Americans and Trump: The Equally Obsessed

I love late night talk shows. Laughing about politics is par for the course, but what about pop music? It used to be young people would flock to concerts to hear singers croon about peace and love, but nowadays, the audience for that type of entertainment is rather niche. Despite the popularity of anti-government music being on the decline,  it would seem that America's obsession with voicing dissatisfaction with politics is very much thriving in both media and social media.  Is there a difference between being informed and simply being obsessed? What about the center of all the debate? Is Trump equally obsessed with public perception of his actions, as influencers are with him. Let's chat about it.

Music by Mound City by Coleman Hawkins (recorded 1929)

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This podcast is recorded in a style that pays homage to talents like Miss Monitor (Tedi Thurman) and explores topics designed to stimulate conversations. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Why care so much about what perception is of past deeds? After all, Epstein isn't in the headlines as much as gas prices in the war in Iran. My name is the lovely Ray, and I was born and raised in the US. I currently have the opportunity to speak with people from all over the world. Negative people just like you. And I'm always fascinated by the cultural differences. This podcast is voicing the style of the Salty Sounding 1985 Weather Girl. It is a collection of thoughts inspired by my global conversation and aims to buy you to have those art conversations out loud and with others. Thanks for stopping by, darlings. I'd love to chat. Welcome back, darlings. I recently had a friend share with me a video clip of a musician performing a song in which the artist vocally expressed his displeasure in the current political climate. And the musician was extremely talented. His voice was beautiful, his lyrics were gifted. It had me reflecting on a few other things of American society presently. All of the late night shows that have much of their content about the current state of politics, as well as all of the YouTubers with all of their various programs based around the current state of politics. And then there's the news. With that being said, we could argue that the news has always built their business model around current events. And talking about today's presidential administration is no different than talking about administrations years prior. And to be fair, we could also say that musicians have long been vocal about their disapproval of wars. If we take it back to the 60s and 70s, this was what music was all about. Unlike today, where so much of popular music is about getting that money or getting that booty. Yeah. And so while the state of music has definitely changed, I do wonder okay, and I will give it up that late night host have always also like news organizations built their content around public events. I do wonder where do we all go? What do we all talk about once the current president of the United States is no longer the president of the United States? Hmm. Now, one may say that's only two years away. However, Donald Trump loves to be the center of attention. And so, regardless of presidential status, I find it very hard to believe that this man would simply seek to fade into the background or form some charity in order to do something good for society or even write a book on his time in the White House. No.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Unlike past presidents, this guy wants us to keep talking about him. And this leads me to wonder are Americans obsessed with Trump? Is the world obsessed?

SPEAKER_04 4:35

Or are the various things that he is doing in the name of American desire things which are worth talking about? I'm going with the latter. They are things worth talking about. But I do wonder if some people are simply fixated on talking about him, if business models are solely built around talking about him, what happens to those businesses when he's really no longer worth talking about. Now, I haven't really come to any conclusions related to the position of many influencers dedicating their time solely to talking about what the right is doing wrong, what the Republicans have done now, or what Trump himself is doing wrong.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

But I do want to take a time to chat about Trump's obsession with Trump. Hear me out.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Back when I was working as a waitress in New York City, the live music venue that I worked at had booked a film showing. It was a documentary that was designed to hold Ronald Reagan up as some sort of saint, a man of faith who had worked hard to help get America back on track by telling young people to say no to drugs, and his foreign policy strategy was to outspend the Russians. You see, I had lived through the Reagan era, but it was seeing all of these moments combined together in this documentary that left me thinking, this guy is so to blame for a lot of the shit that we Americans are dealing with today. Now, that day I mentioned was over a decade ago, but the ripple effect of a Hollywood actor being given one of the most powerful, prestigious jobs in the world, well, we are still being impacted by those decisions today. That high deficit we have. Thanks, President Reagan. Though he is solely not to blame after all, it was Nixon who ended the gold standard due to its volatility. But anyone else find it strange that the crook in the White House as of 2026 is not only pushing the country into further debt, but has also issued a meme coin in 2025 that brought him millions of dollars. I believe it was 350 million, but you can go ahead and do your own research to double check those numbers. Meanwhile, the meme coin itself tinged. This same president is also trying to push Americans to embrace cryptocurrency, and the crypto market in and of itself is volatile. How many individuals have felt financial ruin, have felt their lives were over, have ended things due to their financial loss from the crypto market? And I find myself wondering if someone who's so business savvy, if someone who's such a great deal maker, doesn't take into account the fact that his legacy will be tarnished if Americans embrace crypto and crypto dies. I mean, this is someone who is very concerned with how much people talk about him. Now, I almost said he's very concerned with how he's perceived, but that's not true. Because if he was concerned with how he was perceived, then when people say, hey, we don't like what you're doing, we think you are a criminal, we think you are um someone who's committed assault, well, he might take those words to heart and seek to change some of the things he's doing.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

That's not really the case. It's not really the case.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

Instead, there's a double down on I'm innocent, I didn't do those things, the things I've done, I have the right to do them, they are legally right. I am right.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

I, I, I.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Now I have to say for myself, I am glad that my grandmother, who was born during the Great Depression, did live to see the civil rights movement, lived to own her own home, and lived long enough to see the first black president. I'm not here to say that President Obama did everything perfectly, but he did do things that for someone who is a member of the African American community, I am proud of. And he also did things that someone who identifies as an American am proud of. When I think back to many of the things that Obama did, I find myself apologizing far less to my foreign friends than I do now with today's president. But yes, my grandmother lived to be a hundred years old. And I am so grateful that she did not live long enough to see what the world is like today. The fighting, the division. Because you see, grandma taught me that at times you will win and you will lose.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

But you always stay in the game. And so I wonder. I wonder if Trump was ever taught that.

