Being There---great movie --yes this is a political post

I wrote the following to the NYT today:

NY times reporters would do well to re-watch Being There.  The 1979 movie staring Peter Sellers as a simple minded gardener whose entire understanding of the outside world is based on watching TV provides invaluable insights as to how to cover President Trump.  Just as Chauncey Gardner’s pronouncements are consistently misinterpreted and given much greater weight than the simple gardening statements that they are, President Trumps comments about N Korea or bombing of Syria is nothing more than a narcissist trying to regain control of the spotlight.  President Trump isn’t employing some version of Nixon’s madman strategy, or leveraging unpredictability to get better deals.  He has no foreign or domestic policy.  His goals are simple, consistent and obvious—self enrichment and aggrandizement.  That is it, full stop.  The NYT embarrasses itself and hurts its reputation as they reach to ascribe reason to Trump’s various pronouncements like sending an ‘armada’ to N Korea when in fact our President has done no such thing, and then as the truth comes out your paper struggles to ascribe some strategic rational to something that is nothing more than our narcissistic president struggling to share in the spotlight that N Korea has grabbed by rattling its saber.  There is one character in Being There who sees Chance Gardner for what he is—the NYT must own the truth about Donald Trump and imbue it in your coverage—there is no policy, strategy or goals outside of getting attention and getting rich.

Who know if they will publish --but I would suggest anyone interested in a bit of context as well as pleasure in watching a great movie watch Being There.  Timing is important too--set in 1979 as the world struggles with the oil crisis, economic depression, cold war tension and middle east unrest the parallels are striking.  And both Trump and Chance gain all their knowledge about the world from TV.  Trump's lines about making america great again and getting better deals and providing even better healthcare for less cost ring as hollow as Garner's lines about things growing in the springtime.  Gardner literally stumbles into the chance to become President while Trump was born into it but our desire to ascribe intelligence to a simpleton that the movie plays upon is now our reality.