Reality

All the country’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.

The White House is the set for Donald Trump’s regular productions. Calling him the “reality show” president is wrong. He is the producer of a daily show that has nothing to do with reality. He is a child of television and how he appears on it matters more to him than most anything.

There are hundreds of examples but let’s stick to this week.

Yesterday, he held what the White House called a “press conference” but what actually was a roughly half hour platform for him to claim credit for a surprisingly good jobs number that he had nothing to do with. Jobs weren’t created, they returned after businesses closed because of the pandemic. And governors, some prematurely, began to reopen their states.

Earlier in the week Trump staged a show so he could claim to be “your law and order president.” Outside the White House he lined up National Guard and representatives from pretty much every federal agency that has something to do with law enforcement.

Then, whether under the President’s orders or not, they charged peaceful protestors to either “extend the perimeter” of protection around the White House, as the Attorney General claims, or to clear the way for the President to march across the street for a very odd photo opp in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. Pick which version you like.

Since that day, the federal government has been further strengthening a wall around the White House, and Mexico isn’t…