House of Cards & the Playboy Girls

It's been about 10 years since we watched Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) weasel his way to President of the United States in the ground-breaking Netflix series, House of Cards. We know how that turned out. Not good for Frank and his cohorts.

If you did not watch the series, let's just say Frank got his just due, following six seasons of nefarious skullduggery that included a couple of murders performed by Frank himself. Then, of course, the man who played Frank, Kevin Spacey, was convicted as a sexual predator. Goodbye Frank. So long Kevin.

Critics for the most part gave high marks to the show, especially the acting, which included Robin Wright as Frank's likewise super-ambitious spouse, Claire Underwood. Many critics found the acting superior to the screenwriting. I could hardly wait for the next episode.

Fast forward to 2025. We find ourselves in our second iteration of the Donald Trump Shit Show, with current episodes high-lighting the comely, glamorous girls who prattle obsequiously around the fat-slob host. A couple of my friends call them, "The playboy girls." Making America great again. Tune in and turn on.

As this season rolls by, the host is losing his bearings caught up in rambling word-salad rally-talk that can go on for hours. He slings vile shots at former President Joe Biden and his administrators, as well as his opponent political party, the Democrats, whom he refers to as far-left radical lunatics. He's attempting to prosecute his former Director of the FBI.

He has fully weaponized his government actors in every department. A tactic that brings to mind the frenetic, machine-gun mouth Republican Jim Jordan who redundantly accused the Biden Administration of "weaponizing government." Hello!? Obviously, the primary goal of the DTSS is to obliterate anyone who called him out for his unlawful misdeeds. It's not weaponizing the U.S. government, it's mob-execution-style payback. Blackmail. Extortion. Corruption. Run amuck.

Like Frank Underwood, whom some critics compared to Shakespeare's MacBeth, The Donald is faltering and in trouble. His government is currently shutdown. Actors from his own legion are upset, including MAGA queen Marjorie Taylor Greene. She understands that her constituents do not want to lose their health care, which has been taken from them by the boss’s Big Beautiful Bill. Those folks will not be able to afford health insurance without government premiums that DT has ordered slashed. Alas. Same is true in most red states where DT was voted back into office. 

His supporters who so hopefully voted him in to bring prices down are the victims. His wealthy donors who make millions every day on mergers and takeovers are the winners. One thing he has never done, is put together a policy for health insurance for "his people." 

As a quasi political junkie whose been around the block a few times since President Nixon, I have watched the neoliberal fleecing of America's working and middle class. We've been given the shaft. We pay the tax bills while the wealthiest, increasingly, receive the predominant spoils. The disparity between the rich and the fast-increasing poor is enormously unfair. It's only gotten worse.

The DTSS is sponsored by the wealthiest people in the world, starting with Elon Musk. Our only chance at a fair shake, is our numbers. We can achieve critical mass. In a democratic republic we have the advantage. It's just navigating the lies and the gerrymandering of legislative districts like they're doing in Texas. California has a proposition on the ballot to allow the state to fight fire with fire, a chance at honest representation in Congress. Yes on 50.

Politics are painful and there will never be a perfect government. We're not a perfect species. But we can attempt to be fair and just as our fore fathers dreamed.

House of Cards came along at the perfect time, shortly before Trump's first term. Frank Underwood showed us a familiar story of how a greedy, unethical ruler ultimately fails and falls. Let it be a lesson learned.