Donald Trump was center stage Tuesday at the United Nations and, by proxy, Sunday night at the Emmys, but only one of those events was the slightest bit interesting — and it wasn’t the Stephen Colbert-hosted awards ceremony cum bash fest replete with puerile humor and junior high school politics (apologies to seventh graders).
One wonders what the Emmys crowd thought of the UN speech. On second thought, one doesn’t. One knows. They thought it was a display of ogreish war-mongering by a Neanderthal. Just precisely what most of the MSM and the Democratic Party — the duo from whom Hollywood gets their marching orders — thought, or said they thought.
But here’s the truth about those entertainment-types, having worked among them for decades. They’re really afraid you’ll think they’re just dumb actors. So they pontificate endlessly, particularly at awards ceremonies, to convince you (and themselves) they’re not nitwits or just mega-rich Tesla communists (formerly Cadillac communists or Mercedes communists). But if they were watching Trump’s UN speech — and sooner or later we all were — they know deep down what we all know, even if they wouldn’t say it in a million years for fear of never working again: he was great.
This is hard to digest for the Never Trumpers as well. How can this man suddenly be emerging as the most important player on the world stage? He’s a reality star. He should be on the Emmys. (He should. He’s actually funnier than Alec Baldwin and certainly than Colbert with his juvenile Hitler jokes that would embarrass Mel Brooks.)
But because he is a reality star, Trump knows something that politicians rarely realize: Don’t hide. Just tell the truth about your opinions. Be honest to yourself and the world. And that’s what he was — amazingly — in front the United Nations, an organization so used to diplomatic double-talk, indeed built on diplomatic double-talk, you thought for a moment they would open up an elevator chute and drop him through.
It’s one thing to call out North Korea. Everyone knows they’ve gone a little over the edge. But attacking socialism itself — when half the audience are socialists of some stripe or another, or claim to be? Not done.
But he did it, and bravo. He also called out Russia (Ukraine), China (South China Sea), the UN’s (Orwellian) Human Rights Council, Venezuela (the socialism thing), radical Islamic terrorism, Iran (the most “embarrassing” deal the US ever made — and it is) and, of course, North Korea (Rocket Man!).
Does all this add up to anything? Yes, probably. World leaders watching this realize that America is being led by someone with actual convictions who may, just may, act on them. There’s a switch after eight years of Obama when no one thought America would do much of anything — and indeed it didn’t, even when confronted by the horror of chemical weapons.
No more. When Trump makes bellicose statements about annihilating North Korea, he’s doing it for a reason — so he will be heard in Pyongyang. Things may be too far gone in Rocket Man land for much to happen, but you can bet he is also being heard in Beijing, Moscow, Damascus, Teheran and various other venues. The left may be, in fact is, uncomfortable with it, but Trump signaled at the UN that America is back.
Roger L. Simon is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences but is not sure whether he will bother to vote in the Oscars this year.
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