Tag: Socialmediamarketing

POLITICAL FARCE| MY TRUMP RUNNETH OVER*

On By Mahvash K. M.In Fiction, Politics, satire, writingLeave a comment

Jan. 2021 – Feb. 2021:

PROGRESSIVE CAVITY TRUMP

Donald Trump left the White House in the wake of a dithering and irresolute Biden presidency and a looming impeachment. On January 30th, in a bizarre twist of Trumpian fate, Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell was abducted by the Proud Boys* for his “disloyalty” to their boss, Donald Trump. He was taken to Waco, Texas where in another peculiar prophetic foible, the septugenerian suffered a massive heart attack and died 2 days later. The abductors were caught and incarcerated but not before becoming inadvertent icons of heroism for the “New America”.

There was another march on Washington DC on February 5th, 2021 led by a brand new coalition of the Proud Boys and QAnon*. Despite a sizeable National Guard deployment, the capitol was stormed in much the same manner as the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. 27 people were killed including Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Congressional Republican from Georgia. She had gone out of the safety of the House Chamber to talk with the QAnon-Prouds*; confident in her right wing sympathies. The raging crowd had seen only a member of the new “fake administration” trying their age old insidious political tactics and had rushed at her with their combined wrath. And so, in another curious turn of events, QAnon’s most ardent supporter became the accidental martyr for the reeling, gobsmacked Left.

53 Republican senators joined the ranks in favour of impeaching Donald Trump.

March 2021 – May 2021:

THE BACK TRUMP PLAN

Donald Trump had watched what came to be called the “Revival Movement”with interest from his Mar-a-lago HQ. Without the megaphone of social media to throw his tweets into the furthest corners of redneck America, he had improvised… or his supporters had. They had set up a ham radio network across the country; Revivalist Patriots manning the amateur radio bands between 7MHz and 20MHz in almost every city. They received a broadcast from Mar-a-Lago and in turn disseminated the message via social media. Almost overnight, a ragtag militia had organized into the pitch perfect exactness of a communications commando force across the entirety of the American geography.

NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU TRUMP

Two months into this new fangled broadcast methodology, DT* being overcome by his ADHD-afflicted persona, got bored. It was too little for too long. He had stopped watching Fox News simply because he had slowly faded away from its screen as its most beloved protagonist to an increasingly dubious and infrequently shown antagonist.

The words Mutineer and Delusional Demagogue had come up a few times too.

How he despised that Chris Wallace!*

Melania wanted out – out of the marriage; of the partnership. He wasn’t having any of it. While his celebrity had diminished into the wasteland of slander and defamation, she was now wearing the cloak of a woman who had bravely survived the madness. She already had 6 book deals and 25 million dollars in the bank. No, he would rather poison her! … that is, lose her through quick, natural causes, than let her bask in reflected glory – his Glory!

Yes, he hated Melania as well.

June 2021 onwards:

PROTON TRUMP INHIBITOR

And now the former president of the United States had clinched the deal of a lifetime. The operation had been highly covert, unknown even to the most ardent of his supporters. In fact, his resentment and even dislike of his base had grown exponentially in the last few months…. how did a man of his bearing and finesse attract these rural, rough-shod bumpkins? He had mulled over it in those rare moments of reflection he was sometimes struck by and could only put it down to Mike Pence. DT had always been mildly suspicious that his VP showed a peculiar preference for the Deep Southern trucker sorts. And now, like some backwoods parasitic mold, they had mobbed together into his adoring electorate. Well, he didn’t have to deal with Pence or his hillbilly, rustic fan base anymore.

He was all set to move to North Korea, as Kim Jong-Un’s First Secretary.

The Secretary General of the North Korean Worker Party had been approached by an increasingly marginalised and entirely desperate DT. The world renowned fascist had an admirer all his own, and no less than the 45th POTUS! Surreptitious talks progressed at warp speed as an established oligarch took an aspiring senior under his totalitarian wing. And on June 5th, 2021, DT was whisked away from the land of the free and home of the brave to a secret facility in wonderfully dictatorial Pyongyang.

