The internet is exploding because Madonna made her VMA show tribute to the late Aretha Franklin all about herself and her own struggles to achieve fame and fortune. She is now known as Me-donna, which is quite a big step up from Material Girl. She's made Trump's own accolade to Aretha -- "She worked for me on numerous occasions " -- look almost magnaminous.
But sorry, Don and Me-Don, because neither of you has anything on Chelsea Clinton. Unlike both of you, she at least brings a little class to the narcissistic table.
Then again, she didn't have the Queen of Soul to compete with her, because the sole topic of the day was the Clinton family and her book sales.
Persistently still plugging "She Persisted" in Scotland, the daughter of Bill and Hill was asked, yet again, if she will ever run for office. Definitely maybe someday, but definitely not right this very minute was the nuanced Clintonoid reply.
Chelsea classily explained:
"While I disagree with the president … I think my family ... is being really well represented. But if that were to change, if my city councillor were to retire, if my congresswoman were to retire, my senators, and I thought that I could make a positive impact, then I think I would really have to ask my answer to that question."This is honesty as only the clueless rich can convey it. As long as her family is being well-served by her politicians, she is content, because their needs are being met thank you veddy much. She disagrees with Trump on almost everything - she abhors his presidency - but she is not about to complain about the tax breaks he has gifted to her. The needs, wants and interests of the less-fortunate people of her voting district(s) do not enter into her thought processes at all. They are invisible to her, and unlike your typical phony populist, she doesn't have the capacity to even pretend to see them, let alone care about them.
She will run for office only if she can make a positive contribution to her family fortunes. Once The Help retire, she might be forced to serve herself for lack of any more family retainers. At least it sounds that way. To be fair, though, she does at least pay lip service to her own class, admitting that "I feel incredibly protective of Barron Trump" before generously reminding everybody that he has been "bullied for his appearance."
I mean, was anybody even thinking that Barron has a problem with how he looks before Chelsea insinuated that there is something not quite right about the kid? As she readily admits, her feelings of protection toward the youngest Trump son are simply not credible.
Sadly, Chelsea Clinton's wealth and expensive education haven't even made her discourse as erudite as she pretends. "If... I thought I could make a positive impact, then I would really have to ask my answer to that question" is either crafty Clinton doublespeak, or an indication of some seriously muddled thinking.
But as Mother Hillary once wisely asked her answer, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
Plus, you can always blame the narcissism of rich people on genetics. Hillary and Madonna are tenth cousins, having shared the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother.
They're all one great big happy self-satisfied family.
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| Madonna and Hillary |
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| Madonna and Chelsea |
Although Chelsea and Ivanka Trump used to be besties, they're not speaking to each other these days. And sadly, Chelsea hasn't expressed the same indignant concern for lesser sister Tiffany Trump, who suffered the ignominy of having to avoid Madonna during a recent high-fashion event in New York and even required extra Secret Service protection as a result. That's because Madonna had also made the first Women's March against Trump all about Madonna, and threatened to blow up the White House.
That's another way the rich are different from you and me. They're never held accountable, because enough of us are enjoying this show way too much to even care. Either that, or we're too numb or jaded to care.
It's what happens when the Spectacle replaces participatory democracy.
So I hope that maybe definitely someday, Chelsea will find herself forced to protect her own interests when, let's say, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez decides to run for the ignominiously retiring Chuck Schumer's Senate Seat on a socialist platform. Now, that would be spectacle to participate in with gusto and vengeance.
I wish you could write national policy. It would be witty too.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're looney and poor you're packed off to the drawn shades of a psych ward. When you're looney and rich your show never closes.
ReplyDeleteKaren's post describes the ultra selfish perspective held by a few celebrated members of the moneyed class. They have everything but compassion. Their obtuseness probably reflects the mentality of the whole damned moneyed class. Are America's rich narcissists pretending ignorance or are they truly unaware of the misery they impose directly, indirectly, and constantly upon wide swaths of their fellow human beings?
ReplyDeleteAs for the response to abuse by the lower classes, those poor and near poor who still have a pulse eventually come to realize there are two classes of people in the world: the big club of sweat most humans are born into and will most likely die in, and the tiny club of ease from which they will never receive a crumb. History allows for a middle class here and there now and then, but without fostering its own militancy it too succumbs to the dwindles.
Sages who join unions and other circles of solidarity have a term for wide economic disparity: Class War. It's an edgy term for an ugly reality. Madonna, Hillary, Chelsea and of course The Donald are on the wrong side of the great money divide, no matter the badge they pin on themselves as "liberated," "populist" or "Democrat."
As has been pointed out again and again to the willfully ignorant, nothing much good ever happened for the American worker without unions that were ready to fight. Owners and managers are not by nature givers, whether you're talking about General Motors or hospitals run by the Sweet Order of Sisters Perpetua.
The September issue of Harper's features a long and worthwhile article on the mind of the militant remnant at the core of the American labor movement. They are well aware of their status in an ongoing class war. The author near the end of his piece has this to say:
"Whenever someone talks seriously about advancing the cause of workers in America, he is accused of fomenting class war. Whenever someone talks about class war as a thing waiting to be "fomented," I want to ask how long he's been living on the moon."
https://harpers.org/archive/2018/09/labors-last-stand-supreme-court-janus-decision-unions/