, it's now that the Republicans and the media would have us believe that we are heading in the wrong direction?
What conservatives really mean when they say, "make America great again" or "take our country back" or whatever Luntzian phrase they come up with is, make America Republican again. But they can't really say that, can they? Because that little experiment went over like a fart in church. Worse really - a shart in the basilica.
If that's what you're selling - make America Republican again - good luck pal. Sounds a little too sinister after the ever so shadowy Epoch of Bush. But, we're supposed to have forgotten that.
This nation was on life support when President Obama took office. His first job was to save the patient. This while keeping Republicans from sneaking into the recovery room and snuffing her out with a big, fluffy pillow of filibusters, government shutdowns, debt ceiling crises and deregulation. Well, he saved her alright.
Time perhaps for a thank you.
For those of us who have had enough irritainment clogging our airwaves and internets, we've created a little video to thank the president, remember the progress we've made and affirm that we're headed in the right direction. Republican messaging and Donald Trump be damned.
Sing along!
VIDEO Link: The Presidency of Barack Obama (A Good Feeling)