Abe Greenwald
Commentary Magazine
Barack Obama has gone from “You didn’t build that” to full-blown entrepreneurship. In the New York Post, Isabel Vincent has a story detailing the book deals, production deals, merchandising agreements, and speaking fees that are now bringing in millions for Obama and his wife, Michelle. One detail about Obama Inc. stands out among the rest: the deal the former first family has signed with Netflix. Vincent writes: “The $50 million, multi-year deal calls on the Obamas ‘to produce a diverse mix of content, including the potential for scripted series, unscripted series, docuseries, documentaries, and features.’”
The current occupant of the White House went from television mogul to president of the United States. The previous occupant of the White House is going from president of the United States to television mogul. The circle is closed. In America, the melding of politics and entertainment is now seamless, reciprocal, and altogether frightening.
The ugly symmetries run deep. While Hollywood has infused our entertainment with the schlock moralizing of cheap politics, Donald Trump has infused our politics with the bombast of lowbrow entertainment. As a result, it can be hard to say where entertainment ends and politics begins. Our inability to tell the difference between the two has given way to our accepting their unification. What’s most frightening about the fusing of politics and entertainment is that so many Americans probably don’t see it as frightening at all. And an audience that doesn’t think it’s being taken is most susceptible to propaganda. This goes for Netflix subscribers and Trump-rally attendees alike. So while this union means bad things for our entertainment (a scripted Obama show?), it means terrible things for our politics.
The left has long been adept at using show business to build its brand, but the Obamas are trailblazers. In 2013, Michelle Obama appeared on the Oscar broadcast (courtesy of Harvey Weinstein) to present the award for best picture. And both Obamas have, of course, danced with Ellen DeGeneres. In the last few months of his presidency, Obama went on the Tonight Show to “slow jam the news.” Over comically oozy R&B music, he relayed the news of his many “accomplishments” as president, including Obamacare and the Iran Nuclear deal. All to rock-concert cheers.
There used to be a fair amount of speculation about what Obama would devote himself to once out of the White House. What cause or project would he take on? It’s not impossible to imagine that he will focus on creating left-liberal content for books and television. Today, that’s every bit as powerful as running a non-profit group with your name attached to it. And it fits in with the rest of the entertainment landscape, from environmental disaster films to anti-Wall Street dramas to series about the cocaine-trafficking CIA. This is to say nothing of the entire talk-show format’s being repurposed as a dreary progressive safe space. Entertainers court trouble today only if they’re not explicitly left-leaning.
But then there’s Donald Trump. He’s built his brand in part by appealing to an alternate entertainment industry, one that cares little about progressive bona fides. Trump had a huge mainstream hit with his reality series The Apprentice, true, but he’s long been adored by pro-wrestling and NASCAR audiences. He’s imported his ringside sensibility to Washington and turned the business of the president into a game of mock rivalries, inflated declarations, and bloodless trash-talking.
This theater—this entertainment—is taken by fans and detractors alike as the stuff of politics. It doesn’t matter that there is no wall being built at our southern border, that the migrant caravan was on a false collision course with U.S. soldiers, or that Trump and Ted Cruz went from being bitter foes to tag-team champions. It’s all applauded or condemned, depending on your orientation. Meanwhile, actual policy continues down a largely traditional course.
Trump will undoubtedly fold his brand of populism into his post-presidency ventures. And you can be certain that he, like Obama, will have a presence somewhere in our television universe. For him, that’s home. But by then perhaps we’ll already be talking about Oprah’s presidency—or Kanye’s, or Marianne Williamson’s.
With a taste for politics in our entertainment and entertainment in our politics, we’ve put everything where it doesn’t belong. Elected officials have routines and performers have campaigns. And when the future ratings war between Trump and Obama kicks off, we’ll still be complaining about our lack of serious leadership.
