Meanwhile, In Whackyland

     Come to think of it, that may be unfair to Bob Clampett's vision.  Call it the lunatic (but not yet goosestepping, not quite) far Right of the blogosphere.  A discussion elsewhere, by other people, sent me looking and--

     It's gotten very strange out there.  Look, there's no pretending that a Presidential contest that started with a 78 year old challenger and an 81 year old incumbent is the usual thing, or that their first debate revealed anything other than a very slow guy struggling to think on his feet against a discursive blatherer willing to throw nonsense at the wall, hoping some of it might stick.  The GOP saw it and did nothing; the Dems saw it and took action.  But the leap from that and the subsequent changes at the head of the Democratic ticket to asserting that the country is being run by a secretive cabal "akin to the Soviet Politburo" in which even the usual Right-wing villain list -- Soros, Pelosi, Obama -- are no more than figureheads and intermediaries is sheer paranoia.

     There's a lot of influencing and attempted meddling in American politics, everything from big-money donors, groups and individuals that you can look up online with a few mouse-clicks to sneaky, illegal efforts by hostile nation-states -- China, Russia, North Korea and so on -- that range from funding gray and black propaganda to computer hacking and more.  There's so much of it, in fact, that it tends to balance out and it take a really big move to have much effect.*  That's not evidence of a sooper-sekrit bunch of puppetmasters pulling strings: it's a sure sign that nobody's running the show despite so many of them wanting to.

     In 2016, announcing his intention to vote for Hillary Clinton, conservative pundit and incisive observer of governments P. J. O'Roarke said he thought she was wrong on a many issues, but she was "wrong within normal parameters."  Dick Cheney -- Dick Cheney -- didn't say that when he announced this past week that he's voting for Kamala Harris, though he might as well.  He said that Mr. Trump "...tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again. [...] As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution...."

     Wrong within normal parameters beats wrong well outside them.  It's not a plot, and you don't have to take my word for it; just ask Dick Cheney.  He's voting for Team Normal.  It's not because he's onboard with their policies and positions.
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* Interested readers may want to have a look at the late Michael Flynn's In The Country Of The Blind, which starts out with the notion of statistically-accurate scientific prediction and guidance of future events and asks what happens if everyone's doing it.