The Brilliant Comrade was home at last!

THE TRUMP FOR RED OCTOBER

On American soil, Article III, section 3 and the subsequent Title 18 or the death penalty were filed against DT. In the wake of the Great Escape, the Republican Party was thrown into further disarray as Trump supporters perpetuated and publicised their own version of their supreme commander’s act of treason. The great DT was urging them to incite a revolution, a war, a call to arms for the good old days of sovereign authority and Old Northernism*.

The third bomb in as many months, had exploded; this time in New York City. The revivalists had notched up another 500 fatalities. The Revolution Collateral Damage was already at 1,763 dead.

THE NIGHT THE SUN CAME TRUMP

In Pyongyang, there had been a series of short-range missiles launched between July and August 2021 marking its first missile tests since the Brilliant Comrade had joined their ranks; a superb impetus to boosting both, their nuclear weapons prowess and their global confidence. There were already plans to “rock that horrible continent” as DT liked to say. Long range missiles were being readied for a spectacular North Korean fireworks display in LA, NY, Chicago, Hawaii and Alaska.

Meanwhile DT has discovered a newfound love of snake wine*, and KJ-Un has taken to golf with monocratic zeal, all while the empire plots and prepares for an epic change in world order.

Read the first (rather prophetic!) episode here, written on September 1st, 2020: https://theroamingdesi.org/2020/09/01/existential-fictionthe-age-of-stupid-part-deux/

Glossary of Terms:

**The main and sub-titles are puns on the word “Trump”. The original terms are: My Cup Runneth Over/ Progressive Cavity Pump/ The Backup Plan/ Never Gonna Give you Up/ Proton Pump Inhibitor/ The Hunt for Red October/ The Night the Sun Came Up

*Proud Boys: A far-right, neo-fascist, and male-only terrorist organisation that promotes and engages in political violence in the United States and Canada.

*QAnon: A far-right cult of conspiracy theorists alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling them

*QAnon-Prouds: In the wake of the Jan. 6th 2021 Insurrection at the US Capitol, the 2 right wing factions came together to launch the revolution for New America under the auspices of the twice impeached 45th POTUS

*POTUS: President Of The United States

*DT: Donald Trump

*Chris Wallace: Christopher Wallace is an American journalist, and television news anchor of the Fox News program Fox News Sunday. Wallace is known for his tough and wide-ranging interviews. He is especially despised by DT for his vague propensity to tell the truth

*Old Northernism: An ideology of racism which views the Nordic race as a superior and sometimes as an endangered racial group.The theory argues that the Nordic race is responsible for most of humanity’s great achievements and any mixing with other races was “race suicide” where the great Nordic race would be supplanted by inferior races. 

*Snake Wine: Snake wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol. The drink was first recorded to have been consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty and considered an important curative and believed to reinvigorate a person according to Traditional Chinese medicine. It is also the preferred drink of choice of Kim Jong-Un.

Featured

OPINION|In God we Trust, But Our Morals are Negotiable

On By Mahvash K. M.In DawnNews, Faith, Humanity, mustread, opinion, SocialMedia, theGuardian, TheNews, TheNewYorkTimes, Trump2 Comments

US Hegemony, Its Lingering Pakistan/ Afghanistan Embarrassment and Media Morality

It was the early 80s. I still vividly remember as a child, standing on the side of the iconic Mall road in Murree (a mountain resort town situated about 30kms northeast of Islamabad in Punjab, Pakistan, and also home to a number of missionary boarding schools) with compatriots from my school and others, waving little Pakistani and American flags as President Zia ul Haq accompanied by the then US Vice President, George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior) drove by in their endless cavalcade of black luxury sedans. For us it was a joyous day out of the regular rigour of boarding school life; for Pakistan it was the beginning of the end of its Rising Star status in the region.

