The assumption behind all these dystopian/Orwellian/Hitlerian scenarios is that Trump’s secret purpose is to build an oppressive superstate. Fortunately, anyone with a fourth-grade education who lives in the Midwest—unlike the cultural Brahmins at Lincoln Center—can see that he’s doing the opposite. He’s tearing stuff up. He’s castrating the EPA, hollowing out the Department of Education, carving up HUD, firing people for disloyalty to him personally, deciding that we don’t need foreign ambassadors anymore. If you’re looking for entertainment-related metaphors, you don’t need Shakespeare. Use any Monster Truck Show.
But if you absolutely can’t live without a Trumpian theater experience, the play they should all be reviving is Ionesco’s Exit the King.
