Meryl Streep is working for the Trump propaganda machine. That’s the only way I can explain it.
Ok, so a lot of people have forwarded me the footage of Meryl Streep flaming Trump at the Golden Globes. If you were thinking of sending it to me, it’s ok. I’ve got it.
And a lot of people followed it up with, “look, see?” As if there was something there to change my opinion about Trump (which, for the record, again, was never that he would be an awesome President, but that he has some of the best persuasion and negotiation skills on the planet.)
But let’s say that I was a Trump supporter, how does Streep’s speech help make me realise the error of the ways, and make me finally realise that, deep down, I’m a racist, homophobic bigot.
(I… I never knew.)
And I thought it’s worth taking a look at because it is just generating so much media noise, but it also harder to imagine anything less persuasive than what Streep served up.
I mean, think about it this way. Say you are part of the CIA-Illuminati-Starbucks world order, and you decide you wanted to drive even more ‘average’ Americans into the loving embrace of the Trump tent.
How would you do it?
It would probably start with gathering together some of the most over-paid individuals on the planet. People who have a certain skill-set sure, but who’s reward for that skill-set far outweighs the social contribution that they make as ‘entertainers’.
I mean CEOs can be overpaid too – but at least they’re building businesses, giving people jobs, and driving the economy along. Sure, still massively overpaid, but at least some of it is justified.
(And don’t get me started on the people responsible for the well-being and education of our children that get paid sod-all.)
Step 2 would be to then gather them together in a gratuitous orgy of wealth and opulence. Make sure it’s black tie because most American’s don’t own a tie of any sort. Make sure it looks like you’ve spent the GDP of a small African nation on napkin dividers and hors d'oeuvres.
(There’s no cheddar cheese on a jatz biscuit, let me tell you.)
Step 3 would be to whip your mob of glorified puppets into a frenzy of insulated self-congratulation. Get them to give themselves awards. Get them to decide who gets the awards. Get them to present themselves with the awards too. Get lots of footage of them giving each other teary, heart-felt applause.
Now that you’ve created a spectacle so far removed from the ‘average’ American’s life that it looks like a nature doco from another planet, get one of them to stick the boot into the Donald.
But not just any one of them. Pick one of them who has incredible skills, and who has built a reputation as an “actor’s actor” by spurning popular movies forms like action and rom-com in favour of more intelligent, art-house type movies.
If possible, make sure she has a kind of condescending school-principal type vibe about her.
Then, just to make sure people are fully alienated, get her to complain about the way her and her glamorous friends feel “vilified” and persecuted. (Her words, though I think she was maybe trying to make a joke..?)
I’m pretty sure Muslims and Mexicans would be wanting a re-count on “the most vilified in America” contest. But no, sure, it’s probably white actors getting paid a bazillion dollars.
At any rate, it’s definitely not working class people left for dead by the relentless march of globalisation. Those people should be donating money to help celebrities deal with the stress of their oppression.
(Oh! And then get her to attack sport, with all the righteousness of someone who “knows what real art is”. I mean, what could go wrong with that strategy?)
Ok, then, as if we weren’t done, get her to attack Donald on something that to most Americans looks like a media beat-up. Donald flaps his arms about and mocks his attackers all the time. One time a newspaper took a freeze frame and says that he was mocking a disable reporter.
Trump has denied it time and time again.
But even if it were true it does nothing to sway Trump supporters – the ones who say, “I might not like everything that he thinks, but at least I can trust him to say what he thinks.” Trump’s popularity is built on a perception of F-you authenticity.
What’s worse, it smacks of the moral smugness that characterised the Clinton campaign. The idea that Trump couldn’t be president because he just wasn’t morally cuddly enough.
If people cared about that, they wouldn’t have voted for him. But they did, so it’s time to get past the judgy snobbery and look at what’s actually going on.
Maybe you could pull Trump up on the way he seems to be executing his strategy of ‘draining the swamp’ by stacking his cabinet with swamp monsters – 17 Wall St and Washington insiders with more wealth than the poorest 50m Americans combined.
How’s that going to play out?
(Yes, to be honest, I’m disappointed.)
If you want to be productive, rally Americans together to hold Trump to account. You promised us a different kind of politics. Where is it?
But telling off ordinary Americans in the middle of an orgy of self-entitled wealth and opulence just isn’t going to cut it.
It’s only going to make people love him more.
Whose side are you on, Mez?
What did you make of it? Effective? Hopeless?