by Peter Löcke //
Hollywood can pack it in. House of Cards can pack it in. The political reality of the United States is currently writing the best screenplay in the world. Surreal and yet real. US politics as a long-running sitcom. Or am I mistaken and the truth is quite different?
Maybe it's the other way around. Perhaps the current reality is following a ready-made script from Hollywood. This is the impression the astonished viewer gets from the events in the USA. Of course, such a political freak show deserves a catchy name. The sitcom is called "The Biggest Show on Earth". What has it been about so far and what is it about now? Here is a look back at the previous seasons and a look ahead to the current events of the biggest show on earth.
This show is about money and power. A lot of money and a lot of power. It's about sex and crime, intrigue and war, drugs and other abysses. The epic battle between good and evil, between democracy and dictatorship is at the heart of it all. This requires protagonists. It needs villains like Donald Trump and heroes like Joe Biden. The review should begin with these two. What was it like again when the series was launched?
Joe was and is president. He has been since January 2021 and is one of the good guys. In the USA, that means the Democrats. After all, as the party name suggests, they are democratic. The hero Joe once saved democracy from ruin when he replaced the former president, the Republican villain Donald Trump, as the most powerful person in the world. But Joe's presidential path has been rocky since those days. Or should we say boulders? These are boulders like his son Hunter. Hunter Biden sat on the supervisory board of Burisma, the largest private gas producer in Ukraine, from 2014. Insiders suspect that the reason for his appointment was not professional expertise. Be that as it may, the somewhat messed-up and coked-up son of the president liked to bring his lavish salary into the economic cycle in the horizontal trade. Various film recordings of his eccentric leisure activities were then circulated. They were recorded on a laptop. This laptop supposedly came from hell, but unfortunately turned up on earth. Speaking of Biden and Ukraine. The most powerful man in the world once confused Ukraine with Iran. Phonetically understandable if you know the similar-sounding English translations of the two countries. Most recently, however, Joe confused the names Putin and Zelensky. That was no longer linguistically excusable. So much for the hero in a nutshell. What can we say about the villain of the sitcom? He comes off even worse.
Donald Trump is rude. Donald Trump is bad. Donald Trump is rude. So he's not exactly the type of guy you'd like to invite to your garden party. He's a multimillionaire and a bankrupt at the same time. That only happens in the States. Donald was president of the USA between 2017 and 2021. Back then, democracy was almost abolished in the USA. That's the narrative of the sitcom. Another narrative is that of the Buffalo Man. Donald once incited him and other subversives to storm the White House and thus democracy. In terms of costumes, German Reichstag stormers and their scriptwriters can learn a thing or two from the USA. It was a close call back then. But it went well again. Another end to democracy in the USA must now be prevented. Before he was president, Trump was a showman and in a way he still is. Donald is loud, Donald is shrill, but he is never quiet. Like Hunter, he likes beautiful women. Not high-class hookers, for Donald it was a porn star. Unfortunately, no footage exists, but hush money payments do. The villain has been in court several times for this and other offenses. The aim of the court hearings was to prevent Trump from running for president again. The sitcom "The Biggest Show on Earth" would then probably have come to a premature end. That's not how it works in Hollywood. The current season is more exciting than ever and has been running for around two months. It is subtitled "Bye Bye Biden"! We also summarize this season.
The disaster began with a CNN debate between the hero Joe and the villain Donald. Although fact-checkers were on hand to directly expose the villain as a liar, the TV show turned into a fiasco for the hero. This was due to the obvious mental decline of the oldest US president ever. It was also due to the fact that the studio was not barrier-free and Joe's wife Jill had to come to her husband's aid to negotiate three steps. The old theater adage "eyes before ears" applies here! Since this fiasco, the events of the biggest show on earth have come thick and fast. In chronological order.
Having just been decried as right-wing slander, it was now clear to even the most blind observer - ZDF experts excepted - that the democratic hero was no longer quite at his intellectual best. Such a realization is anything but a sales booster for the epic battle of democracy vs. dictatorship. Disaster rarely comes alone. Not this time either.
In the very next episode, there was a failed assassination attempt on the villain, which he survived by a hair's breadth. This turned out to be even worse for the actual hero, because the anti-hero also became a hero with divine powers. Reminder? Trump is a showman and the USA loves heroes. To make matters worse, the Secret Service made its own Monty Python slapstick movie during the failed assassination attempt. That backfired on Biden. It came as it had to come.
Three, two, one ... the presidential candidacy is no longer mine. The days of the hero Joe Biden were numbered. This was now clear to every political observer - ZDF experts excepted. The still powerful string-puller Obama cut the strings to which his former running mate was moving. Ergo, the still-president contracted the coronavirus death plague for a period of reflection. But when and how will the resignation bomb burst at this greatest show on earth? The bomb burst in the last episode on Sunday and it burst remarkably.
Biden did not announce his resignation in an appropriate manner with a speech on TV. No. He chose the beloved-hated platform X, on which he announced his resignation. As soon as it went online, the attached document was shared millions of times and spread around the world. It was soap opera in real time. That's how it has to be for a modern sitcom and the biggest show on earth.
Will Kamala Harris now take over? How did Joe Biden in the final hours before publication? How will the villain Donald Trump react to his opponent's withdrawal? Will evil triumph over good in the end? Was Nietzsche even right when he called for being beyond good and evil?
I don't know all that. Only those who are currently writing the script in Hollywood know that. And those writers at Spiegel and Springer, who own the secondary exploitation rights to the sitcom in Germany. Only one thing seems certain. The Biggest Show on Earth will be filmed for another season or two.
Articles identified by name do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher.
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One Response
Simply delicious! If it weren't so serious and the laughter didn't get stuck in your throat. Those who believe with Nietzsche in the "return of the ever-same" are more relaxed. In Buddhist terms, humanity is in an endless loop of its evil deeds without ever entering the spiral. What is human history supposed to be other than a series of monstrous deeds, stupid ideas and endless slapstick? It doesn't help that so-called historians try to make sense of the chaos. Just think of King Charles reading out the government statement of the new English Prime Minister. Is there anything more delicious in our enlightened age? Oh, so that was just a sitcom?