The 2012 hit television drama SCANDAL, starring Kerry Washington and created by Hollywood icon and African American Diva (who owned ABC prime time on Thursday for six of the seven seasons) Shonda Rhimes, has got nothing on what is going on in Washington, DC right now with the current iteration of White House drama. The New York Times and the Washington Post have both come out with blockbuster stories on the President of the United States that challenges even the most generous perception of reality, even in the “Reality-TV” generation. First, the Times has reported that in 2017 the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into the question of whether the American President was, intentionally or unwittingly, an asset for the Russian government, working against the national security interests of the United States of America. And second, the Washington Post reported, the President refused to make available, even to his own administration’s leadership team, the notes or “talking points” of his 5 private one-on-one meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, he confiscated the interpreter’s notes and instructed her not to disclose what was said in the meeting to anyone.
All of this has taken place within the first two years of his scandal-fraught Presidency. Pundits, historians and politicians have ALL been struggling to find any reasonable rationale or historic precedent for the President’s actions or the extraordinary goodwill and over-the-top admiration he shows for the Russian autocrat along with other “strongman leaders” around the world. A television creator/producer like the extraordinary Shonda Rhimes could not have devised a more unbelievable, complex, tension-filled dramatic script than what we have going on right now in REAL Life!
We’ve got all the elements of the former TV drama SCANDAL including sex, lies, deception, conspiracy, fraud, election rigging, Grand Juries, convictions and confessions. It’s “as if” Shonda Rhimes actually created the script and we’re now at the cliffhanger before the dramatic climax of the final 5 episodes. The so-called “War Room” in the White House and spin-masters in the White House Communications Department have had to create other storylines, dramas or distractions to try and disrupt the dramatic tension and counter balance all the talk of possible espionage and Un-American “activity” by what could be a traitorous President in the White House. All of this calls into question everything that we Americans believe in as the world’s “greatest” democracy.
Currently, we are experiencing the longest government shutdown in American history as the White House has been holding working Americans hostage, while the debate over the so-called crisis at our southern border has become one of those “created” storylines. The diversion has worked as the public continues to be fixated on the possibility that the President might declare a National Crisis over a campaign slogan that had people chanting “Build-a-Wall” and responding in unison “Mexico will pay for it!” All of this while over 800,000 government employees have not been paid for their labor and thousands of government contractors will never be paid for their lost wages. And not unlike a television drama, the politics of distraction continue to hold us ALL hostage to a leadership in Washington afraid to exercise their Constitutional duty as a co-equal branch of government and STOP the madness! The consequences of Scandal the remix are putting into jeopardy the REAL LIVES of actual Americans.
