Okay so it's late, I'm bored and you've probably stopped reading by now. I've had a fascination with postmodernism since I was introduced to it in college.
It's applied to nearly everything nowadays and I've annoyed a great deal of people in its practice. But the following article and it's links is the most accurate summation of the election debacle I've seen -
http://www.hyperboreans.com/heterodoxia/?p=1206
To try and summarise, the spectacle of the election has blurred any sense of reality attached to it. It is as much a facade as the American dream or Hollywood. And Trump is the epitome of the spectacle.
From my own thoughts, take the inaccurate exit polls or the bombardment of stats and percentages you don't have time to understand or know whether they are actually legitimate. Take Trumps cameo in WWE, the election and his back and forth sparring with Clinton is almost like a WWE script, utter nonsense.
It's like an extentions of reality TV, it's a grown up slapstick kids show. Politics has been reduced to a sideshow. The total implosion of what it means to be a celebrity these days has now extend politicians. It is surreal that a businessman who cameos in films and television shows (Including reality TV show the apprentice), shows how absurd it has all become. We see all these celebrity endorsements but know nothing of the huge behind the scenes backings of major conglomerates.
Voting for your preferred candidate is now nothing more than picking your favourite TV show character. The idea that a dead gorilla who's 'celebrity' has been cultivated by online memes was voted for in the thousands shows the extent of the implosion.
Take the whole extensive coverage of the election with fancy graphics, experts you've already forgotten. I mean at stages we were watching people on the news watching news coverage of them watching the election unfold. Sorry for getting metaphorical but this is what it has become.
I could go on for ages and I'll probably end up continuing this by other means but I'll wrap it up for the sake of me going on a bit too much. If it's felt like the most surreal year it's because it is. It feels like it isn't happening right? We've become obsessed with the spectacle. Everything is thrown at us so fast we have no time to process it all. And for a year where you thought things couldn't get any further away from reality, the American election Trumps it all.
