Give Me A Show

This past week was the Republican National Convention. For the most part I can't comment on what happened, because I didn't actually watch much of it. I have 800 channels to choose from and I know my way around a remote, so that's what I did. But my search for other forms of entertainment has nothing to do with the political party (I won't watch 95% of the Democrat's turn this week) and everything to do with the general uselessness of the exercise. We all knew Mitt Romney was the candidate going in and so the only things I was interested in hearing were what he and Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan had to say. I knew everything else that was scheduled was going to be nothing but generic party speeches made by people I won't be able to vote against if they say something I disagree with, said in front of an audience whose sole reason for existence was to create applause breaks when told. Honestly, the environment at political conventions are so controlled they are one step away from being "The Truman Show."

As you can imagine, the ratings for the RNC were not very good. If you combined the totals from the networks which were showing the convention they would have been the highest-rated show for that evening, but still would not have beaten your average Sunday Night Football game (and no one expects the DNC to do any better). However, I do not think that speaks to Americans general lack of interest in politics. Instead I'm choosing to look at it and say that Americans are too savvy to waste their time watching staged, one-sided events. We know when what we are looking at is fake and if you aren't going to give us reality than you need to at least make it entertaining. We like people who we think are willing to take risks and if all you plan to do is stand in front of a room and say things which everyone will agree with than that gets boring quickly. When I have so many other options which show me explosions or comedy, these conventions need to step up their game. At this point, all I can hope for is some fireworks once the debates start to roll around. As you can imagine, I'm not holding out much hope for that.