Pakistan, so geostrategically well situated to catalyse the downfall of the Soviet empire- the one thorn in the side of the Americans and the only obstacle to an all out USA dominated planet- was requested to become Ally Numero Uno. And we complied in the then considered most shrewd and cunning manner – through religiously radicalising, arming and mobilising an entire nation in a war that was to turn in on itself for decades after the USSR fell. By God, did we comply! And for very little in return. A statesman at the helm of affairs at the time (or even a half-way successful businessman like Donald Trump armed as he is with his career collage of bankruptcies), rather than a religiously devout military man, would have at least got us better trade deals to help shore up the economy once the dust of battle settled. But these are wishful conjectures…and the rest as they say, is history.

Soviet Russia sputtered and fell and the USA couldn’t get out of the region fast enough, leaving two countries with populations in the area of 130 million (circa 1992) to clean up the mess. But radical religion has a way of festering, sometimes out of sight, and emerging multiplied, more virulent, more destructive and deadlier than before. And that has been the dubious Vestige of Alliance bestowed on the two countries, the “rewards” of which we are continuing to grimly reap. Kabul, once considered the Paris of the East, is now a wraith of its former self, and the country has been declared a failed state. Pakistan itself has been teetering on the edge of the abyss of Pariah States. It’s people have undergone decades of global dismissal at best and damnation at worst. Despite being the fifth most populous country in the world and a nuclear power, it has fallen behind all its compatriots on almost every index of progress, prosperity and nationhood. The war on terror in fact, has purportedly cost the Pakistani economy a total of almost USD 130 billion since 2001.

Ironies and hypocrisies are rife as the countries in the West continue to strengthen themselves in nuclear armament while using every tactic in the book and outside of the realms of international law to bully the weaker/ developing nations into maintaining their globally vulnerable positions. The touted purpose: because these countries cannot be trusted with independent nuclear arms for they may wage globally destructive wars. The ironic truth: almost all the wars of the 20th century and the 2 decades of the 21st century have been initiated or aggressively intervened in by the USA, whether it was Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria; or Cuba, Panama, Kenya and Yemen. We, the developing nations, have sat on the sidelines, watched our economies bled dry, our social systems dragged into the Middle Ages and our international reputations ripped to tatters. The 20th century has indeed been a bloody epoch despite all the noble peace-promoting intentions of the victors of the 2 world wars. We as the human species have remained true to our baser instincts: power has tended to corrupt; and absolute power has corrupted absolutely.

And now enter the new devil! The mainstream digital and broadcast American media which in the blink of an eye can school millions of viewers around the world onto any hypothesis, conspiracy theory and interpretation of facts…and fiction. For the Global Village such as it is, besides making the world that much smaller and more accessible for its citizens, also ensures that current affairs are copiously and constantly coloured only with the pens of the victors of the 20th century, the USA.

Case in point: A few months ago, Pakistan displayed quite remarkable success in not only reining in the Covid-19 pandemic in the country while the wheels of economy continued to turn; but it was also reported to currently have the best performing stock market in Asia. Hot on the heels of this positive press, the major American media conglomerates began blitzing their screens with how Pakistan and Afghanistan are still the only countries in the world which still had rampant wild strains of polio. And so there it was again – the habitually insidious carpet-pulls from under our beleagured feet….

The Avengers of the Digital Age then, are not the politicians nor the military Strongmen. They are the Media. And granted that on the Information Super Highway, it requires great ethical tenacity and character to claw through the putrefying onslaught of political bias, power and oneupmanship. But never have the stakes for the preservation and endurance of our collective ethics and morality been higher than at the present time. Now more than ever, this fraternity needs to people itself with the most courageous visionaries, opinion makers and informers who bring an unwavering moral predisposition/ force to the sacrosanct task of building a higher globally shared ethical instinct and awareness.

God save the Queen, the USA, the Sheikhs, the Despots and the Champions of our collective moral integrity!

De Khudai pe aman.