SPEAKER_04 11:27

He certainly had his shares of wins and losses. He's always stayed in the game. And yet, I can't say he's really a fan of losing. After all, going after James Comey and going after various lawyers and legal organizations that have opposed him, continuing to defame those who have been vocal about his crimes, or those who have taken legal action against him, going after New York's Attorney General Leticia James. You see, it's been since he's returned to the White House, a series of various legal actions taken to say, hey, I was right, they were wrong, that Georgia election was really stolen, um, the votes weren't counted correctly, definitely illegal things happening there. The man can't just take the losses. He's also, it seems, forever seeking to prove that he's right. And for me, that feels like that determination to prove in any way necessary, by any way necessary, that you were right, that everything you've said was right all along.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

That doesn't feel like rational determination. It feels like an obsession with being perceived in a certain way.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

And so we come back to this idea of image.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Is he obsessed with his own narrative?

SPEAKER_04 13:51

I mean, he's college was deemed to not provide proper education and was deemed a failure. He's had a failed casino, he's had failed businesses. I don't know, darling. I mean, has this man been on record saying that the college was actually an immense success and the judge and the jury got it wrong?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

So what is it about this older man who's committing many of the same blunders he's committed before? Why is he so fixated on changing the narrative?

SPEAKER_04 14:41

Speaking of changing the narrative, January 6th being a day of peace and love peacefully walking through the White House. And yet, don't believe your lying eyes, baby. Don't believe those videos you saw of police officers being crushed by doors of a guillotine being or was it? I correct myself, it wasn't a guillotine, it was a noose scaffold with a noose being erected on the Capitol.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

How peaceful is that?

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Curiouser and curious error. I mean, why not just take the losses? Accept the fact that Jack Smith has gone on record saying that there was enough evidence to move forward with a trial. Accept the fact that Georgia's voting records had been recounted multiple times and that he lost Georgia. Just accept these losses and let them fade from public consciousness. Why go through the effort of having the FBI seize Georgia's voting records? Why go through the effort of going after James Comey and Leticia James? Why not just let it go? Why care so much about what perception is of past deeds? After all, Epstein isn't in the headlines as much as gas prices and the war in Iran. Why not let this be the new legacy? If the end game is money, which would be the view of past failures, then why today's losses be any different from yesterday's? A recent interview Hassan Minaj had with Andrew Storkin, where they discussed a speech made at Davos by Prime Minister Mark Carney. I found it quite fascinating. You see, Prime Minister Kearney, who was very willing to stand before all and say not just that the Emperor has no clothes, but that those who are delusional and so easily fooled cannot be trusted to be the world leader. And that wonderful little fairy tale, it is not just the emperor who is shown to be a fool, but all of the people who refuse to tell the emperor that he was bare, vulnerable, exposed, and simply wrong.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

That's multiple legacies ruined, multiple lives impacted.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

And in that children's story, we don't get a look at the next day or the next year.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

We don't see how the emperor handled the shame, how he dealt with the feelings of being mocked once he retreats back to his home. Because the aftermath is not the point. The Emperor trusted the people who offered him the finest clothing to wear.

SPEAKER_04 18:49

And Americans not all but enough trusted that the current president would make all their dreams come true, whether that dream was to bring back jobs or to prevent abortion from being legal or to prevent minors from undergoing ginger therapy or to simply restore jobs for those who consider themselves not getting a job due to TEI initiatives, or for those who were anti-environmental protections and wanted to have less legislation so that they could make more money based off of whatever legal issues were preventing them from making more money.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Enough people trusted the emperor, trusted the fool. And now they are seen the Emperor wears no clothes. To be fair, some people have always seen it and never said anything. But those who didn't say anything are also equally complicit.

SPEAKER_04 20:38

Just like in our fairy tale, those in the court who did not stop the emperor from going out.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Those in the court who told the emperor what he wanted to hear. Like so many of those in Congress.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

Legacies, tarnish, trust damage, because things can never go back to the way they were. So in this attempt to rewrite the past, is this just an effort to control the future in the same way the other executive orders and political alliances have been? Is it an effort to prevent things from ever going back to how they were? The idea of trust me, I'm right, and to then be legally proven right?

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Is that the ultimate goal? To be forever immortalized in the history books?

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Are we all just sitting through a preparation for a long winded eulogy? Or is this like an actor, someone who would just have Accept the political equivalent of an ecot status.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Maybe it's not a desire to be remembered at a certain way.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Maybe it's not a desire to make tons of money. Maybe it's simply a desire to perform actions that one believes in. Though this latter theory I do doubt because the man seems to change his mind quite frequently in terms of what he believes in. As much as he has given the world much to talk about, remember that he is not the world. He is but one man. One man who is attempting to shape America and possibly a new world order in his likeness.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

But he does not speak for all Americans. And he does not speak for the world.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

My darlings, no matter what his focus is, what the endgame is, I encourage you not to look at American politics as the equivalent of the Jerry Springer show or a real housewives spectacle. Do not become obsessed with the train wick and the carnage. Instead, let your tongue be tickled by how Americans can work together to close the divide in the shame and create a future filled with pride. After all, being the strongest country in the world or richest country in the world was never a title to embrace. Empires have long come and gone, and the core of those empires still remains in a smaller and hope it different form. So let's not obsess over one man, one party, or one ideology, nor should we lament what we've lost and cling to hopes that the glory days will be restored. Whether you define glory days as the time of Reagan, the time of Obama, the time of Washington, or some other period.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Darlings, except that the unofficial American Empire may be dead. But know that if Americans pull together, that what comes next may be something beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Until next time, darlings, it's been lovely to chat.