In the "good old days" people like the founder of Latinos for Trump, Marco Gutierrez, would be pilloried and put on a stage so people could hurl insults (or eggs) at them. Public humiliation for fools and trolls was a regular part of medieval Europe's social contract. In part because public humiliation is now seen as cruel and - you know it's coming - medieval, we've abandoned public shaming as a matter of policy.
Unfortunately, we have different venue for peeking into the lives of the village idiots of our world. It's called cable TV.
The incredible part is how our targets are now getting on stage on their own. While many of you might be thinking about The Jerry Springer Show, this Samantha Bee Full Frontal clip makes it clear that our political world has also become infected with the fools and trolls that we once simply referred to as the village idiot ...
The real sad part, at least when it comes to democracy in America, is how we give air time to people who are turning our democracy into a vaudeville act. The fact that many Americans are getting their jollies from watching it - instead of turning our backs on it - tells us that Donald Trump may simply be the first of many vaudevillian con men coming down our political pike.
So, yeah, we want our MTV ... splashed with Kardashians.
What this means is that our politics, as I've pointed out elsewhere, has become little more than a perpetual round of entertainments, where informed commentary is replaced by idiot-speak.
And, yes, as we are now experiencing in real time, our democracy is the worse for it.
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