Oprah and the 2020 Vision

Well, I wasn't exactly plotting this as my Happy New Year! post, but since there are about fourteen different arguments I'm involved in on various Facebook threads regarding this topic, thought I might as well weigh in here for all and sundry...

We're here to talk about the Golden Globes, Oprah, and the trending idea of "Oprah for President."

First and foremost, it has come to my attention that a significant portion of y'all, whoever y'all may be (feel free to mis/interpret that to include yourself or not - I don't really care), missed the set-up in Golden Globes show host Seth Meyers' opening monologue. Just last night I had to explain this to someone in a bar who had no idea it had happened. I'll explain it again here, because if you're coming late to the party and claiming that the #Oprah2020 response to her lifetime achievement award acceptance speech is half-baked, you should probably know that you are the half-baked one, in that you have only been served half of this entree. To wit:

-In 2011, Seth Meyers and Barack Obama famously roasted and jabbed and mocked TheDonaldTrump at the White House Correspondents Dinner, where rich and powerful people do that to each other annually (usually including the current president, except not this past year because we don't currently have a president, just a usurping twit), and since then there has been a kind of ongoing half-joke rumor that Seth Meyers pitilessly mocking Trump to his face about wanting to be president is what cemented the decision in TrumptyDumpty's mind that he'd run. Is it true that Seth Meyers' words had that effect on Trump? Don't know/don't care. But it has been a recurring theme since then to ask Meyers about it in interviews (see, e.g., him on Fresh Air) and for him to half-jokingly/half-wistfully say maybe he accidentally is responsible for the disaster through which we're all now living. Ha.
-At the Golden Globes this past Sunday, January 7, 2018, Seth Meyers referenced his "responsibility" for #TrumptyDumpty and said that he doesn't know if it works, but just in case... and then he riffed along these lines: "Oprah, you can NEVER be president! You should not run in 2020! Tom Hanks, you can never ever be vice-president! You're too nice!"  Reaction shots of Oprah and Hanks in the crowd. Laughter all around. Then, Seth Meyers staring into the camera: "And now, we just wait and see."

Get it? It was funny, and brilliant, and spot fucking on, as comedy should be.

So if you missed that, you missed the entire planting of the night's seed, as it were.

Anyway, then later in the evening Oprah got the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. Remember when Meryl Streep got that award last year? I sure do. See, e.g., this most wonderful of Tweets. In keeping with the evening's/Hollywood's/the world's life moment theme of #TIMESUP and declaring a new day in terms of the shite women must endlessly face, especially when they dare to have power or have their voices heard (see, e.g., Hillary Rodham Clinton, you goddamn vast right-wing conspiracy that has absolutely ruined for the rest of us what could have been a perfectly nice life), Oprah gave a rousing speech that many, many, many of us found moving and inspiring. Because she is, among other things, moving, inspiring, smart, experienced, a leader, a visionary, talented, philanthropic, gutsy, bold, powerful, eloquent, life-affirming, and - not to be missed - a black woman. You're goddamn right I'd be happy to hand her whatever job she wanted.

I highly doubt she wants to be president. Neither does the unstable, decidedly non-genius, usurping twit currently pretending to do that job.

I am not starting or joining any #Oprah2020 campaign.

No, I don't think we should be plucking our presidential candidates out of the "world of entertainment" - see, e.g., Ronald Reagan and Pat Robertson, two such pluckees who should never have been presidential candidates.

But y'all (again, if you're not part of that y'all, don't take it personally, but if you are, please take it VERY personally indeed) made Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of the smartest and most qualified presidential candidates of all time, run against just such a pluckee and you acted like he had any business being there. Any of you who did that -- any of you who ever for so much as one second pretended he had a legitimate claim to being a qualified presidential candidate - goddamn you to hell.

All of the racism and misogyny that has built this nation has led us to this moment: we have an actual usurping twit unstable "button"-wielding cretin in charge of actual things, and instead of being outraged about that this week (and every week), you want to point out to me that it is ridiculous that people are hashtagging #Oprah2020.

Yes, it is ridiculous.

Your bed is made. Lie down.