Brian Burt's Blog: Work in Progress - Posts Tagged "presidential-campaign"

Okay, maybe this shouldn't have surprised me... but the Presidential election burlesque has become surreal, even by the (rapidly decaying) standards of the 24-hour news cycle. As crazier behaviors and sound bites hit the headlines every day, I feel like I'm spectating at a three-ring political circus that's either the basis for a mockumentary or a new episode of the Twilight Zone. I keep hoping I'll wake up and it will all be a bad dream: I know people are incredibly frustrated with the status quo (who isn't?), but is this really the best way to shake things up?

About eight years ago, I wrote a short story that represented my first (and probably last) attempt at political satire called Mr. Bates Goes to Washington. In that tale, a billionaire business mogul taps into voter frustration with D.C. gridlock and ends up winning the Presidency, to a large extent by promising to "run the country like a business." The Machiavellian kingmakers who use established party machinery to get him elected end up getting more than they bargained for. CEOs don't flinch from downsizing, outsourcing, and divesting to maximize profit... and their egos make them very difficult to control.

Sound familiar?

My fictional candidate, Gil Bates, is certainly not Donald Trump. But, when I stare in amazement at the way Trump appears to be marching toward the Republican nomination, I do feel chills shiver down my spine. That silly little short story doesn't seem so funny anymore.

I realize that politics and hot air go together... but it feels like American election campaigning has morphed into a different species of superheated gas, a sulfurous variety that expands to fill every nook and cranny of the media world, choking us all with its toxic odor. It's more inescapable than death and taxes.

I'll dutifully cast my vote when the time comes, as best my conscience allows. But, candidly, I'm praying for the curtain to come down on this theater of the absurd. And I won't ever write political satire again; why would I, when actual politicians are doing it in realtime every day?

#SFWApro