Setting: Amalie Arena, then called the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Onstage: the Pale Rider. Backdrop: a shot of him in his youth. It transforms into a starry red and blue. Halfway through his routine, he turns to a barstool. “What? What do you want me to tell Romney? He can’t do that to himself.” That night made it clear. The American presidential campaign is a ritual that demands anthropological study. Clint Eastwood was in character. The chair was in character. The audience, like an ancient Greek chorus, was in character.
This time around, everybody’s performing. Eager cast members rushed to write the screenplay and build the set. There’s a coconut tree. Opening night was two months ago. They wrote “strength,” “temperament,” and “values” in the protagonist. Her neurotic belly laugh became the sound of feminine self-assurance. There was a musical “brat” act right after the prologue. No scheduled intermissions. The plot: how to muster a cult of personality around someone with no personality.
It is, after all, a requirement of the job. This nation wants to know you. Americans won’t swallow a hollow pill. You might say that you’d vote for a turnip before Trump. Would you? Say about him what you will. We’ll say it together. He couldn’t tell the difference between Basquiat and Bastiat. He’ll confuse Fukushima for Fukuyama. The old toad is and should be remembered for being many tawdry things, but he can’t be accused of not being. His personality is the very thing that bisects the country. His personality is what will get out the blue vote. If anybody’s running the Harris show, it’s Trump. Everyone else is an extra.
No wonder he can’t get a hold on Harris. Any gibe, any pet name (in a parallel universe, “Comrade Kamala” is catchy as Covid) assigns to her more character than she has. It’s not true enough. It doesn’t land. She cannot be charged with hypocrisy: You can’t contradict your beliefs when you don’t obviously believe anything. You can’t suffer much the consequences of poor policy-making when you’ve hardly made any policy. Her presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Purely ornamental. A vacuum contains nothing. Not even hot air.
A Harris victory wouldn’t be a consummate disaster. Stay with me. Yes, this anti-talent show would go on a little longer. Yes, we’d have to put up with the cacophony of improvised lines and the tedium of scripted ones. But American institutions are hardy. It’s not advisable, but even with nobody at the helm this ship can roughly, for a while, stay the course. It’s doing it right now. If there was any doubt in 2020 about the Big Guy’s being up to two terms, there is already no doubt that Harris isn’t. In third-century Rome, Emperor Aemilian — taken out by his own men — might have been succeeded by someone named Silbannacus. We know nothing about him. In a few generations, a Harris reign might be slightly less memorable than that.
And if she loses? It’s curtains. A job well done, the political thespians will tell themselves, though the crowd might have been tough (and the star rather absent). Then we’ll watch them rub off the make-up, store the props, hang up the costumes. Prepare for a second run of a familiar production: a modern spin on Oedipus Tyrannus. That’s show business for you.