Spacey as Underwood, Trump at campaign rally in Las Vegas – Photo: Gage Skidmore
It just so happened I finished up this season of House of Cards — D.C.’s not-even-guilty bingeing pleasure of choice — at the same time results came in for the Super Tuesday primaries. Watching two funhouse mirror versions of American democracy unfold simultaneously — television character Frank Underwood and television character Donald Trump — just reinforced my distaste for both.
To start with the fictional, I realize I’m supposed to hate the Underwoods, while also thrilling to their villainy. And that was a lot of fun for a while. Then the show rushed Frank Underwood into the Oval Office, leaving behind the batshit byzantine plots of the Washington elite for dealings with a second-rate Putin and something involving China that even the shows writers can’t explain.
So when this season kicked off with a fallen reporter providing narration for his cell mate’s jackoff session, I was already halfway to the door. I would have made it out had it not been for friends telling me, Oh, just wait, it gets so much better! No, actually, it doesn’t. Somewhere around the time the show began telegraphing an assassination attempt and minor character death with a lack of subtlety surprising even for House of Cards, I moved directly into the hate-watch camp.
It’s not the show’s lack of connection to reality that bothers me, although “ludicrous” doesn’t even begin to describe its depiction of the American political system, the writers’ understanding of which seems to have come from skimming a few months worth of Politico articles. It’s not even watching the cringe-inducing cameos by prominent journalists, although it does reinforce why cable news should be about the last place one would go to be a well-informed citizen these days. (Why, Gwen Ifill, why? You’re supposed to be the best of us!)
What it comes down to is a show that is fundamentally stupid — filled with fabulous actors and wicked one liners, but still stupid — working so hard to appear smart. This pretentious nonsense is why you end up with the two evil geniuses putting together a complicated plot that involves allowing an Iraqi terror leader to speak with potentially murderous kidnappers yet neglect to have even one Arabic speaker in the room. Or the baldly nihilistic ending that exploits American victims of terror as nakedly as 24 ever did but with even less nuance.
Which brings us to Trump: a campaign that is fundamentally stupid — filled with compelling characters and wicked one liners, but still stupid — working so hard to appear smart. Part of the fascination of watching the Trump roadshow is how closely it tracks with what we would traditionally consider political satire: dismissing the egghead elites and proposing ludicrously simplistic solutions to every problem (building a wall, registering all Muslims, solving every international problem by making deals faster than Monty Hall). Trump gives his audience scapegoats — blacks, Mexicans, Muslims — because Trump is about looking outward for excuses, never inward for understanding.
But what Trump and House of Cards really have in common is hate and anger about our political system. For Trump voters, that anger is directed toward anyone but themselves: at the politicians who’ve abandoned them, the minorities who’ve taken their jobs, the gays who’ve stripped away their values. It’s a hate directed at others, constantly looking to blame.
For House of Cards fans, particularly the feverish ones populating Washington, it’s simply self hatred — thrilling to a show that treats its audience as complicit in a failed, corrupt system. It’s why journalists clamor for cameos on a show that presents journalists as corrupt or inept or captives of the system. It’s why politicians and staffers live for a show that claims there are no principles, only power. It’s a collective probing of an open wound. Yes, you can read too much into a simple show about political corruption, but given the self-seriousness of both the narrative and its creators, I’m inclined to take the show at its word.
Trump or Underwood, fantasy or fiction, right or left — it’s hard to see how any of this ends other than badly.
In a clear jab at LGBTQ Pride Month, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) introduced a resolution last week to declare June as "Family Month" — a move right-wing outlet The Daily Wire hailed as an effort to "reclaim the first month of summer from LGBTQ ideology."
The American family is under relentless attack from a radical leftist agenda that seeks to erase truth, redefine marriage, and confuse our children," Miller told The Daily Wire.
"By recognizing June as Family Month, we reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honor God's timeless and perfect design. If we truly want to restore our nation, we must stand united to protect and uphold the foundation upon which it was built — the family."
"Right now, more than ever, we need global solidarity. And WorldPride is probably the closest thing we have to a visible manifestation of the unity we have across borders," says Ymania Brown, one of the co-presidents of InterPride, the international umbrella organization of Pride organizers.
"The goal for us at InterPride and for WorldPride is for our members and everyone who comes to WorldPride in Washington, to walk away knowing that we are not alone," she continues. "That our struggles, while unique in different countries and different regions, are shared. And as a result of that shared struggle, our victories, and the successes we have in changing laws for our people, are collective."
In a tense House hearing, a pair of congressional Democrats blasted Pentagon officials for stripping gay rights icon Harvey Milk’s name from a Navy ship, accusing the military of erasing LGBTQ history. U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.), an out gay Democrat, directly confronted Navy Secretary John Phelan over the decision during the June 11 Armed Services Committee meeting.
"I just wanted to take a moment to talk about a veteran who served on a submarine as a diving officer during the Korean War," Sorensen said, referring to Milk's biography before actually naming him.
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