I think, that in my heart of hearts, I really believed that Trump was an anomaly. 

Whatever secret sauce this ignorant grifter possessed that made people follow him blindly and aggressively, it was unique to him. And when he finally left office, a reckoning would happen in the Republican party and sanity would slowly begin to re-assert itself. 

Despite everything we’ve seen in the last decade, the thing that I’ve always grappled with understanding is, why him? Of all the people to throw your beliefs and morals away for, why him? He’s not smart. He’s not talented. He’s not good looking. He’s not even charismatic. 

But at least, or so I told myself, he’s a blip in the system, and we’ll move past it. 

I felt that way until very recently, when I began following the coverage of the LA Mayor’s race.

One of the contenders, you see, is a washed up reality star from 20 years ago named Spencer Pratt. Pratt lost his home in the palisades fire and launched a campaign based on grievance, fake populism and one single message – “I can do it better”. 

This former TV villain, who has never held any seat in government or social organiziations; who’s never held a real job, could do better. 

A campaign filled with AI slop, internet trolls coming out en masse to attack his opponents with hate filled rants-

Does this sound familiar? 

He might as well have down that golden elevator. 

I was wrong. Trump won’t be the end of it, I fear he’s just the beginning and we need to start grappling with that, and not repeat the same mistakes again and again. Oh, and don’t get me started on the media coverage portion of this. 

One last thing I feel I have to mention-

I was right 25 years ago when I said reality television was going to be the death of us all. But no, you just had to have your Survivor and American Idol, didn’t you? 

Didn’t you.

-sohmer