Monday 7 November 2016

Reliving the Twilight Zone



There's an episode of The Twilight Zone series called "It's A Good Life" in which a boy, played by Billy Mumy of Lost in Space fame, is able to read the thoughts of others and to punish all those who aren't in agreement with him so that in effect he is able to control history. (There was in fact a successful parody of this episode in one of The Simpsons Halloween specials with the boy being, of course, Bart Simpson.)

This episode of The Twilight Zone has recently come to mind because of the constant efforts of news media, members of the Republican Party, and supporters/surrogates to reinvent Donald Trump and make him into a palatable presidential candidate. I'm not really sure if it's Trump's threat to sue the media or his ability to bully his opponents into submission that's caused the deference being shown to him. Whatever the reason, we are supposed to forget the wall with Mexico, the ban on Muslim immigrants, the non-release of tax forms because it's none of our business, the storm-trooper mentality toward opponents, and the blatant sexism, racism, and xenophobia of this candidate because, after all, this is The Donald.

To quote the Twilight Zone end narration of "It's A Good Life":

...And if by some strange chance you should run across him, you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled at your own risk, because if you do meet [him} ... you can be sure of one thing: you have entered The Twilight Zone.

That's a scary place to be on the eve of the US presidential election. Hopefully, reason will still prevail for the majority of voters.

(Adapted from my GoodReads Writing in Retirement blog post of May 15)

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