Is it any longer even a contentious statement to say that whether it’s twerking on stage or shutting down the government, bad decisions are very profitable in this country?
Ms. Miley Cyrus, make no mistake about it, is a product of the entertainment machine she was processed through. Is there any doubt that the “outrageous bad-girl” phase was planned well in advance by the army of publicists and handlers Cyrus hires to manage her “talent”? Of course not. The former Hannah Montana will receive her punishment in the form of millions. You can anticipate her mid-career comeback as well. What works for pop-culture also seems to work for politics. Those reading may have memories of Hannah Montana or “The Suite Life” of the early 2000s, and watching any live action Disney show today will betray the virtually identical themes, scenarios and onedimensional characters. But how many have taken the time to find these patterns in our politics? The 1984 Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention speeches are almost identical in theme to those given in 2012. The same lofty language. The same partisan rhetoric. Nothing changes. Nothing changes. Is it therefore any surprise that the entertainment industry and the U.S. political machine continue to process garbage? They’ve developed their methods to a science over decades. For every manufactured good-kidgone- bad controversy there’s a manufactured government crisis, and the results are the same: Someone is getting rich.
The government shutdown might have sent 800,000 people home with no pay, but it also netted senior Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky $2.9 billion in earmarks. Sen. Ted Cruz’s political action committee pulled in $797,000 during the Obamacare filibuster. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reportedly raked in $8.5 million during this same period.
Regardless of where you stand on the issues, the one thing we can agree on is the fact that controversy and crisis are money-making investments for the bad boys and girls on stage and in Congress.
And who can blame them? With the fruit so ripe and lowhanging, who could resist the urge to pick it? Certainly not the type of person who becomes president or the hottest rock star on the front page of Rolling Stone. This very same compulsion to divide the American people is what gives these two the audacity to pander. Which is why your president — a Harvard graduate and president of the Harvard Law Review — uses words like “ain’t” and occasionally speaks with a nonnative Southern accent during speeches. Hand-crafted language chosen specifically by political consultants to invoke the correct feelings in the targeted audience — this is the legacy of our generation’s culture.
The two types of people nodding their heads may have little else to discuss with one another. The sort who enjoy MTV’s Music Awards and those who YouTube the ’84 DNC speech (me) for fun might, however, find a bridge to our thoughts: At least we can change the channel on Miley.