I'm taking note of the fact that after my very "masculine" prediction a few days ago that Trump would "crush" Steve Bannon, Bannon has now been ousted as the head of Breitbart after spending several days back pedalling on what he told Michael Wolff, to paraphrase: "I didn't say it. And if I did say I I didn't mean it. And if I did mean it I shouldn't have said it. 'Cause Don Jr. really isn't a traitor. He's a patriot. Really. That's what I meant to say. Please forgive me."
And North and South Korea are talking. And North Korea's going to the Olympics in South Korea. And the two Koreas have agreed to hold joint military talks. I'm still saying that sometime in the next few months the US will be directly across the table from North Korea and Trump will be starting to make travel plans.
As for Oprah, I tend to think "good Lord, another celebrity without experience," too. But I was listening to a historian on the radio a couple of days ago who pointed out that experience has never been considered necessary for the presidency, and that celebrities have often been elected. It's just that the nature of celebrity has changed over the years. He pointed out that in the 19th century the US elected a bunch of generals who had no political experience (some of whom had never even bothered to vote before being elected president) because the generals (like Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant - even up to Eisenhower in the 1950's) were the "celebrities" of the day. Once TV became the "in" thing, the presidency changed so that you had to "look" the part. So celebrities and some athletes started to play bigger and bigger roles in politics. Reagan got elected governor of California and then president, Sonny Bono went into Congress, Jesse Ventura became governor of Minnesota, Bill Bradley was elected to the Senate, Al Franken was elected to the Senate, Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Oprah would just be a continuation of that trend.
