Schwarzenegger himself was preceded in ascension to high office by Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a professional wrestler elected governor of uber-progressive Minnesota in 1990, who, incidentally, also starred with Schwarzenegger in Predator. Professional wrestling was the original reality television, where buffoons say outrageous — even violent and racist — things, but it’s all supposed to be in good fun.
The long migration of such noxious buffoonery from the fringe of American culture to the mainstream has had several signature moments, the most prominent of which was Muhammad Ali, who, despite his admirable virtues, introduced America to the culture of vanity and disparagement that he self-consciously copied from wrestler Gorgeous George. From Gorgeous George, to Ali, to Schwarzenegger, to Trump — these men track the descent of American culture. Politics, as has been often remarked, is downstream of culture.
Hillary Clinton represents the apex of another generations-long degradation of American politics: namely, the use of public office as a means of personal enrichment. Her middling performance as secretary of state was nevertheless a bonanza for her family, as she and the Clinton foundation elevated to an art form for the practise of influence-peddling, as it was known in a more honest time. It was likely the desire to keep that sordid and lucrative operation secret that made her willing to endanger U.S. security with her private email server and to cover it up with the deletion of tens of thousands of emails.
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