The current Republican spectacle has been overanalyzed into oblivion, but the takeaway is that — while potentially very dangerous — this election cycle carries entertainment value. Much of that, undeniably, has to do with the unassailable Donald Trump. He’s the spawn of a long-running union between celebrity and politics, and win or lose, he’s here to stay. There’s a good reason why the three major news networks declined to air Bernie Sanders’ defiant concession speech because they were waiting around for Trump to deliver another performance. The candidate may pride himself on being an expert negotiator, but he’s really a savvy reality-television star who’s engineered his way halfway to a party nomination.
Similarly, Jerry Springer has done both television and politics. He’s best known for serving fist-fighting participants and warring paternity tests into living rooms, but Springer also served as Cincinnati mayor in the late 1970s. He has room to talk about both occupations and sees little difference between his show and the current slate of Republican behavior. Presumably, he’s talking about those fiery debates, which accelerated to the point of closed captioning giving up on life while spitting out, “unintelligible yelling.” But Springer is also talking about the regular violence seen at Trump rallies.
Like the rest of the world, Springer is finding it hard to cope with this reality. He’s doing the talk show rounds and visited with CNN to say Trump’s rise was “inevitable.” Springer also says last week’s Chicago rally protests shouldn’t be compared to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, for no one politician was to blame for the widespread unrest of that era. Whereas Springer sees Trump as solely responsible for fanning current political flames, but he remains somewhat optimistic:
“Never before has the candidate himself been the one to instigate whatever the problems are. And so yes, that has created a problem. But frankly … I don’t think there’s any way that Donald Trump gets elected as president of the United States.”
Springer also popped over to MSNBC to address spreading comparisons between the current election and his show:
“Well, they’re absolutely right. In fact, when I first started watching the Republican debates, I said that, you know, if they’re going to do my show, they should start paying me. You know, it’s one thing to have a television show like that, but that’s not how you run a country. And it’s disgraceful.”
Springer continued by saying he’s always called his own talk show stupid, so he’s having trouble reconciling how closely it resembles today’s political showdowns. Isn’t it strange to hear him sound as jaded as your Facebook friends do? For the record, he’s supporting Hillary Clinton because he thinks she has a much better chance in a general election than Bernie Sanders does. Here’s the MSNBC interview clip, which is both funny and scary. When Jerry freaking Springer judges harshly, folks had best pay attention.
