Celebrities, Populists, and Celebrity Populists

Ukraine has apparently elected a populist celebrity with no previous political experience as its president, and we hope it works out better for them than it has for Italy, Guatemala, Peru, Liberia, Pakistan, the United States of America, and the other countries that have recently made similar choices.

The Ukrainian president-elect is Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old comedian best known for his starring role on the hit Ukrainian sitcom “Servant of the People,” about a comedian who somehow becomes president of Ukraine. We eagerly anticipate the English-dubbed version showing up on Netflix, as it’s apparently a compelling show. From what we can tell by the press accounts Zelensky’s character is constantly doing battle with the country’s entrenched and corrupt establishment, and although he doesn’t necessarily win he at least gets some humorous insults in, and according to a prominent Ukrainian political observer quoted in The Washington Post “People are voting for the plot of the show.”

None of the western press reports about the election say much about Zelennsky’s opponent, who might well have been just as awful as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the last American election, but it still strikes us as a fanciful choice. Zelensky will likely get some zingers in during his time in office, and his fans will surely love it, but recent experience indicates that only does so much good for a country.

Italy elected comedian Beppe Grillo as its leader, and although he’s gotten a lot of laughs the country is still the same corruption-ridden economic basket case it’s been for the past 100 years or so. Previously the Italians had elected multi-billionaire media mogul and crusading populist Silvio Berlusconi, but his several terms were frequently interrupted by indictments and convictions on various corruption charges, which majorities of the Italian people didn’t mind given his crusading anti-corruption populism.

In 2015 Guatemala elected anti-corruption comedian Jimmy Morales, who had also starred in a hit comedy about a comedian becoming president, but the country remained so violent and impoverished that a troublesome segment of its population is currently seeking aslyum in the United States. Liberia elected a popular soccer star, Pakistan elected a cricket star who’d become a national hero by leading the country to its only world championship, but neither has proved nearly so successful in playing the more complicated game of governance.

Once upon a time in America we could have rolled our eyes at such Third World craziness, but in the age of President Donald Trump’s we have no standing to sneer. Trump was elected by an electoral majority without any previous political experience partly because of his much-bragged about yet frequently-bankrupt business career, partly because he’d portrayed a tough-talking take-charge “you’re fired” businessman on the reality show “The Apprentice,” partly because he promised to use that experience to “drain the swamp,” and mostly because he had the good fortune to be running against “Crooked” Hillary Clinton, who was arguably almost as corrupt.

Despite his political inexperience Trump has kept the American economy chugging along the same slow upward trajectory it was on when he elected, and during the two years his party controlled both chambers of Congress he won a budget-busting tax bill and installed a couple of conservative Supreme Court justices that any old establishment Republican would have championed, but mostly his fans love him for the zingers he gets in.

The people in the red “Make America Great Again” ball caps find Trump’s current hit reality show downright hilarious, but we admit we just don’t get it. They loved it when Trump mocked a reporter’s degenerative muscle disease, but it reminded of us how the kids at our elementary school laughed at the playground bullies’ mocking of the handicapped students, and they thought it funny that Trump called his Democratic nemesis Rep. Adam Schiff “Little Adam Shitt” in a “tweet,” but we thought it juvenile and vulgar and far beneath the dignity of the American presidency. A friend of our complains that the stuffily literal media took Trump seriously when he hilariously requested the Russian government to hack Clinton’s e-mails, and Trump himself has won laughs from his rally crowds by recalling how he said that during a raucous campaign rally where everyone was laughing and in on the joke, but in fact he said it at a somber press conference, where reporters pressed him to verify that he wasn’t joking, and the Mueller report makes clear that the Russian government didn’t get Trump’s sense of humor and attempted to hack the Clinton e-mails that same day.

Call us old-fashioned, but we preferred the more sly and subtle and profanity-free wits of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. These days much of America is so contemptuous of its fellow citizens on the opposite side of the political divide that it will happily settle for even the most puerile zingers, though, and hold out little hold that our differences can be reconciled through civil and reason debate. Apparently much of the rest of the Third and second and First Worlds have reached the same desultory state.

Here’s hoping it works out better for Ukraine than it has elsewhere. Zelensky is reportedly pro-NATO and anti-Russian, which is more than we can say for Trump, so we wish him the best of luck with that. Besides, for all we know the other candidate was arguably even more awful.

Even so, and at the risk of being called old-fashioned, we think there’s still something to be said for seasoned public servants making serious and fact-based arguments in a civil and reasoned debate. Maybe someone should make a show about that, but it probably wouldn’t get big ratings.

— Bud Norman

A Deal of Worry

Everything about the deal that the Obama administration is trying to strike with the Iranian government regarding that country’s nuclear ambitions is worrisome. The Secretary of State assures the nation that “We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid,” but it’s worrisome that a man in his position feels obliged to offer such assurances.

Blindness and stupidity are the most likely explanation for the deal, which would ease the international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for promises of a suspension of some parts of the country’s nuclear program, so perhaps such denials are indeed obligatory. Israel’s Prime Minister has declared the deal “very bad,” which is worrisome because he’s usually right about matters so crucial to country’s continued existence and because it represents yet another example of America’s frayed relationships in the Middle East even if he’s wrong. Even the socialist surrender monkeys of France find the deal too appeasing, and have at least temporarily nixed it as part of the cumbersome six-country negotiating coalition, although it’s worrisome that they are the ones demanding firmness. The Saudis don’t seem at all confident that the deal will so much as delay Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, as they have now made arrangements with Pakistan to acquire some of their own, and the prospect of a nuclear arms race in a region so rife with hatred and fanaticism is about as worrisome as things get.

Although the Secretary of State touts the long experience of his diplomatic team, it is worrisome that a lead role is being played the ex-social worker whose previous experience with nuclear arms negotiations allowed the North Korean nutcases to acquire enough weapons to menace their part of their world. Worrisome, too, is that the ex-community organizer in charge of these negotiations won the presidency mocking his opponent for being concerned about such a “little country” as Iran and has since pursued an “open hand” relationship even as the country celebrates it hostage-taking revolution with clinched fists and shouts of “death to America.”

There’s always a chance that the French will continue to stand steadfast for Israel and all of the Sunni Arab countries that would be endangered by an Iranian nuclear bomb, although it’s worrisome that it has come to that. Enough of Israel’s remaining Democratic friends in the Senate might yet be convinced to the join the Republicans in continuing the sanctions, which have by all accounts seriously hindered Iran’s economy and weakened its increasingly unpopular government, but it is worrisome that many Democrats will happily go along with efforts to bolster the hideous theocracy. Continuing the sanctions is the very least that needs to be done, and it’s worrisome that the most that will be required doesn’t seem even remotely possible with America’s current leadership.

— Bud Norman