1 down, 47 to go
The ABC show "What Would You Do?" triggers a Trumpian feeling. Sadly, unlike the show's neatly edited productions, there appears to be no quick resolution to the President's Reign of Error.
What would you do?
That’s a hypothetical. As in: “If you were to encounter this situation, what would you do?”
It’s also the name of an ABC show hosted by John Quiñones now in its 17th season. In all that time, I’ve seen maybe 10 scenarios across five episodes. That includes one from this past Wednesday evening.
An essential ingredient in “What Would You Do?” is actors behaving so obnoxiously or recklessly or perilously in some form or fashion that they are practically begging for an intervention.
On this latest episode, a man was harassing a couple celebrating their anniversary in a restaurant. In this jerk’s assessment, the guy (apparently because he was overweight) wasn’t “in the same league” as the woman so he mockingly questioned how they could truly be a couple.
It was an outrageously obnoxious scene, one designed to fulfill the show’s premise: “actors portraying negative interactions in public places. The show's goal is to capture how real people would react and sometimes intervene.”
Producers ran the routine multiple times and usually diners who were within earshot of the ugliness ignored it or expressed support for the couple. Eventually, someone would pointedly confront the actor playing the cruel harasser.
Finally, for the last go-round—or at least the last one that made the cut—a man seated nearby with his wife almost immediately and most aggressively called out the harasser.
As he did after every other iteration of this scene, Quiñones swooped in to peel back the curtain and give an attaboy to the dude who put the guy playing bully in his place.
I’d seen enough of this over-the-top, contrived scenario. Then, clicking off the idiot box, it hit me why the cruelty portrayed by the actor bugged me so much: this is what everyone experiences whenever they see or hear from Donald Trump.
Since retaking the Oval Office 33 days ago, he’s been on a roll to go even lower on the U.S. Presidential rankings—after his first term, he was 41st out of 44 in this C-Span Presidential Historians Survey.
On a daily basis, we are all faced with a fresh batch of “What Would You Do?” on a grand, potentially global scale. We’re all on the spot: what do we do when we encounter Trump’s latest fabrication?
Take Trump’s falsely claiming that Ukraine started the war three years ago when it was unquestionably Russia’s Vladimir Putin who ordered the invasion of Ukraine and set upon a path that’s led to so much death and destruction. That’s #2 on this list of Trump’s 13 biggest lies of his first month back in office, by Daniel Dale of CNN.
If you’re a Trump supporter, do you just shrug your shoulders once again and rationalize it somehow? Does it bother you in the least, his brazen lying?
I wish it were all a really bad movie. I wish that Trump was simply acting the part of an outrageously horrible leader. But no, this is real life.1
The one-hour show’s timeframe dictates that the multiple scenarios get resolved via swift responses that come minutes, if not seconds, into the saga. Here in the humdrum, messy, unedited and unpredictable day-to-day world where Trump’s using lie after lie as the foundation for wreaking havoc, unless circumstances intervene in an unforeseen way, we won’t benefit from such a rapid response.
Instead, it’s one month down, 47 to go for Trump II: Reign of Error.
And because it’s real life, it’s not what would we do, but what are we doing in the face of it all? One thing I’m doing: trying to be a light of encouragement and hope to others in my day-to-day interactions. This is even when, like this past week, I’ve felt especially discouraged and hopeless. What are you doing? Let me know in the comments.
I’m doing my best to express gratitude to everyone with whom I do business—including sales people, checkout cashiers, mail and package deliverers, customer service folks in the private sector … and especially those in the government.
Interesting that so many of the bystanders at the restaurant intervened, when the old Kitty Genovese research we learned in social psychology class, since seriously questioned, said that people don't. But to tie that in to Trump, people let Trump get away with his reign of error so often because they are afraid of him because of his power. When criminals are at work, like with Genovese, people are likewise afraid. In a restaurant, no one likes confrontation, but you do have physical backup, and you won't be seeing the jerk again. With Trump, he will continue to haunt you, and very well ruin your life, if you cross him.