The election cycle’s stupid is already flowing. The press is in heat for their BFF party and begging for a quick grope under the bleachers. Unbiased journalists like former White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos, Imaginary War Hero Brian Williams, and America’s State Sponsored Pravda Analogue are busily examining why Fox News is the work of Satan. Fox news is making bank while their competitors languish. Newspapers employ semi-literate journalist majors to write half assed articles about why Americans are dickheads. Their customers, possibly tiring of being called dickheads, turn to Facebook for news. Thomas Sowell writes eloquent pieces about why journalist majors are semi-literate and gets a small loyal following and constant haranguing by folks that can’t abide a black conservative.
A third of the populace is terrified by Trump’s hair and another third is delighted to see the first third quaking in fear. The remaining third missed the whole thing while playing with their smart phone.
Skeletons are coming out of closets (mostly Hillary’s). Skeletons are being stuffed back in closets (also mostly Hillary’s).
Six campaign volunteers in an Iowa Dairy Queen will be questioned by a reporter who pretends that unemployable 25 year old unpaid interns grok the concerns of a long haul trucker with three ex-wives, a pipeline roughneck with a bad back, and a devout sewer inspector in Walla Walla. Later, everyone will pretend to care about New Hampshire.
One party will carefully pretend it doesn’t want to outlaw guns. The other party will carefully avoid mentioning sex.
Everyone will discuss gay cakes and the role of the family. The $18,390,342,665,743.85 debt, like Volvemort, will never be spoken aloud.
Long policy papers will be written by the unfortunate 25 year old unpaid interns who weren’t pretty enough to be shipped to an Iowa Diary Queen. They aspire to one day have their own wikipedia page but will never pay off their student loans. Short slogans, meanwhile, will be written by 50 year old, well paid PR flaks who drop cash on advertisers that enjoy the quadrennial bonus money. Etcetera…
I haven’t had much to say about it. As 2016 drags toward us like a shambling zombie I remind myself that watching a marionette promise sunshine isn’t the same as looking out the window and scanning for clouds. For those times when I fall off the wagon, please forgive me.
Today is such a day. Forgive me.
The tone of politics has changed in my lifetime. Americans always bitch (and I think that’s healthy) but the bitching seems more bitter each year. I remember disagreements about politics in all eras but I never felt quite as hated as the last decade or so. I’ve had a hard time articulating what changed. The Z-Man sums it up better than I:
Exactly! Candidates who are nothing like me will spend most of 2016 pursuing the votes of people who hate me. I’m stuck standing around like Rodney Dangerfield. What’s wrong with my vote? Doesn’t anyone want it?
Also, for all of my joking about urbane yahoos and 25 year old unemployed interns, I don’t hate them. But they hate me. Not for anything personal. I’m hated because I live in reality. I feed pigs, butcher them, and make bacon. I cut firewood because it’s cold in the winter. I go fishing. It doesn’t get more real than that. People who go apeshit over a safari in Zimbabwe tend to find my very existence inconveniently and diametrically opposed to them. Not my opinions but my very existence. Some of us, when faced with a differing viewpoint, might ignore it or try to learn from it. Others might try to isolate the heathen and stamp him out.
I’m not alone. If you’re reading my blog, there’s a good chance they hate you too. Keep your head down or scream at the incoming tide as you see fit. I wish you the best of luck.
Your readers might find this interesting:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/quick-thoughts/
Language there may be NSFW.
Heh:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=230492
Courtesy of:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/
A while back I was having a conversation with a new wave of earth friendly made in ‘Merica urban hippy… (not that there’s anything wrong with that)
She kept going on about organic foods, eating local, farm to table, etc etc. When I told her I source incredibly lean, exceptionally local, wild diet, hormone and antibiotic free red meat for about $1 a pound her eyes bugged out.
Where?!?! was the very energetic question. When I answered the state land just up the road, you just have to shoot it, gut it and bring it to the processor (I don’t cut up my deer) the conversation ended really quickly…
Ah well, her loss 😀
abnormalist: Too bad there isn’t a season for politicians. OTOH, the meat would be inedible. Oh, well.
Note to NSA: I am not a terrorist, nor am I advocating murder. Please teach your all-seeing monitoring system to recognize snark.
@Robert – that would be trophy hunting only … A nice row of wooden shields with the heads mounted on them above the fireplace would be the new must have accessories.
Lay in a supply of the correct colour ties and call them tags and jobs a good ‘un!
I seriously believe that the reason they are so vociferously bugf*ck nuts these days is that they are at least vaguely aware that they are losing their hold on society. It isn’t happening quickly (it didn’t go their way quickly either), but it is happening. They worked so hard to take over Hollywood (thereby making it Whollyodd), and whenever they insist in putting their agenda too explicitly in film they lose their friggin’ shirts, sometimes killing previously lucrative franchises. They sweated and strained to take over academia, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the value of a college degree in their favored disciplines is effectively negative.
Their predecessors, the Old Money Republicans of the late 19th Century went through a lot of the same thing. But of course, the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive establishment thought that they would last forever. Just as every other self-selected elite in history has thought.
There is an excellent political BS filter that removes between 90% and 95% of the pandering from election season ads. It is called “Economics 101”, available at many fine institutions of higher learning or in book form at a store near you.
Economics 101 is largely ignored at most institutions of higher learning… but yes it’s the ultimate BS filter.