On the night of October 19, Donald Trump confirmed what Hillary Clinton had told America only weeks before: He lives in his own alternate reality. While most political pundits are reacting in shock to the Donald’s refusal to commit to accepting the results of the election, others noted that he refuses to accept that he never won an Emmy for The Apprentice. In the Donald’s mind, he should have won, and in the Donald’s reality that means he did win ― but the results were “rigged” to take away what was rightfully his.
So too with women. Yes, apparently, all of them. The Donald has the right to say what he likes: “It is just blabber, locker room talk,” and, then, when 10 women have now come forward to verify his enactments of his gross braggadocio, he would not have “done that” because he “respects women.” Or finds their looks unattractive. “She would not be my first choice.” Anyone who says otherwise: they have “poisoned minds.” The results are rigged. How dare “reality” not align itself with the Donald’s beliefs. The sheer nerve.
Donald Trump knows better than 17 military and security agencies that his “friend” (one he has never met) Vladimir Putin is not behind the hacking of the DNC. The Donald is convinced it is some 400-pound man on a couch. That same man keeps hacking into the computers of the polling companies and “rigging” the results. After all he is WINNING. The very idea that America’s media reports otherwise. It must be the work of that “nasty woman.”
Hubris is defined by Webster’s as “false pride.” In the Donald’s case, the pride is very personal and very real – but it is based on a “reality” which seemingly only he can see. Like the Emperor and his clothes, the Donald insists that those around him proclaim the same twisted reality. Donald Trump Jr. suggests that IF his father were to somehow win, “the presidency would be a step down.” The Donald would be doing all of us a magnanimous favor by serving as the leader of the Free World. Ivanka sees no problem with her father allowing her to be referred to as “a piece of ass.” Another magnanimous favor. Thanks dad.
America should be used to this kind of thing. It is served to us nightly on the many varieties of horror show otherwise known as the “Real Housewives.” Just like the Donald’s reality is illusory, so too with these ladies. They are not housewives and nothing is real. Their “host”, the Bravo TV network, sets up situations well lubricated by alcohol which seemingly demand that the ladies fight, gossip, and tear each other apart for slights which have been manufactured by the production crew and designed to arose the “nasty woman” in each of them. Unlike in the presidential debates, these ladies get the “privilege” of having to do multiple takes of fight scenes and embarrassments. Only the finest of editing separates alcohol induced laughter from the production induced screaming. Yes, real indeed. NOT.
But it seems that being on the Real Housewives induces its own form of Hubris. Andy Cohen, Bravo’s host for the series, claimed that to “move on” from the women – by getting a promotion to Billy Bush’s old job on the Today Show – would be “beneath him.” Having to deal with the real real world instead of his Bravo created fake one would be a step down. Another Donald.
Vicki Gunvalson, one of the Orange County ladies, took a similar approach. Just this past month she had Bravo devote time in two episodes announcing the creation of her “cancer charity” and promoting the same. Except it was not a charity (at least in the legal sense, since they never bothered to file any of the paperwork necessary to create a bona fide charity or to solicit monies). Indeed, when fans objected that it seemed to be nothing but a promotion for her insurance company (yes what both Ms. Gunvalson and her KillAllCancer buddies do in the real real world), she tweaked the program and its website into bracelets and donations. When the scam was exposed for what it was (only a “lead generation device” to help sell critical illness insurance), she announced she is “killing” the charity. In that same announcement she insists she was only a spokesman and it was never her charity. In the world of the Real Housewives spokespeople have the ability to kill projects, programs, and companies. [Full disclosure, when researching this article on hubris, I discovered the scam and exposed it – for which I have been called unspeakable things by Ms Gunvalson and her PR crew — but I least I was able to get it shut down before anyone got taken.]
The “reality” is just that of the “truthy idea.” (It is a charity because I tell you it’s a charity, and because it was featured as such on Bravo – legalities and paperwork they do not matter. Just like the Donald’s wall and his “respect” for women.)
Truthies are ideas which we want to be true, which we believe to be true, which make sense to us and help explain the world and so “must” be true – but which lack any foundation in facts or the ability to be confirmed by non-believers.
The Donald holds false pride over his truthy – the idea that he and he alone can “save” America. Andy Cohen holds false pride over his truthy – the idea that he performs a “public service” in continuing to lead the Real Housewives. Vicki Gunvalson holds false pride over her truthy – that she can disguise selfish commercialism as a charity. None of the three can understand how or why America in the real real world says NO. After all, they each can summon their illusion by video on demand. Their reality is found in that set top box. They believe because it is on TV it must be “real.”
Back in the real real world, Samsung discovers it has been distributing potential bombs disguised as cellphones. Their Hubris was in first trying to hide the problem, second in hurrying a solution, and third in not performing adequate quality checks. Rumor has it that they substituted low quality “separators” in their batteries for the high quality ones they previously used. Much like what might happen if we substituted the Donald for an actual leader, or Andy Cohen for a newscaster, or accepted Ms. Gunvalson’s scheme as a “charity.” More than a 100 of the Samsung bombs have exploded in the real world. Thus far we have been spared the virtual explosions from Trump, Cohen et al.
A decade or more of public support for programs like the Real Housewives has given rise to the idea that the faked world of reality TV is somehow the equivalent of the real real world. Samsung felt comfortable skipping third party testing of its batteries. Donald Trump felt comfortable skipping an internal “forensic exam” (to find the skeletons before the opposition does). Bravo felt comfortable relying on the word of self-interested scammers in deciding to give national TV time to a fake charity. In all three cases, hubris fueled a self-delusional belief in the power of a truthy. In all three cases, no one fact checks or does due diligence. Truth might make the truthy uncomfortable. Better to never ask questions and to always assert truthies as answers.
Let’s be fair: hubris fueled Hillary Clinton’s truthy that it was ok to create a zone of privacy through the use of a private email server – who could object? And why?
Hubris and truthies were on full display during the debate. We live in an age where they are available 24/7 on TV. Some call them half-truths. Others call them lies.
We have lost the trusted curators who understood their responsibility to the public. We have no Walter Cronkite’s. Instead we get Andy Cohen and Billy Bush. We have lost both the people who ask penetrating questions and the desire to have them asked.
Worse, far worse, we lack a means for teaching our children that truthies are just that – mere beliefs powered by hubris -- not truths. Until we find such a means we are doomed to get more of the same:
Samsung cellphone bombs,
Gunvalson fake charities,
Cohen fake newscasts featuring meaningless gossip about not quite “real” people --
and the Donald who will insist he won long after his landslide defeat on November 8.
