Donald Trump may be the most loathsome American to have ever golf-carted the earth, but you gotta hand it to the guy: He commits to the bit.
And what a bit he put on! For four years, he entertained us with plot twists that Aaron Sorkin would reject as absurd: Affairs with playmates; Russian intrigue; impeachment; a pandemic — that ensnares the protagonist.
And now, as the Electoral College makes Joe Biden’s win official, it appears clear, maybe obvious: Four years was how long The Trumpian Show was meant to run.
Think about it: Wouldn’t it have been anticlimactic if Trump had been re-elected? Four more years of a virus out of control? Four more years of lobby-and-reward? Four years of trolls like Stephen Miller and Rudy Giuliani? For more years of that hair?
Another term simply wouldn’t have been good TV, and that has always determined Trump’s fate, anyway.
Which is what makes this series finale so good. Who could have seen this final turn? Instead of a reality TV host returning to reality, Trump pulled a reverse Truman Show: As he neared the edge of the set, he let us know that he was in on the joke the whole time, that we were the unsuspecting dupes, that he never intended to leave the show, and that he would like to start the take over, this time from the top.
Some fans were so engrossed in the series that they’re demanding the same thing, refusing to acknowledge that it’s been canceled. Some in Congress promise theatrics when it counts the electoral vote Jan. 6, and could we expect any less? These will be final curtain calls for some.
What’s so insidiously effective about the show’s swansong is the note on which it will end for millions of viewers: as an unresolved mystery. Thanks to the White Lives Matter conspiracy theory Trump has instilled in his fanbase, half the country will remember him as the Messianic leader who died for the sins of his frightened, angry legions.
They’re not necessarily wrong. How many still hold a Trumpian, singular worldview as America’s Inheritor? Trump certainly embodied the American cancer that had to be biopsied and excised.
But good TV doesn’t end on biopsies. It ends with the villain being vanquished.
So take a bow, Mr. President. You didn’t disappoint in your unspoken pledge to make politics required viewing again.
And now, if you’d be so kind…
Get the fuck out of my face.
