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| P.T. Barnum portrayed as a "Hum-Bug": a cartoon by H. L. Stephens (1851) |
Let’s
be honest: Political campaigns often are as much about entertainment as serious
stumping, regardless of party. At least in the beginning. At the start of the
season candidate Donald Trump, now widely considered a fatal mistake for and by
the Republican Party, could be compared to P.T. Barnum. Showman extraordinaire,
Barnum (1810-1891) was America’s penultimate purveyor of humbug during the second
half of the 19th century. “I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding
shall make nothing else of me,” he said. Barnum also made a brief, unsuccessful
foray into politics. He was a fitting model for Trump.
In
the beginning Trump was a P.T. Barnum for our time. He might as well have
adopted Barnum’s famous (though erroneously attributed) maxim: “There’s a
sucker born every minute.” And the suckers flocked to him. No matter how
outrageous his rhetoric, Trump’s adherents cheered.
But
a gradual metamorphosis took place. Trump ceased to be funny. He became
vicious. He attacked persons of color, immigrants, women, military veterans,
the disabled, Muslims and Mexicans, even crying babies. He displayed a shocking
disregard for the Constitution, law, and basic civility. Suddenly comparing
Trump to Hitler, once regarded as political hyperbole, took on an air of
prescience. The Barnum for our time shed his comedic cocoon to reveal a
xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, duplicitous proto-fascist, whose
key supporters aligned themselves with the KKK and other white supremacist
groups.
One
often wonders, when watching Theater of the Absurd, where the line runs between
reality and fantasy. It’s the theatrical equivalent of surrealism. Why are
those clocks melting? Could clocks melt in real life?
We
wait for Trump to say, “Just kidding! Surely you weren’t taking me serious.”
But he does indeed seem to be serious. Thankfully many of the saner members of
his own party have awakened to the imminent and very real danger of a Trump
presidency and are turning against him. Sadly, even when the November election
rings down the curtain on this absurd political theater, as it must, America
will still have to deal with those in his audience who stayed to stand and
cheer.
