If, like me, you’re a fan of "Parks and Recreation," you're familiar with Ben Wyatt. At the age of 18, he was elected mayor of his Minnesota town despite having zero qualifications for the job. Unsurprisingly, his few months in office were a disaster. He bankrupted the city by spending all its money on a winter sports complex he christened “Ice Town,” earning him the nickname of “Ice Clown.”
Needless to say, he was impeached.
Why did the town elect such an unqualified candidate, you might ask? Well, in Ben’s words, he was riding a wave of “anti-establishment voter rebellion.”
Sound familiar? "Parks and Rec" is meant to be a comedy. The tale of Ben Wyatt should be a joke. But lately, it’s gotten a little bit too close to reality. "Parks and Rec" was created long before the fateful election of 2016, yet its writers predicted the future of American politics better than anyone else.
This is what we’ve come to. Our founding fathers are probably rolling over in their graves right now. Despite their obvious misogyny and affinity for slave labor, even they understood that we shouldn’t elect awful people to hold public office.
His name is Donald J. Trump. The J stands for Jackass, but he just likes J, and that’s all. Ironically, he also campaigned on the back of the anti-establishment movement. Though he hasn’t bankrupted America (yet), he’s certainly had his own experiences with bankruptcy as a businessman. And many hypothesize that before the end of his first term, he will build his very own Ice Town right across the street from Mar-a-Lago. Unlike Ben Wyatt, he is much older than 18, but he has the unique ability to transcend the social construct that is age and act like a poorly-behaved child.
Make America Great Again, am I right?
A lot of us have spent the past two years struggling to accept the results of that election. But instead of shouting obscenities or weighing the pros and cons of moving to Canada, we should be asking ourselves how we let ourselves get here.
When did we stop taking politics seriously? Since when do we toe the line between real life and comedy? Honestly, who needs television when we have our very own telenovela unfolding before us in real time? And, more importantly, does anyone know what Ron Swanson thinks of Donald Trump (asking for a friend)?
