As I often say, the last two weeks of the year is the most boring time of the 52 weeks Pope Gregory XIII granted us. Nothing happens, and outside of maybe some parties there’s nothing much to do. Even with 666 teevee channels – plus streamers – there’s nothing to watch. I’m amazed the birthrate doesn’t take a preposterous leap every Labor Day, and not simply to actualize the pun.
This void particularly annoys the 24-hour, broadcast, print, and ether news operations. Simply put, outside of a bunch of redundant and now-boring tweets, there’s no news to be dished out in Greater Newsland. Seeing as how the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum” has become a commercial dictum, the media need to surround their public service advertising and football promos with something and, really, making stuff up is harder to do than covering a flower show.
So we in the media (and, yes, this is part of the media – and so are you) do the next best thing: we direct our attention to the babblings of pundits who will pull predictions out of their asses and then make negative comments about those very utterances. Hypocrisy is just another word for short attention span.
This year, the theme is “look at how many Democrats are running for president!!!” Let’s ignore the fact that, technically, there are no announced candidates for the 2020 presidential ballot. Let’s also ignore the fact that the only race right now is for campaign contributions and the millions a candidate can raise from the Legion of Fatcats not only inures to their benefit but also keeps said loot out of the hands of their potential opponents. It’s that simple. Most polls put most likely candidates in single-digits, but that is meaningless. The potential candidate only wants to make his or her name recognizable to said fatcats. If these wannabes can’t raise enough money, they won’t declare their candidacy. Well, not without Vlad Putin’s help.
The waning weeks of 2018 also showed us the media think (without a uni-mind, contrary to the babblings of the professionally paranoid) America is fed up with the current Petulance-in-Chief so they consider these alternatives as saviors. Of course, as saviors none of these people can possibly measure up, and thus the media has something else to bitch about. As Don Henley sang before Mojo Nixon had him killed, “We can do ‘The Innuendo’ / We can dance and sing / When it’s said and done / We haven’t told you a thing.” So we’re grasping at straws – and, then, at straw polls.
Maybe there are something like two-dozen members of the Democratic Party who are dancing the Election Shuffle. In fact, I think that number is but a fraction of those who are really thinking it over. What of it? Is this news? Is this a surprise? Is this… anything?
No. It is not. The first primaries are in a bit over a year – the Iowa Caucuses are set for February 3 2020, there will be at least three more that month that month, and Super-Tuesday is set for March 3rd. That will involve interested voters in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
If we have been good little voters, by March 4 2020 Santa might reward us with a solid winner in each of our only two permissible parties. That means those wannabes who are serious, industrious and very egotistical need to raise an armada-load of bucks in the next fourteen months. Amongst them all – and don’t count the Republican wannabes out; if his Petulance remains in office a couple will try to offer themselves as an alternative. If he’s out, then a passel of rocks suddenly will go untenanted.
All that fatcat cash comes out of our pockets. The 1%ers get their money somewhere, and they don’t have the guts to buy domino masks. Or the need. They jack up their prices and they get ridiculous tax breaks which they were willing to share with the candidates of their choice.
It’s really a horrible system, guaranteed to give us the choice between the best Donkey Sellout and the best Elephant Sellout. Personally, I’d rather have the Black Cat Sellout, but that’s just me.
No matter what, there is no story in the “lookit all those candidates!!!” media hysteria. I truly hope all that will end later today, when The Border Wall Street fight takes front and center.
I hope.
Yeah, it’s good to hope.
Kudos to those fans of The Fugs who got the reference in today’s headline.
