leni riefenstahl, cable-news and social-mediasunrise – 7:19, sunset – 5:50
10 hours and 31 minutes of daylight

 
Leni Riefenstahl with Himmler in Nuremberg 19341  Yesterday was the first time I heard a cable-news/social-media personality admit that Donal Trump was a scary presidential prospect. The occasion was Trump’s retweeting of a white-supremacist’s tweet. Ezra Klein of Vox Media finally admitted that Trump has been very good for cable-news and social media; that the ratings and number-of-clicks have skyrocketed when they run all-things-Trump. But Mr. Klein went on to admit that what cable-news and social-media are dismissing as entertainment is really scary political policy. DUH!

And what about the fact that cable-news/social-media has advanced the Trump political agenda, because he serves their all-consuming need for viewers and eyeballs. Cable-news/social-media is doing for Donald Trump what Leni Riefenstahl and Joseph Goebbels did for Adolf Hitler in the Weimar Republic. Riefenstahl was the epitome of the young and talented generation that overlooked Hitler’s dark side. The generation that presented Nazism as the new religion. Cable-news/social-media is the young and talented phenomena of the current age and they have enshrined Trump on every TV, computer and phone screen.

To me, the current political climate is similar to the 1928 presidential election. The progressives/Democrats were for decent, common goals – repealing prohibition, religious tolerance; the conservatives/Republicans were for tougher enforcement of Prohibition and stricter immigration restriction. The Klan and the Protestant churches were potent forces against all things democratic and Herbert Hoover, who had no electoral experience, was swept into office by a landslide beating out Roman Catholic and Democratic New Yorker Al Smith.

 
37 days till spring1 Leni Riefenstahl stands near Heinrich Himmler while instructing her camera crew at Nuremberg, 1934.
In Nazi Germany, a version of the undercut – long on top but shaved at the back and sides –
was popular among the young men of the Wehrmacht – armed forces.