OPINION|A Clockwork Digital*

On By Mahvash K. M.In DawnNews, mustread, SocialMedia, theGuardian, TheNews, TheNewYorkTimes, thereset, writingLeave a comment

A Socio-Political Media Conundrum

“You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” – On the Waterfront, 1954

This unenvious state, this pixelated warfront, is true in fact for both, our Prime Minister, Imran Khan and the American President, Donald Trump. In this highly digitised world of communication, facts and fiction are often blurred in favour of the more digitally savvy. It matters little on the Information Super Highway, that you bring laboriously vetted facts and present them with the articulate pen of a scholar. What matters most is how quickly, succinctly, convincingly and doggedly you present your version of the truth. And therein lies the enigma for both these similarly beleaguered leaders. Their social media channels are rife with loud clamours from both sides of the political divide as the body politic takes, like soldiers to battle, to deftly repel all opposing views.

While DT’s* digital media director brings with himself the comforting ethnic sameness that has been at the bleeding heart of American politics lately, IK’s* focal digital media person is a medical doctor happily grinding out quite heavily sedated statements and responses to Pakistan’s social media electorate. Suffice to say that the boisterous digital armchair warriors on both continents, sign into a no-holds-barred online party everyday. The resulting cacaophony is a sight for sore eyes as caution, care and ethics are thrown to the ethereal winds.

Let me dig a little deeper into the particular case of each electronically-bedevilled incumbent.

DT is probably experiencing the least loved moment in his presidency yet. And the surprising truth is that it’s not entirely the fault of his dubious character. There have been moments in his media awkwardness, crassness and downright churlishness where he’s appeared absolutely bewildered by the barrage of negativity he has attracted. His almost wounded perplexity means that he is probably not as complete a write-off as a sizeable denominator now thinks. So it’s time to, at least in part, shift the blame to his media managers. From his twitter handle manager to his White House press secretary, a sea change is required. Or at the very least, a refinement of the media handling process, from start of an issue to the presidential weigh-in of the same; embedding a critical on-the-spot Presidential crash course on the subject before DT is permitted to fumble out a tweet or a statement. Just that small enterprise comprising of mostly keypad forbearance, will do much for the agitated, stressed out and increasingly insane sounding POTUS to skip back over to the side of some semblance of reason and positive poll-rankings.

IK is not too far behind his American counterpart on the (dis)likeability quotient. His once resoundingly mesmeric features of charm and political freshness, now appear quite anaemic and diluted. His media superintendents are even more belaboured and disconnected in portraying his political agility and civic common sense. Add to that, the enduring thrall for the Pakistani political trifecta of the Army meeting a Civilian meeting a Technocrat, being the panacea for all manner of national grimness and incapacity. The Captain has shown an almost loving tendency to not break with a lot of the mouldering 75 year old political tradition of our country and has even installed the said trifecta* to manage his burgeoning media publicity woes. In this case, the technocrat is a medical doctor (employed quite reasonably, as the vernacular mindset goes, in an area completely at odds with his professional training). The goal is to phrase all messages with peculiar medical undertones, then couch in paternalistic diplomacy and finally, deliver with the force of a nuclear bomb. Needless to say that an outright overhaul is required here too, breaking completely for starters, with the trifecta tradition. This should be followed by the installation of a populist-savvy, on the ball, relatable media ‘machine’ that can deliver a proletarian blow for blow in the social media jungle, keeping just a step ahead of the keyboard crusaders and naysayers.

Both leaders are currently caught in a media blitzkrieg intent on portraying them as… bums. And as the digital clock ticks on without any overt correction, it is very likely that the Captain will be clean bowled out and Black* will become the new Orange.

De Khudai pe aman.

*A Clockwork Digital: title adaptation from the original 1971 Stanley Kubrick film “A Clockwork Orange”

*DT: Donald Trump

*IK: Imran Khan

*The Pakistani Media Management Trifecta: Focal person on digital media- Dr. Arslan Khalid; Information Minister- Shibli Faraz (son of the renowned Urdu poet, Ahmad Faraz); Special Assistant to the PM for Information and Broadcasting- Lt. General (Retd.) Asim Saleem Bajwa

*Black: from the mushrooming “Black Lives Matter” protests and demonstrations in the USA that are also sweeping across the globe in various minority-fuelled nuances.