After the Fall

When the whole Trump experiment in terror is over and the country can resume its place in the world and begin picking up the pieces at home, ten thousand examinations will begin of what it was we just went through.

We'd need a Tolstoy or a James Joyce, though, to produce a coherent novel of Trumptime in America; the whole morass is so massive and entertwined and  so basically unbelievable that the writers of today might nibble here and there at what is in many ways the Great American Novel, but who has the goods to pull it off? Don DeLillo? At his age I don't see him taking on a canvas of this size. Maybe James Ellroy or Thomas Pynchon when they were younger.

Yet for all I know, there is a Great American Novelist in the making out there already taking on as many dimensions of this Shakespearean tale as they are able, taking the pulse of both the country and it soul – and Trump's dubious and spotted soul. Who has that ambition and vision and talent – nay, genius? 

Shortly after 9/11, I asked my late friend the poet C.K. Williams if he was  writing poems about it. He said he wasn't because it was too soon and there wasn't the distance he felt he needed to examine something of that magnitude poetically. That probably applies here.

Look, “All the President's Men” was easy compared to what the Trump wreckage will look like when the smoke clears and the historians and writers begin to sift through the ashes. There was really only one issue

 in Watergate: the coverup. Trumpgate is a veritable octopus of secrets with its tentacles extending to at least 17 investigations of Trump – make that two octopi and one extra tentacle. 

The whole Trump world is shady: politics, business, family, sex, lies, and video tape. There was no sex in Watergate, no billions of dollars flying around the globe, no foreign intervention in our elections, no kowtowing to every evil asshole dictator the world over. No fucking crazy walls. On and on.

And forget about a theatrical movie about whatever comeuppance happens to this regime and its capo di tutti. You'd have to sleep over at the cinemaplex because it would be so long. Jeez, just the Russian aspects would be at least a movie in itself.

Nope, this has to be a mega-mega cable series that goes on as long as it takes to tell whatever the full story might be. It might be a month long, every night. Google to the rescue? Would Martin Scorsese or Oliver Stone or Michel Mann take it on? They might die of old age before the final take, whatever that might be.

This is a tale full of sound and fury that signifies volumes about America and its riddled and resurgent soul and that is a very big order for any film maker.

But again, there might be a young and ambitious and strong and dedicated cinematic genius who can rise to this totally momentous challenge.

It deserves it. Sadly.