Pop 89: The “Real” Apprentices of Washington DC
By Madonna Hamel
I was introduced to the so-called “reality” show “The Apprentice” in 2004 in a Chicago train station. It was late at night. I had a fever and wondered if maybe I was hallucinating. Who is this mean guy and why is he so popular? When did denigrating and insulting underlings become a form of entertainment? When did the public conversation get so crass, cutting and cheap?
My niece was in one of those American “reality” shows. Her team competed against others to create the ideal running shoe. At one point she was taken aside and warned that if she wanted to continue into the next episode, she would have to create a conflict. Conflict is what drives a story’s plot. Conflict is what keeps TV viewers glued to TVs. Nobody wants to see people get along.
In the first episode of a “reality” show everyone pretends to like each other. Allegiances must be formed - even if they are based on a shared enemy. Lie. Kiss up. Fake friendly. Then act aghast when someone doesn’t trust you and tell the camera, in an aside, that you’re “done” being nice. “Nice” is not how the dream is achieved. Nice people don’t win. Nice people finish last.
“Reality” shows reflect a desire to win the Big Beautiful Super-sized Billion-dollar American Dream. Contestants are told that if they “work hard enough,” they can win. But only one person can win. And my niece, a Canadian who listened patiently to the concerns and worries of her teammates, did not win a spot in the remaining episodes.
“The Apprentice” turned The American Dream into The Art of the Deal: Do whatever you can to make a deal. Including hiring someone to write a book called “The Art of the Deal” then claim authorship. It’s the deal that’s important, not reality.
I was happy to finally board my train and not have to see that man’s face and hear his voice fill the Chicago train station. Little could I imagine he’d merge “reality” show with reality fifteen years later.
Sadly, the star of the show is not sobered by his new responsibility. In fact, as he sits and speaks from behind a big Oval Office desk resembling his “reality” show prop desk, he expresses contempt and disgust, trashes countries and people with the same inflammatory flare he did, shocking viewers into watching him denigrate eager future apprentices.
The one thing the man is good for is ratings. And that’s why the media resists shutting him down - he pays their salaries. And Americans know it to the bone. They have come to see human relationships as business transactions, their leaders as P.T.Barnums, and their heroes as trash-talking lone actors. They like watching train wrecks.
When TV viewers cannot - or choose not to - discern between “reality” shows and reality, things get ugly. Like they are now. The president of America calls the rest of the world “ass-kissers.” He claims we are all “begging and willing to do anything to make a deal” with him. We’ve been ripping off poor, defenceless, powerless America for so long, he says. But now it’s his “turn to do some rippin’.
He sounds like a guy who watches a lot of porn. Who assumes that the world admires and enjoys the language of degradation and punishment? Who believes that by behaving disrespectfully “America will regain the the respect of the world?” Because, they love it when you rough them up.
This is the language of an addict. And the addict deals in extremes - all or nothing, always or never, best and worst, the most and the least. He uses inflated, empty and imprecise words like: Great. Unbelievable. Tremendous. Legendary. Horrible. Stupid. Very, Very Bad. His bills, beef, bond markets and border walls are all Big and Beautiful. His tariffs are The Best Thing Ever.
According to the president, “They’re lining up to make deals” with him, and he’s “making a fortune with tariffs - 2 Billion dollars a day.” And, as far as he’s concerned, he’s not lying. The addict, until he faces his compulsive-obsessive disorder, will continue to lie, tell bigger and bigger lies, and adapt to them accordingly - until he either crashes, gets locked up in a prison or a ward, or dies. Because, left unchecked, addictions progress, they do not hold steady. Stasis is scary. Calm is terrifying. Chaos is his comfort zone.
Sometimes addicts have a moment of clarity. Something breaks through their trance. If even for a moment, the addict comprehends the situation he is in and how far he’s drifted from reality.
The problem is: the president isn’t the only one who has drifted. He’s in a big boat with a lot of people, many who claim to not even like the guy, but choose to cozy up to him, prefer to keep him as a foil, or still hold fast to the unrealistic Dream of being a billionaire too, despite the cost or damages.
However, without that moment of clarity he will continue to perceive himself as beloved and admired, as attractive to women, the life of the party, and the voice of the people. Even if that voice is calling the world ass-kissers, vermin, and losers.
The president has carte blanche to use expletives and slander, because many Americans with leverage and sway are backing away from calling him out, NOT because they agree or even tolerate him, but because they are afraid of losing their jobs.
Those who find the president’s language refreshing, or authentic or entertaining are helping make America an extremely uncivil society. That’s just reality, some might say. F-bombing, interrupting, harassing, ridiculing, name-calling is the currency of celebrity. It is the only way to get heard. And it will get worse, because addiction is a progressive disease. Gentlemanliness and diplomacy left the building a long time ago.