Few TV genres are as tasty as ‘Dutch explain who Americans are’. You can fill a nice bingo card with self-proclaimed American connoisseurs, but the really big players are allowed to cross the ocean with rotating cameras, to introduce us to that silly ‘American’ for the umpteenth time.
The third season of . started on Monday God, Jesus, Trump!, in which Tijs van den Brink pours a nice strong Christian sauce over that genre. On the eve of the US Congressional elections, Van den Brink travels through states such as Michigan and Montana to examine how Christians are dealing with the legacy of Donald Trump.
Before that, he speaks with conservatives of all walks of life, from large Republican families to former ambassador and Trump apologist Pete Hoekstra (typically one of those movie villains you don’t want to see in a sequel). Striking and tragic was a meeting between a Democratic and Republican pastor. Van den Brink tried to bring them closer together, but soon sat down as a grumpy mediator between two people with incompatible ideas.
The series thus painted a fascinating picture of an apparently irreparably damaged society. In the second episode, Van den Brink speaks with a man who took part in the Capitol storming, and in his backyard “has enough explosives to blow up all of Washington.” Even the stoic Van den Brink felt the fear run through his veins for a moment.
Yet in the series we also see enough lovely people who have become completely lost in a trap of lies, disinformation and mistrust. While watching it, it was impossible not to think about the Trumpian intimidation of Forum for Democracy, which caused Heart of the Netherlands-journalist Merel Ek had to temporarily stop her work.
The indignation on the talk show tables about this ‘sewer ratrel’ (dixit Hélène Hendriks in HLF8) was large. Various editors-in-chief drew a line, Roos Schlikker was furious, and an excited Jack van Gelder wanted to go back to the time of ‘flower power’. The lonely opposition came from political clearer Rico Verhoeven, who ‘wanted to play devil’s advocate for a while’ and could understand the intimidation. ‘As famous people, we often get microphones under our noses even though we don’t want that. Let’s turn that around!’ The merry-go-round of the ‘nice and daring’ talk show opinion turned once more.
Furthermore, the main discussion was whether journalists should keep silent about Forum, or whether they should ask more questions. No one came out. The editors of HLF8 in all her wisdom had sent an invitation to instigator Gideon van Meijeren, because according to Hendriks ‘everyone deserves a chance to speak’.
As long as talk show editors still stubbornly want to understand and listen after years of intimidation and insinuations, in the end there are damn few boundaries to draw. We just had to go to God, Jesus, Trump! to see what happens if you set those boundaries too late.