Addicted: To Watching Our President?

Since the election of T1 as president many people who can see nothing positive in him whatsoever, either as human being or politician, are nevertheless transfixed by him on television and watch him with a fascination and an attention that they cannot account for and do not approve of. I want to put forward here a couple of ideas about that unaccountable fascination and attention.

The T presidency has been a spectacular train wreck by any normal standard. We have elected as president someone who knows nothing about any issue, domestic or foreign, except how it plays or could play on television. T's ignorance and contempt for knowledge remain breathtaking. And, as we hardly need to be reminded, when policies based on ignorance and contempt for knowledge are carried out in reality, the result is, at a minimum, disaster. Thus the train wreck that we see now portends more serious train wrecks coming.

The very awfulness of this may be one reason we can't stop watching. A gruesome spectacle, however repulsive, draws us in whether we like it or not. This is given clear expression in Plato's Republic in the following story:

Leontius, the son of Aglaion, was going up from the Piraeus under the outside of the North Wall when he noticed corpses lying by the [place of the] public executioner. He desired to look, but at the same time he was disgusted and made himself turn away, and for a while he struggled and covered his face. But finally, overpowered by the desire, he opened his eyes wide, ran toward the corpses, and said: ‘Look, you damned wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.’” (Book IV, 440 a)2

A similar impulse causes us to gawk at accidents and fires. In any case, as Leontius knew, being aware of this attraction to what is hideous and appalling, we usually are conflicted about giving in to that desire. This would be one element of our discomfort at watching T so much.