Trump Is an Artist

I’ve never heard the combination of words “the latest turmoil” employed as frequently as over the last seven months. (Most recently in the mobile notification for last night’s special edition of The Daily podcast by The New York Times.)

I think this linguistic factoid alone says everything that needs to be said about the Trump presidency.

It must be recognized and acknowledged: Trump is an artist. One of the greatest. An artist who’s been mistakenly assigned the role of the most powerful politician on Earth, with potentially disastrous consequences for the planet.

Trump is a reality show artist, and the Earth’s entire population is his audience – with the hapless American public occupying the front-row seats to watch his irresistibly but perilously entertaining shenanigans. However, they have only themselves to blame.

Aren’t they exhausted by now? Where are the boring Clinton or Obama years, where is the harmless bumbling clown that Bush Jr. was, as opposed to the current venomous gilded clown?

A week of Trump’s presidency feels like a month by any other president, and a month like a year.

It’s like binge-watching all the episodes of an entire season of a reality show in a single night or two. It sure is a spectacular reality show, but there’s only so much you can binge-watch and binge-absorb.

Let’s face it: we’re getting tired of all the ceaseless excitement. Where’s the much-needed break between the various theatrical acts (an honorable artistic tradition!), so we can all just take a few breaths and calm down?

Didn’t Trump mention last week that this week was supposed to be his vacation? Oh, goodness! If the events of this traumatizing week are what Trump’s vacation feels like, we must tremble in anticipation of what lies ahead when Trump gets back to his regular job.

But didn’t Trump actually mention that he never goes on vacations, except for working ones, and that he only sleeps three or four hours a day? Oh, no! Give us our mundane politics back!