Sunday, October 20, 2024

Over The Line

     Childish violations of propriety have become a feature of one (1) our political parties, and it's the one that spent most of my life telling me it was "the party of grown-ups."

     Maybe it was, once upon a time.  But grown-up political candidates do not open a public event -- or a private one, for that matter -- by telling admiring stories about the size of a professional athlete's genitalia.

     You can tell me that it's yet another "brilliant, headline-grabbing move," and it's certainly getting a lot of attention, but it's misdirection at best, a distraction from serious issues of policy and plans.  It's bread-and-circuses bullshit, only without the bread (despite plenty of promises of bread tomorrow).

     It's as if a dumber version of Eddie Haskell grew up and went into politics, and darned near half the voters thought he was wonderful, so much cooler than any nose-to-the-grindstone striver, with most of his party's politicians emulating his odious behavior.

     Someone on social media shared a photograph of a drink that's already out at some trendy spots, a 50-50 mixture of lemonade and iced tea, with a swizzle stick made from a hot dog that's had a hole put through it lengthwise by a drinking straw.  And that's clever political commentary, as of October, 2024.

     Fates help us.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Fates help us." I fear it's too late.

Antibubba said...

This, I'm afraid, IS our fate.

grich said...

So childish to talk in a public forum about a dead man's "endowment"...talk that would get you flagged for sexual harassment in a business setting. Even sadder is an interview with said athlete's daughter, who said she wasn't too concerned about the comments. Wow. I'd be mortified.

Anonymous said...

I do wonder what would have happened if the Democrats had their 'come to Jesus' talk with Biden back in mid 2023, and had a proper & competitive open primary process. It's possible that they would have a better candidate- and might even have better than even odds of winning.
Harris is not really a good candidate- a fact that becomes clear if one imagines her against someone like McCain or Romney. Almost anyone else would probably be well ahead of Trump.

Roberta X said...

"I do wonder," you may not quite see a few points. First, it is *always* an incumbent's choice to run or not, no matter how his party apparatus feels about it.

Second, have you seen Kamala Harris in debate or interview? She's a strong candidate. But the GOP base is committed, the lukewarm Republican voters are unlikely to vote for any Democrat, and there's a hard core of boys who will not vote for a woman, plus the racists who can't get past her skin color. With the biggest newspapers tacitly behind the lunatic who sold scads of subscriptions for them last time, it's quite a hill to climb.

I hope Harris wins. I think she has as good a chance as any Democrat they could have run, and four years as VP mean she already knows how the machinery works and who to call when it doesn't. But I'm not making any predictions and I have been disappointed too often in the last eight years to embrace any hopes.

We'll find out after Election Day.