The Prestige

For those of you who have never seen the film by Christopher Nolan, shame on you. I will wait right here while you go find a spare two hours and ten minutes to catch up. It's available on Amazon. Netflix. Your local video store. Ask your mom to tell you the story if she's seen it. It's great. 
Really. 
There. Don't you feel better? Now you'll be able to fully appreciate what I am about to unload here. "Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call 'The Prestige'." That's the way Michael Caine's character introduces the idea. I would like to suggest that Donald Trump's administration is a magic trick. A really poorly rehearsed and presented magic trick.
You remember the Pledge: Make America Great Again. Who wouldn't want that? It sounds so appealing that many didn't bother to ask, "Wait. Again? Weren't we great before?" No matter. All those signs and red hats made us believe that this was a real, unaltered, normal thing.
Then came the Turn. That's when we found out that Making America Great Again would involve taking gigantic steps back into our country's past: Racism, Nazis, the threat of nuclear war. As an audience, we are sitting in our seats waiting for that third act. All of this has to turn around soon, right? When do we get our country back? Over the past seven months, it has disappeared, and now we want the Prestige.
But it's not coming. Not from the Great Trumpini. There is no prestige there. Just more tricks. And absolutely no prestige.