Boehner Gone!!

Weigel’s analysis is perceptive but too narrow. It neglects to account for the fact that real developments outside the closed, hermetic world of Washington DC are shattering the suspension of disbelief upon which all good shows depend. Real consequences are impinging upon the artificial world of the ring canvas.

The fans, once enraptured by the wrestling, have noticed large fires starting outside the stadium. They hear shouting a few blocks over in Chinese. In the far distance there’s appears to be a rumble of Russian. And right next door, where the smoke (is it smoke?) seems to be coming from thickest, are loud yells in Arabic, French and German.

They notice that the price of tickets gets higher and higher; and the food service quality lower and lower. The space under the seats looks like they haven’t been swept in weeks. And there are disturbing movements of cash boxes from the ticket gate they’ve never noticed before. They sense, even if they can’t articulate it, that something is different.

Yet to their astonishment no one in the wrestling ring, not even the announcer, appears to take the slightest notice of events and carry on making the same choreographed moves, the same scripted sounds. At that point, they crowd may start to boo.

That could prove enough to break the spell. As any dramatist knows, there is nothing more fatal for a play than the audience to so lose interest in the plot that they begin to notice the shabbiness of the props, the obvious make-up of the players and the cardboard nature of their swords. For at that moment onward, the production is doomed. The greatest danger to a show is that the crowd begins to to see the play-outside-the-play.

Boehner’s depature is yet one more sign that the narrative is breaking down. Both in Europe and in America, the same old nostrums are having increasingly less effect. The problem is growing without an answer in sight. The players are still going through the motions, but they are only making things up as they go along.

Yet we need to open up the southern borders and be more compassionate in order for the immigrants to come in so there are sufficient "workers" to do the jobs in the fields that "Americans" will NOT do.