Donald Trump and Howard Beale

("Donald Trump's Allure, Ego as Ideology")

Almost four decades have passed since we were so drawn in by the unfiltered words of a sudden hero. One who savagely attacked the status quo and who became the voice of a country long grown weary and frustrated by life which he not so gently referred to as "bullshit".

His anger and message were not only tolerated but wildly applauded.  With each passing day his popularity grew and the nation, seemingly en masse, embraced this man and his vision of a country disintegrating before their eyes.

Howard Beale was "mad as hell" and we opened our windows to shout as one that "we are not going to take this anymore."

But in the final scene, when his words no longer captured our attention or the television ratings, Beale became nothing more than a pathetic useless charade. And his death, orchestrated by the "Network" that had no need for a sad and demented figure with plummeting ratings, demonstrated that what one day can be considered genius in the next may well be revealed to be nothing but the sheer ravings of a lunatic.