Are we approaching "fiasco" level? [View all]

Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a re-run of a twenty year old This American Life episode called "Fiasco!" It's about an amateur dramatics performance of Peter Pan that goes terribly wrong, and it's hilarious. But it might also provide some insight into the current state of the Trump administration.

The episode explores the nature of a "fiasco" and "what takes our ordinary lives that extra distance into fiasco."

As the story in the podcast goes, most members of the Peter Pan audience were initially accepting and understanding of the errors that were unfolding in front of them. They had come to a play expecting to be entertained by the play in the traditional sense, and given that the actors seemed to be doing their best under difficult circumstances, the audience was initially on their side and remained polite as one mistake after another unfolded.

But at some point, a tipping point arrived. Suddenly the audience was no longer on the side of the performers. And once that point arrived, every single slight mistake, every error which might normally been ignored, was greeted by the audience with mockery. Because while the audience had initially been expecting one form of entertainment (a play) they eventually discovered that the play was so terrible that mocking it was more entertaining than the play itself.

The episode suggests that this tipping point separates what would have otherwise been just a bad play from a "fiasco." Once that tipping point arrived, there was nothing the performers could do to regain control.

Here are a couple of excerpts excerpts from the podcast which I found interesting in light of what's going on with Trump's recent polling numbers and the growing unpopularity of the policies he keeps doubling down on: