Do you remember that iconic scene in Ridley Scott’s epic movie, Gladiator, where Russel Crowe’s character, Maximus, disdainfully bellows out: “Are you not entertained?”
His ire is directed at the citizens of Rome who have flocked into the Colosseum in the hope of witnessing men and women either being torn apart by tigers and lions or killing each other with all sorts of weapons.
I am reminded of that scene by the politics in the West, especially the United States, which has become the theatre of the absurd. It seems not to exist for the people to choose their best representatives, but for entertainment as it lurches from one ridiculous scene to another.
In the past month the world has been entertained every week or so by one or the other shocking event. It started off with US President Joe Biden sounding as if he is a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic basket when he participated in the globally televised public debate with former president Donald Trump.
US citizens had not yet come to terms with the reality that Biden could possibly be beyond being the commander-in-chief of the world’s largest military and nuclear arsenal, only to be confronted with another surreal event — the attempted assassination of Trump by a 20-year-old lone gunman.
They were still reeling from that, when the next cliffhanger episode in this soap opera called Western Politics occurred: the announcement that Biden had decided to pull out of the presidential race.
He then later endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as the Democrat candidate.
Before anyone could question whether it should be Harris, the Democrat leadership announced her appointment.
As the events unfolded the American public were not granted the time to ask White House staff, fellow politicians such as former speaker Nancy Pelosi or media personalities why they seemingly lied a week before the debate when they told everyone how sprightly Biden looked and sounded.
Americans were not given a chance to properly examine the Trump assassination attempt and how this young man evaded the Secret Service or to even speculate about whether it was staged.
Even Biden’s withdrawal from the race was not subjected to scrutiny. There was quick-fire speculation about former president Barack Obama and his influence regarding the withdrawal.
Before Biden could mumble withdrawal and anyone could raise questions about Harris’s suitability for the job the decision was made for the Democrat Party, and she was announced as the nominee.
With the Trump assassination attempt fading into history and Harris able to raise millions of dollars in what seemed like seconds, we then had to endure the spectacle of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing a joint sitting of the US Congress and Senate to rapturous applause and standing ovations.
Netanyahu, who has an outstanding International Criminal Court arrest warrant, proceeded to state what can only be described as propaganda, if not outright lies.
Netanyahu and the White House worked together like a World Wrestling Entertainment tag team duo and, without any evidence, accused Iran of funding US supporters for Palestine’s liberation.
Now the Democratic National Convention will take place later this month and we will be subjected to the US and Western media celebrating the “world’s greatest democracy”.
But the appointments of either Harris or Trump were anything but democratic processes.
Both the Republican and Democrat conventions are essentially a coronation. It is where the US oligarchy, the billionaire donors of the political parties, get their choices for the presidential contest legitimised and sanctified.
In South Africa we know too well the danger of state capture.
Make no mistake, both Democrat and Republican parties are captured by Wall Street. They are comprehensively beholden to corporate interests, but have learnt from Hollywood the art of marketing and creating excitement. They know how to play this game of feigning alarm and anger, while making certain nothing really changes.
As we get closer to the November elections, expect a lot to be written about the lesser of the two evils to convince people to vote. There will be admissions, especially from the Democrats, that they must do more, but they will paint the picture of how much worse it would be if Trump were to win again.
It is true that Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement is different from the Republican elite and the Democrats. Maga is openly on the side of working-class whites and therefore Trump can easily say things that are anti-immigrant and can come across as racist, because he always appeals to his conservative base.
This time around though, Trump seems to have learnt his lesson from his electoral defeat in 2020. He is listening to the billionaire oligarchy and singing their tune, while playing to his base.
The complexity is that many of the rural and urban poor, especially African Americans, have lost confidence in Western democracy and its institutions. So whereas they may have come out for Obama in 2008, and for Biden in 2020, there is a noticeable rapid erosion of support for Democrats among African Americans.
The jury is still out on whether the party’s selection of Harris, who is African American with Indian ancestry — and a woman — will be able to turn this around. Trump’s base has remained intact, but worryingly for the Democrats his support among African Americans has doubled since 2020.
So we can expect the alarmist fear-mongering and race-baiting to go into overdrive to persuade African Americans to come out in their multitudes and vote for Harris.
It was back in April that the first US college protests in support of Palestinian liberation began. It spread across the country. The protestors seem to come from all walks of life, different religions, races and cultures. It was a celebration of the conscious diversity of the young.
While this was taking place on many campuses across the country, it would not be remiss for us to think that this was the most pressing issue preoccupying the youth.
It was not.
The main issue that seemed to capture the imagination of the urbanised African Americans at that time was the rap battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake; it was not the police breaking up pro-Palestinian encampments at New York University.
But if you watched the mainstream media, you could be forgiven for not realising that.
Politics, political leaders and their parties are far removed from not only the youth but the working and lower-middle classes. Generally speaking they regard democracy and its institutions of government as not for them but for others, the elites and well-to-do.
If we are truthful, we will admit that for all his faults, especially his boorishness — and his religious fundamentalism, especially rejecting the right of a woman to be in charge of her own body — Trump is unafraid to raise the matters that bother members of the poor and working class.
The poor and working class do have a problem with immigrants who they believe take away their jobs and who do not sound American, and with the media’s preoccupation with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex plus people, as well as with environmental issues that many working-class people also believe will affect their employment.
In the Democrat primary in Michigan a big deal was made about the so-called “No Vote” promoted by such luminaries as master movie/documentary maker Michael Moore, because of Biden’s support for Israel. What was not taken into account was that Michigan motor plants were closing down during the Biden presidency because of the Democrat support for electric vehicles.
There is corporate capture through the mainstream media of matters such as immigration, the green economy and the understanding of gender politics.
Whenever the poor and working class try to enter these matters they are shouted down or told that they are populists.
They will either opt out of politics, like many have, or they may end up supporting Trump, because he is at least raising these issues that concern them — even though they may regard him as racist, prejudiced and even an opportunist.
But it does not matter who wins in the November 2024 US presidential elections, because both frontrunners, Harris and Trump, like their respective political parties, are captured by corporate interests.
Donovan E Williams is a social commentator.