America's greatest grifters

Let’s talk about money. “Money, Money Money!!” Remember this?

What exactly was Donald Trump’s business? Some say that David Copperfield is a master illusionist. Perhaps, but he is an amateur compared to the bloviator who went bankrupt running casinos. Everything Donald Trump has ever been involved in has failed from the USFL to Trump Airlines to Trump University. It has always been a shambolic enterprise of hype and fraud that persisted because of the power of materialism to overwhelm the obvious truth about the scam staring you in the face.

Trump had the trappings of success, and therefore, he was a success. His tackiness and decadence became synonymous with an illusory hologram of what wealth, and therefore, success looks like. Trump was a cartoon character come to life. He was Richie Rich, but all grown up. When he went on television with ‘The Apprentice’ he created a cartoon version of business and an alternate reality where the qualities of sociopathy became currency in a competition stripped from the gravitation pull or existence of ethics. ‘The Apprentice’ fetishized greed, trickery, double-crossing, scheming and indifference towards keeping your word. Trump made callousness appear like stoicism — and cruelty appear like strength — in a spectacle that he presided over as king, chief justice, prosecutor and CEO. The ‘King of Bankruptcy’ became a TV CEO and made degradation his product.

When he turned to politics his illusion had become concrete in the minds of millions of people. Donald Trump was — at long last — a businessman. In fact, he was a hustler with enough inherited wealth to cover up his losses, while gaming the rigged system he would later denounce for maximum advantage against the ‘little guy.’ He wasn’t an actor so much as an attraction who became real.

The first thing Donald Trump did as president was slander America. The next thing he did was dispatch his spokesperson Sean Spicer to assert a fantastical lie from the White House that was easily disproved by photographic evidence. We were entering a new era, and it was perfectly encapsulated when Kellyanne Conway blithely looked into the camera and asserted there were “alternative facts.” It was a sinister statement.

Trump was an ambitious man. He set out to climb a very high peak. He sought to shatter reality and make truth whatever the leader declared it to be. He tested this proposition at a frenetic pace. He lied serially until he crossed the staggering threshold of more than 30,000+ public lies clearly documented in four short years.

When he was defeated for re-election, Trump was ready to assert what he had clearly, transparently and accurately predicted would happen if he lost. He refused to concede, declared victory, concocted a conspiracy and demanded his delusion be made real by the convictions of his followers. They were reached through a vast, sophisticated, interconnected, network of media outlets, large and small, with Fox News at the head waters.

The relationship was utterly symbiotic. Trump lied and Fox News amplified the lies without challenge. Fox News lied and Trump would amplify the lies without challenge. It became impossible to know where Fox ended and Trump began. Policy was made by Fox producers, who incited their audience of one, through dozens of manipulations a day. Fox News made money, and Trump got power, which made him money. It was a perfect circle, a pristine circuit.

The money we are talking about is staggering. Sean Hannity makes $45 million a year. Tucker Carlson makes $35 million a year. What is their skill?

They are world-class liars. The best. Tucker Carlson makes an income proximate to that of Tom Brady. This makes sense. Tom Brady is the greatest NFL player of all time, and Tucker Carlson is similarly the greatest demagogue in the Fox News sewer. Lying has become a professional sport of sorts.

When two of humanity’s most peerless liars come together — as they did on Tuesday night — to practice their wretched craft it is an occasion worth noting.