There has been a single theme running through the presidential debates of late that can best be summed up with a line from the only good TV show of the past fifteen years: "All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again."
Ben Carson, a guy who says crazy shit and has no past experience in politics, is currently leader of the GOP pack. Sound like a similar situation from four years ago?
Admittedly, Carson doesn't look like he's going to implode as spectacularly as Herman Cain but then neither did Herman Caine. Similarly, Rick Perry got pretty far as a racist blowhard before collapsing under his own weight just as Michelle Bachman started as every Tea Party crazy's hero before turning in lame performances alongside the rest of the field and eventually folding due to her rampant scandals. And through it all, everyone kept saying Romney was done and should just go home.
It may not play out exactly like that in 2016. Trump could possibly overwhelm the GOP machine with his racist populism, offering bitter proof that elections are indeed still decided by the people. Chris Christie might not suffer a massive coronary or another indictment by next November, just as Rubio may look like a grown-up and Cruz may actually get a vote. But all of that is as likely as Carly Fiorina sticking in the race past December.
On the opposite side, you've got nothing but the inevitability of Clinton II. Yes, Bernie Sanders has been fun to watch. No, he is not pushing the Clinton Machine leftward. If anything, the farcical Benghazi committee proved Hillary can keep on keepin' on and her opponents are simply too ridiculous to stop her. Obama went into Election 2012 with a similar centrist record and mopped the floor with White Obama - imagine what's gonna happen when 2016 comes down to Bush III versus Clinton II. Their policies are close enough to constitute incest. It'll be the first election decided purely on nostalgia for past administrations: "Did you prefer NAFTA or the PATRIOT Act?"
Yet this zombie dance is amped up as the most important election of our time. Just like the last election, and the election before that, and so on. No matter who wins next year, American troops will still be in Syria and school kids will still be shooting each other for various spaz reasons that have nothing to do with politics as discussed on the Sunday morning shows and much more to do with the harsh economic realities not even Sanders could hope to remedy. And that latter is just providing more excuse for the huge natsec blob to trip over its own feet.
Like the FBI's latest addition to childhood trauma: a video game! It teaches you not to be a puppet by getting you to be paranoid of your swarthier classmates, because Islamic State has been behind so many school shootings in America. It's not just a creepy, Orwellian attempt at conditioning fear into the youth, but it's as completely wrong and divorced from reality as the words that come out of Rand Paul's mouth when he goes off script.
This is the new normal, America. Declaring the old ideas to be the future while blaming foreignors for the failed capitalism devouring our lives. Thank God for Vladimir Putin.
UPDATE: I'd just like to give Ben Carson credit for imploding even more ridiculously than Herman Cain :D
Ben Carson, a guy who says crazy shit and has no past experience in politics, is currently leader of the GOP pack. Sound like a similar situation from four years ago?
Admittedly, Carson doesn't look like he's going to implode as spectacularly as Herman Cain but then neither did Herman Caine. Similarly, Rick Perry got pretty far as a racist blowhard before collapsing under his own weight just as Michelle Bachman started as every Tea Party crazy's hero before turning in lame performances alongside the rest of the field and eventually folding due to her rampant scandals. And through it all, everyone kept saying Romney was done and should just go home.
It may not play out exactly like that in 2016. Trump could possibly overwhelm the GOP machine with his racist populism, offering bitter proof that elections are indeed still decided by the people. Chris Christie might not suffer a massive coronary or another indictment by next November, just as Rubio may look like a grown-up and Cruz may actually get a vote. But all of that is as likely as Carly Fiorina sticking in the race past December.
On the opposite side, you've got nothing but the inevitability of Clinton II. Yes, Bernie Sanders has been fun to watch. No, he is not pushing the Clinton Machine leftward. If anything, the farcical Benghazi committee proved Hillary can keep on keepin' on and her opponents are simply too ridiculous to stop her. Obama went into Election 2012 with a similar centrist record and mopped the floor with White Obama - imagine what's gonna happen when 2016 comes down to Bush III versus Clinton II. Their policies are close enough to constitute incest. It'll be the first election decided purely on nostalgia for past administrations: "Did you prefer NAFTA or the PATRIOT Act?"
Yet this zombie dance is amped up as the most important election of our time. Just like the last election, and the election before that, and so on. No matter who wins next year, American troops will still be in Syria and school kids will still be shooting each other for various spaz reasons that have nothing to do with politics as discussed on the Sunday morning shows and much more to do with the harsh economic realities not even Sanders could hope to remedy. And that latter is just providing more excuse for the huge natsec blob to trip over its own feet.
Like the FBI's latest addition to childhood trauma: a video game! It teaches you not to be a puppet by getting you to be paranoid of your swarthier classmates, because Islamic State has been behind so many school shootings in America. It's not just a creepy, Orwellian attempt at conditioning fear into the youth, but it's as completely wrong and divorced from reality as the words that come out of Rand Paul's mouth when he goes off script.
This is the new normal, America. Declaring the old ideas to be the future while blaming foreignors for the failed capitalism devouring our lives. Thank God for Vladimir Putin.
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UPDATE: I'd just like to give Ben Carson credit for imploding even more ridiculously than Herman Cain :D
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