Late on the night of December 18, 2019, a time which now seems so long ago, I was searching for the appropriate response to the breaking news that the House of Representatives had voted to impeach President Donald Trump. As I watched the live-stream of the votes being tallied, aware I was witnessing history while cynical about the moment’s potential impact (I knew this did not mean the president was immediately ousted from office), words uttered by this very controversial figure from years ago echoed in my popular culture saturated brain. As a consistent viewer of NBC’s Must See TV Thursday night line-up through my middle school years, I knew what aired after Friends, and then Will & Grace. By the time I was 12, it was The Apprentice. I didn’t always watch the reality competition show, but I was tuned in enough to know the catchphrase that came at the dramatic elimination segment — “You’re fired.” I knew my duty as an American citizen that night. I knew I had to post a clip of Donald Trump saying, “you’re fired,” to give us all a relieving laugh that now he had been technically fired from the highest office in the land.
But, somehow, I found something even more special. I found this.
Not just one video clip of “You’re fired.” Seemingly endless clips of “You’re fired,” “Yuh fiyuhed,” *bangs the table* “You’re fired!” I couldn’t stop cackling. It was like if the United States as a concept could take acid, this would be a part of the trip. It was absurd. He was so self-serious, thriving on making judgments of who belonged in this imitation world of financial success, mocking the concept of the ideal American businessman in his suits & ties and occasionally tuxedos. (The slight alteration in details through different cuts particularly amuses me, reminding me of the almost-numbing repetition of it all.)
As the months went by, the Covid-19 pandemic surged, the amount of Americans with secure incomes plummeted, and President Donald Trump stayed right where he was. He didn’t get fired. He didn’t rush to initiate federal economic relief nor increase the accessibility of healthcare. He mainly talked and tweeted. This YouTube video started to strike me as painfully symbolic.
In quarantine, stuck in our homes with little to no human contact, time became an endless loop. Beginnings and endings and days of the week grew to mean less and less. We have had to rely on the Internet, with its constant buzzing and individually catered algorithms, for our sense of Real Life more than ever.
Even as we’re inundated with horrific statistics of Covid-19 infections, deaths, murders of and violent attacks on people by police officers (or self-appointed defenders of a mythical American virtue, often associated with Donald Trump), and actually spoken statements from Trump & co. on how they are chipping away at whatever imitation of democracy we had left, everything is meshing in a cycle. The unpredictability of pain, loss, fear, confinement, isolation, cruelty — they’re becoming somehow predictable.
We might find ourselves laughing at how our political figures and celebrities behave in the midst of this all, their foolishness, brazenness, blatant fictions. Because whether we try to ignore what’s happening or drown ourselves in it, we need release. We can’t process this all at once. It is truly absurd! It follows none of the rules our society previously claimed to rely on.
But it is happening and it’s starting to feel endless. A supercut of tragedy and ignorance, created by President Donald Trump and his administration, his team, and his behind-the-scenes bosses. The repetition of it all slowly quiets down the buzzing, the “You’re fired”s.
Personally (and I know this is an appalling statement to many), I find Donald Trump’s voice to be often soothing. Sometimes, especially when giving a “prepared” speech, speaks somewhat slowly, breathing heavily but not laboredly. I hate what he says, but the sound of it can physically relax me. My friend Nicole pointed out to me that, with the exception of some words (“Chi-Nah!”), he doesn’t put much emphasis on his consonants which answers some of why his talking affects me the way it does.
Maybe it’s also because it feels like it could go on forever. But ultimately, the video only lasts roughly three minutes. In time, with effort and awareness and solidarity, we can make this end too.
Or, we will all get fired.
the and times 