Political Theater of the Absurd

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.