Why Donald Trump Is Going To Be Re-Elected

Donald Trump is going to be re-elected.

Don’t get me wrong. I detest Donald Trump.

He is an idiot, an incompetent, a boor, an illiterate, a buffoon and perhaps the worst President in American history.

He is, however, great TV. And that is going to make all the difference come 2020.

This morning, I watched Kirsten Gillibrand on CBS This Morning. She is no doubt soon going to announce her candidacy for the Presidency. Watching her, I agreed with pretty much everything she said, but watching her I could also see that she is completely unelectable. That has nothing to do with her policies, position or intelligence. It has to do with the fact that she is simply terrible television. She is a bore. She is hard to watch. She is not entertaining. She is unelectable.

Two days before, I had the distinct displeasure of watching part of Donald Trump’s 2-hour speech to CPAC.

I do not agree with a single thing Donald Trump says, but he is great TV. He is amusing, he is entertaining, he knows how to play a room and an audience. He is easy watching. He is almost fun to watch, if you can get past the racism, the lies and the sheer stupidity.

But in America those things don’t matter.

What matters is the ability to be entertaining. Being entertaining trumps (sorry) policy, ability, intelligence and even logic.

And Trump is great TV.

This matters in a nation that spends 8 hours a day watching TV (or videos on YouTube, not much difference). We are the world leaders in watching. We are Olympic Class watchers, and we have been spending most of our lives watching stuff, mostly on TV, and that leaves a very very deep impact.

We crave entertainment. We value it above all else, whether we realize it or not.

If a TV show is not entertaining, (like Discovery’s short-lived Planet Green), we turn it off, even if it is intelligent and good for us and important. We would rather watch My 600 Pound Life or Dr. Pimple Popper. That is just who we are. We vote with our eyeballs.

Since the day he descended his golden escalator and yelled about building a wall against Mexican rapists, killers and drug dealers, he has proven over and over again that he knows our major medium. He know how to entertain.

Hillary Clinton was crap TV. She never stood a chance. And it had nothing to do with her emails or Benghazi or the fact that she was a woman. It was all about the lodestar of our culture, the place we all spend almost all of our time — watching stuff.

Trump is the Dr. Pimple Popper of politics, idiotic but wildly popular. Hillary was Judy Woodruff on PBS. Smart but boring.

Now we come to 2020, and the 3rd rate TV personalities are lining up to take a shot at Trump and his loyal viewers. Not one of them stands a chance — not in this culture. Kirsten Gillibrand — smart and living death as a TV show. No one wants to watch The Kirsten Gillibrand show for four years. Mike Bloomberg, maybe the smartest of the bunch (and not yet announced) also brilliant, incredibly competent, would make a great President, but really terrible TV.

Bernie Sanders? I think what made him so popular was that he simply reminded people of Larry David. That, they like.

Best bet for the Democrats? A Bernie Sanders/ Oprah ticket. And this has nothing to do with policy. It’s all about ratings.

In this country, that is ALL that matters.

As we say in America — That’s Entertainment!