In his 2018 comedy special, Great America, Katt Williams offered a novel insight into why so many Americans love Donald Trump:
We said Trump had a chance because he was exciting. And America loves excitement.
And Trump been sayin’ exciting sh*t the whole time.
He wasn’t wrong.
Even when you weigh it against Dubya’s “Bushisms,” Clinton’s adultery and Nixon’s wiretaps, Trump’s presidency, for sheer spectacle, was in a league of its own.
This man stood in the White House in the middle of a global pandemic, surrounded by medical experts, and suggested injecting people with disinfectant.
He admitted to voyeurism and sexual assault, and bribed a porn star to keep quiet about sleeping with him mere months after his wife gave birth, and still convinced his evangelical supporters that he “was ordained by God”.
He admitted to tax fraud during a presidential debate. And Hillary Clinton was so unprepared for the possibility that he'd tell the truth, implicating her and himself in the process, that she didn't even have the presence of mind to call him a deplorable.
This, as Katt says, is so exciting, that millions of Americans were willing to overlook how insane it is.
It’s so exciting that millions more were willing to play along when he said the presidency was stolen, even though he’s on tape trying to steal the presidency.
It’s so exciting that the only way his supporters could top their buzz was to head down to the Capitol and try to overthrow democracy.
Trump forever changed the perception that politics is supposed to be boring. And we're all paying for it.
Of course, with all that excitement, it wasn't just politics that stopped being boring. The way we talked about politics had to change too.
Gone are the days when the news was supposed to inform us about the economy and stock market fluctuations and our hopefully functional foreign policy. We've moved beyond facts and reason and the pretence of impartiality.
All of that stuff is too boring. And even worse, all that nuance and integrity might lead to me hearing things I don’t want to hear.
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