The Roseanne reboot is going to be popular with the Trump crowd because it provides a sanitary, cleaned-up reality in which they’re just concerned about their country. 1/
It’s a fiction we’re going to see more and more of, that this movement is about working-class people who just don’t know what to do anymore. That’s the heart of the show. 2/
To stave off any criticism, they’re now a mixed-race family, there’s a grandson who challenges gender binaries. It’s an attempt to stop any argument this is a racist or ignorant movement. 3/
But it’s a cleaned-up lie. To support Trump in the way Roseanne does in the show you’d have to turn a blind eye to Trump’s many, many bigoted statements. 4/
Television narratives do this. They sell idealized versions of yourself back to you. Roseanne is going to prosper because it might be the one thing that reassures the Trump base that they’re justified and not intolerant. 5/
The original show was a warts and all look at middle-America. They were dysfunctional and they suffered. Now, it’s progressed the narrative forward without admitting the other truth... 6/
Much of white working-class America is racist and intolerant. It’s from generations of social manipulation, not to mention socialization and history. The show goes out of its way to not show that, and has thus lost the pulse. 7/
What we are seeing, however, is how that part of America truly sees itself. That’s useful in terms of understanding, empathy, and might be a way to start undoing some of this terrible damage. 8/
Whereas Fox simply spins an alternate reality, Roseanne shows is the idealized, sadly delusional view the Trump base lives in. They’re just working to survive while the world leaves them behind. 9/
It’s an effective roadmap for appealing to them on certain issues, which, once addressed, the more toxic elements might possibly start receding or maybe lose some grasp. 10/
A lot of the job is retaking populism from the party that has corrupted it, twisted it, remembering that a lot of work needs done to repair the damage of corporate-owned government. Buying into this fantasy, however, could lead us into even deeper waters. 11/11
