WAS: What Adults are Saying about When Less is More

The endless coverage of 47 and how its done has adults crying uncle

Less is More is an old concept as far back as the Greeks that very, very seldom has found in a place in American culture. Sure, architecture and design have debated it within mostly ivory towers and every once in a while a sublimely talented chef might breakthrough with the idea on a plate. But America is nothing if not voracious consumers of everything: land, energy, moronic tv shows, snake oil and a principal diet based upon the big three of salt, sugar and saturated fat.

Living this life means more is almost always better. Whether it be a passenger truck built to grotesque size, a second burger, enough shoes to shod a centipede, digital games, recreational drugs or whatever nothing defines America more than its broad insistence that nothing pleases more than excess. Somehow that excess has made its way into the political arena and the media which covers it.

Today, as with all days, 47 will say something both absurd and scripted. The script (or at least the muse that inspires it) will come from the Stamford, Connecticut headquarters of WWE. Some will recognize this as the home of the paramount franchise in professional wrestling. The mammoth business entity founded by Vince McMahon Sr. has been passed along to his son and others who spend much time staying out of jail. From this squishy mess has come the following: Big chunks of the non-Elon money to elect 47; a narrative as directed by former WWE executive Stephen Miller; a Secretary of Education who is McMahon’s wife struggling to recapture some dignity as hubby roams the countryside revealing to others the supposed magnificence of his own phallus. Simply, more clowns from the East bracket of the tourney!

With the exception of Joe McCarthy and his closeted squeamishness, no one has launched a brand of politics supported by so few facts and such limited affirmation as the nonsense that comes straight from the wrestling capitol to the White House. With it, the autistic, diapered and drug-addled 47 does his best to satisfy donors expecting a return but at times, even in is madness, one can tell he no longer speaks as his own man. This reveals an unprecedented level of pathetic. What might be worse is that all of this—after years observing otherwise—gets treated by too many as though what 47 has to say is somehow relevant and newsworthy to a democracy trying to save itself.

Those chronicling this mess are a combination of remnants from legacy media and many folk trying to forge a new media path on platforms like Substack. Many have simply transferred from one category to the other and often appear sad, underwhelming and way out of their element. As an example a very recent CNN anchor who hit the road when offered two bad choices has come to this platform ready to provide impactful analysis and insights about Washington. What’s been delivered so far is mostly snooze-inducing, video podcasts tackling such meaty topics as 47’s golf game. Would-be new media types like this from old media, especially in the dreaded podcast form, are abundant here. One by one they work diligently to cement their professional irrelevancy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Nothing in 47’s tomorrow behavior will be new. It will carry known hallmarks. It will be more outrageous than all things said previously, threaten a certain sub-group, accompanied by an in-character narrative from minions that would have made Goebbels proud, and ultimately, materialize in only more fear as a preamble to a Constitutional showdown with the judiciary that certainly looms. In that 47 won’t stop his schtick—that’s all he knows and that’s where the money is—the only algorithmic change that can occur is from media (legacy and new) to stop treating every utterance as though Churchill has given his latest halftime speech amid a blitzkrieg.

Americans are rightly tired because the supreme mania of 47 and his lieutenants is such an unseemly and childish way to encounter daily life. Everyone knows this and especially, the children who spew the filth. Therefore, might we find some pocket of something like journalism to assess this and strive for public information output that serves a bigger purpose? Might someone, previously from legacy media, who was unceremoniously dumped find a better form or technique or method by which to array the Washington deck chairs so that adult content might come as step toward making adult-like decisions? Unlike our consumer-based culture, with 47, more is not better. More is worse, and increasingly a dangerous anesthetic that numbs too many from civic engagement.