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.