Many years ago I used to travel the Intermountain West in search of interesting characters to interview. Early on, I learned to look for them in places where there was no television reception, because it so happens that people who spend their hours watching television just aren’t all that interesting. Ask them a question and they’ll reflexively regurgitate the standard talking points they’d ingested via the airwaves regarding issues about which they have no firsthand knowledge.
Nowadays, thanks to communication satellites, even the most remote communities have access to television–in particular, right wing cable news programs. The result is a dumbed-down voting bloc laboring under the delusion that Donald Trump is the successful businessman he once cosplayed on television and not just a two-bit con artist from Queens.
One of my all-time favorite subjects was Floyd Eaton, a lifelong drifter who had taken up residence in the Wendover town dump, where he built a shack from discarded materials and furnished it with cast-off appliances. One thing he didn’t have was a television set. He had no interest in watching television, and as a result was interesting.
I once asked Floyd if he had ever voted, and he answered with an emphatic NO.
“When it comes to putting gangsters into public office, I want no part of it,” he explained.
At the time, I found his observation amusing–but no more. That’s because, thanks entirely to television, Mafia Don Trump is back in the White House, surrounded and abetted by nothing but his fellow telegenic gangsters. How I wish I could change the channel!
