I love the short story Harrison Bergeron from the Kurt Vonnegut book Welcome to the Monkey House. I have referenced it often in the blog.
There was a terrible 1995, made for TV movie of Harrison Bergeron, which I don’t recommend.
If you want to watch an outstanding interpretation of the story, I highly recommend the short film 2081.
This post, is, however, about the terrible 1995 movie.
There is one good scene in the movie because it is so spot on.
This is why they hated Trump.
The Democrats, career bureaucrats, and establishmetn Republicans all thought they were so super-duper smart with their Ivy League degrees and internships at various think tanks and some real estate developer from Queens wasn’t sophisticated or nuanced enough to play on the world stage.
The reality is, much of the world isn’t all that complicated or nuanced.
Civilizations today may be wealthier and have better technology, but are not much different than our bronze-age ancestors.
If someone thinks they can fuck you up and take your shit, they’ll fuck you up and take your shit.
If you don’t want to get fucked up and have your shit taken, you have to make sure they know if they fuck around they’ll find out.
That’s as complicated as it gets.
If only the Powers behind the scenes had picked some belligerent loudmouth from Scranton to be our President!
I was a freshman in college when Reagan was elected. I remember the girls in my dorm wailing in despair. He is going to push the button! He is going to start a world war! Instead, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended.
The unsophisticated real estate developer from Queens received how many nominations for a Nobel Peace Prize? The nominations came from people who did it begrudgingly, did not really like him, but acknowledged his accomplishments.
It’s worse than what you say. This line: The Democrats, career bureaucrats, and establishmetn Republicans all thought they were so super-duper smart with their Ivy League degrees and internships at various think tanks and some real estate developer from Queens wasn’t sophisticated or nuanced enough to play on the world stage.
They don’t all have “Ivy League schools and internships at think tanks.” They just go to parties with people that do. They think that’s their peer group, and their circle of friends, so they mimic those views. Further, the fact that the real estate developer out did them on so many levels, and accomplished things they had said they would do for decades, bruised their precious little egos.
And if they don’t mimic their “friend’s attitudes” they will never again be invited to any of their cocktail parties. Or dinner parties. Or Garden parties.
For people like that, it would be a fate worse than death.
Might as well just give up and move to Witchita or Lubbock.