Ten or more years ago, I began nagging everyone with a concept that people seemed to consider unimportant — or potentially important, but lacking the necessary definition and thus gravitas.

Or perhaps my listeners simply didn’t give a fuck. I began obsessing on this topic, and I think the lack of interest of others was in direct proportion to people’s skepticism about what I was saying. I began to get on people’s nerves. I began writing about this concept on other platforms before settling down with the gracious people at Penthouse, who promised to pretend I wasn’t getting on their nerves (yes, I made that last part up). The concept — to cut to the chase — is contained in the very title to this column. Washington and Hollywood, merging. Washingwood.

Given you’ll be reading this post-Christmas and all the other religious holidays, perhaps it’s a good idea to frame what I’m talking about in quasi-religious terms.

In the beginning, “something” created the universe (I’d like to stay away from pissing off this or that believer, nonbeliever, Satanist… and for sure the Scientologist, which I understand is a really bad idea). After creating the universe, this something created the mob, the teetering masses — a populace not yearning to be free, but rather yearning to kick the shit out of each other for bear fur and forest deli meats.

It had to stop. There had to be order, but in order to impose order, civilization needed men to impose that order. Order was imposed and, over the millennia, many millions lost their lives in service to this order. On a much less gruesome yet equally powerful note, a collective groan began emanating from the crowd. Order? Routine? Boring. Plus, there was not then (nor now) a societal balm to heal our disorderly tendencies.

Thus, in order to soothe our existential pain, we created entertainments. At first, these entertainments, like Shakespeare’s, lambasted the very order that bored us. That had a shelf life. The Renaissance play suddenly became too real, and reality was the thing we were trying to escape. And the people yet again became bored.

Fast-forward a few centuries. We got the bawdy burlesque show, the quasi-legal whorehouse which in some way or another still exists today, yet hasn’t done much except empty our wallets and in some cases create prostate issues. Again, boredom.

It’s been said you get the government you deserve. I disagree. Public service, once a noble deed, is now a function of how well you understand the matrix of the Kardashian family.

In the fifties and sixties, television became the answer. A way to build an electric wall that blocks the aches and pains of living this complicated life by watching others live their lives in simplicity and ease, lives without cancer or financial difficulty, in a world where there’s a harmonious, almost seductive love affair between the police and the general public. Everything was right and good and well. And again, the people got bored… because it was all bullshit.

Our leaders begged us to buy into that bullshit, or at least aspire to it. That didn’t work out too well. Vietnam? Jimmy Carter said this was all our fault, and he was half right. He said we were stuck in a malaise and had a crisis of confidence. Again, half true. If someone falls into the gorilla enclosure at the zoo and a bystander yells out, “You’re stuck in the fucking gorilla enclosure at the zoo!!” Whose fault is that? The bystander? The gorilla? Yours? They usually lay it on the gorilla, sadly.

Which brings us to Bill Clinton (yes, for economy’s sake I’m leaving out all major and minor wars, revolutions, natural disasters, etc.) and his pronouncement that the “era of big government was over.” Problem? With the exception of tax wonks, we love big government. We love careers and jobs and bridges and highways, hospitals and schools and all the rest. A couple of trade deals later, the working wage goes down, a low-grade depression kicks in, and we are again looking for answers. Well, that’s what we tell ourselves. We’re looking for reality. A bridge to a satisfying reality.

But what we’re actually saying to each other is that life sucks. My job sucks. There are no more careers. I’ve now completely thrown in every chip I have into “online relationships” and I don’t think I’m going to break even. Perhaps the best this life has to offer is legal weed.

Ahh, but a solution was created by two equally powerful forces: power in Washington, D.C., power in Hollywood, California. What if we could get people stuck into such a mass hypnosis that the entertainments I spoke of before — television, social media, all of it — fucks the mind up so badly, we cannot delineate between something resembling actual reality and fantasy?

Leaders, think-tankers, thought-changers (whatever the hell they call them now) began noodling on this concept and created (and this is important) NOT an alternative reality, but rather a reality that was alternative. One that was interesting, compelling, based on a twelve-hour news cycle, anecdotal, offensive, one with villains and saviors. That old, worn-out reality, the one that began with man beating up other man for bear meat simply became irrelevant. This new reality, which is self-inoculating against boredom, is eternal.

The powers that be created a 2016 election pitting a careerist political woman who held no press conferences of note in two years and had/has shady financial dealings against a man who holds too many press conferences with himself and an iPhone and had/has shady financial dealings. A government lifer vs. a reality TV star. Now who do you think was going to win that? C’mon. Deep down, you knew all that polling was simply nonsense. Trump for millions of people became their dirty little secret. They weren’t telling pollsters, they weren’t telling their neighbors. It would have sounded like, “Hey, Jim, wanna get the families together for a barbeque this weekend? Good. Oh, by the way, I like it when my wife pees on me.” Like I said, a dirty little secret. No one’s business.

Frankly, we’re the powers that be. Give us a reality we can chew on, gossip about, argue about, and lose friends over (even if they’re just fake friends we’ve made online), and that reality will win anytime. Even if the face of that reality, by exuding so much anger and obnoxiousness, only gives us more existential cud we can chew on… we’ll take the new reality, the new guy, every time.

Problem is, this time the floodgates cannot be closed. Kanye in 2020? Ben Affleck? Reruns of Alf? Entertainments, from film to TV to even sports, contain a hint of political intrigue. Just enough to stir the pot. It’s all there for you, and society has made it clear this past election season that one holds no more moral authority than the other.

It’s been said you get the government you deserve. I disagree.

Public service, once a noble deed, is now a function of how well you understand the matrix of the Kardashian family.

And to all those people way back when who scoffed at my notion? I forgive. Grudgingly.

It wasn’t just that Hollywood helped the imagery of Washington, D.C., or that Washington gave import or gravitas to celebrity. Hollywood and Washington are the same town.

PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (SERGEY NIVENS;  GABRIELE MALTINTI)