Celebrities and Birthers, an affair from hell

Unless you live in a cave, or perhaps are capable of ignoring pompous attention-seeking blowhards (are you a wizard??), you’ve probably caught wind of Donald Trump’s recent media follies. Namely, he’s decided to start telling major news outlets and talk shows that he is very seriously considering running for president against incumbent Barrack Obama in 2012. For those who remember that Trump “jockeyed” to run as a third-party candidate in 2000’s presidential election, this may not come as a huge shock. Indeed, Trump has often been quoted “considering” running for office over the span of various elections in the past decade. A feature unique to Trump’s most recent declaration of political intent is his newfound skepticism of Obama’s birthplace. Yes, Trump is a Birther.

I don’t feel I need to explain why Birthers are, on the whole, incalculably insane. But I would however like to meditate, for a moment, on what political office and the Presidency means to men like Donald Trump. It seems to me a sad state of affairs when a political campaign (especially one as important as the race for the office of our nation’s leader) can be exploited by men seeking celebrity and a fat(ter) paycheck. Donald Trump is not a politician. Donald Trump is a man with entirely too much money and time, desperately seeking attention from anybody who will give it to him. His recent “Birther” nonsense only serves to expose his aggressive grasping for the limelight – that he is willing to stoop to Glenn Beck levels of pandering to the lowest possible dregs of political society leaves little mystery to his motives. That Trump may actually hold a decent shot at making it to the running (according to NBC New York, a March poll measuring approval rating found that “Trump's numbers were 9 percent "very positive" and 17 percent "somewhat positive," for a combined total of 26 percent,” placing him ahead of even Mitt Romney’s 15 percent), however, is another embarrassment entirely.

I suppose the point of my ranting is this: when did running for political office become such a celebrity’s game? Can the source of this issue be traced back to the Kennedy/Nixon debates? Has television killed the aura of prestige once held by those running for political office? It is my opinion that the way Americans judge their political leaders today – on notoriety and mostly at face value – is extremely destructive to both the political atmosphere in our country and the shaping of our government politics. Actions like those taken by Trump make a mockery of the political institutions this country relies so dearly on – and, unfortunately, because of the frivolous and excessively scrutinizing manner in which our politicians are portrayed in the media, Americans buy into and perpetuate these mockeries. I believe it is important to hold our politicians and potential candidates for office to appropriately high standards – it is only natural for the people of this nation to want to know as much as they can about the people who represent them, so that they can feel as though they trust them. But when people like Trump can make baseless and outrageous accusations about elected officials and ride the ensuing media coverage into office, we need to ask ourselves whether we are becoming paranoid.