(Cont.) Definitely-not-bitter Hillary gives us just the kick up the ass we needed
plus: a slip-up from our friend Dall E...
In the last post, we were talking about Hillary having a ton of pent up resentment, and how she/the Democrats can’t quite figure out what note to strike, brand-wise: you have her with the snarky thing, Biden with his dementia (not that he can help it), Barack with his “I release a fun little reading list/playlist (and also a book) every year, but otherwise stay out of it” thing. There isn’t a clear, unified message (other than when someone like Bernie Sanders pops up, in which case they unite to eliminate him swiftly and silently).
On the other side, the GOP (the Republicans) are years ahead when it comes to circling the wagons and leveraging tribalism; as soon as Obama took over in 2008, they were pretty open about their MO: “Piss off liberals, at any cost.” (Which led to the deluge of painfully cringeworthy stuff like this.) The directive to be antagonistic and obstructive came straight from the GOP leadership (like Mitch McConnell, who’s so old he’s literally dying on the job.) Trump was just a natural extension of all this; his brazen irreverence proving so successful must be frustrating for someone like Clinton, who so clearly fancies herself as witty and charismatic and relatable. (“You kids should Pokémon Go… to the polls!!” ….brutal.)
I think there’s a decent chance she resents Biden, too, for whatever charm he’s got left. His style is a little less …dynamic than what he might have been able to manage a few decades ago - although he showed flashes in the VP debate back in 2008/2012 - he’s so over the hill that his only “move” now is the harmless, lovable old grandpa (more on that in a minute).
Tellingly, the Democrats were so unconvinced of his victory prospects in 2020 that they used the nuclear option: Trump was so irredeemably bad, they proclaimed before the election, that anyone else (Biden, in this case) would, necessarily, be a more rational choice. Instead of providing/drawing public attention to the metaphorical carrot, they threatened the stick: it’s your moral imperative to vote for our candidate [only an idiot/racist/democracy-hater/xenophobe/bigot would disagree]. It was a simple trolley problem: with all else being equal, sending the train towards 1,000 people is better than sending it towards 1,001, is it not? (Checkmate, idiots.)
Unfortunately, once the Moral Imperative is invoked, you’ve tacitly admitted that the media/people are incentivized to be dishonest about Biden/whichever candidate; in their efforts to retain (and radicalize) the voters they have while recruiting potential new ones: “Look. We need to stop fascism/Evil/[insert scary thing] at all costs. You’re worried about ‘The Truth,’ huh? How quaint. Well, here’s the thing, bucko: there ain’t gonna be any truth if we let them win. The country as we know it? Say goodbye. So, yeah, we’re not too worried about “Facts” right now… we’ve got bigger fish to fry. If you quit being naïve and vote for us, though, we promise we’ll come back to all that later.”
In 2020, of course, this worked; Biden managed to beat Trump (albeit off the back of the BLM riots and the frustration of Covid).
In my view, you can play the emotional blackmail card approximately one (1) time. The whole “This is an Urgent Plea to Stop Fascism!!!! This is THE FINAL BATTLE: Evil vs. All That’s Good In the World! You therefore have no choice but to take our side!” thing doesn’t really work if you wheel it out every four years; you pretty quickly find yourself in a “boy who cried wolf” situation. People are gonna tune out (one would hope so, at least).
This exhausts your political/moral capital; you lose the right to talk about “norms” and “decorum” and what Washington/Democracy/America “stands for,” (and the whole sending arms to Israel thing going on in the background doesn’t help). (Not that we ever had any moral capital/journalistic integrity in the first place, obviously, but they used to be able to pretend.) So it’ll be interesting to see if they go back to the well - as in, whether this sort of rhetoric ramps up towards the election when they begin to worry about Biden’s popularity, which, at the time of writing, is at 39% (55% disapprove).
Credit where it’s due, though: that it’s as high as 39% is remarkable, really, given Joe’s deteriorated mental/physical state. His “hokey ol’ grandpa” persona lets him get away with murder. He’s got the “he’s from a different generation, so he doesn’t know better. [He grew up saying words like that.]” card up his sleeve, and boy does he take advantage:
Before the last election, he came out and reassured us he’d only be considering a woman for VP (maybe he added black or minority? I can’t remember) - sure enough, he went with Kamala Harris, a black woman and an ex-cop. (Obviously, he was seal-clapped for being so forward thinking, while Kamala was credited for winning fair and square, as if all of it hadn’t been focused group beforehand.)
Many of the folks who lapped this up, by the way, were the same people who’d sneered at John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate back in 2008: “He’s just using that poor floozy to appeal to women. It’s a blatant ploy - and I’ll bet you any money those Republicans will be too stupid to realize. Our Barack would never do something like that. He has a vision for this country that sees all people as equal: they should be considered solely on merit, not on how they look or what’s between their legs. Anyway, let’s watch some more SNL skits - Tina Fey’s Palin impression is just perfect.”
(On the other side, you had a ton of McCain voters who loved Sarah P., and applauded his selection of her, smugly citing it as evidence that the Republicans were “more open-minded than liberal elites gave them credit for.” Naturally, by the time 2016 rolled around, many of these folks were back to calling Hillary a “shrill whore” who “would’ve left her husband years ago if she had any self-respect,” and explaining that they “just weren’t sure that putting a woman in a position of such power was the best idea.” (One of my favorite stats is that a majority of white women voted for Trump over Clinton in 2016. Girl power!)
Joe also proudly exclaimed (in 2020) that, “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, you ain’t black!” How good is that one!?
Evidently, he (Biden, that is), still feels very connected to the black community today: a few weeks ago, I saw the PR video the white house released where they wheeled the president into somebody’s living room and sat him down with some young black kids. They then tuck into lunch: takeaway boxes of …. fried chicken! (!!) And their topic of conversation? …. Basketball! (!!?) I shit you not! (I’d put money on Joe dropping the N bomb some time between now and November. I don’t see how he doesn’t let it slip at least once.)
I bet Hillary hates that he’s able to get away with all this. Imagine her trying any of this stuff. She’d get shot (by a white person, most likely.)
You’ll remember, I’m sure, that our virtuous friend Dall-E - he of the perfectly attuned moral compass - flat-out refused to cooperate with yours truly when it came to producing content that made reference to any racial/social stereotypes, as this would be “extremely offensive.”
Are you saying (I’m addressing Dall E here) you know better than the President of the goddamn United States? The commander in goddamn chief?
I know he’s a fucking fraud, I just know it. For the easter post, I asked him to give me “a bunch of angry white guys yelling at a bottle of ketchup on a crucifix.” (If you haven’t read that post yet, you probably should; this’ll make more sense.) He spat out two images - the first one was suitable, and made it into the official post. This is the other one:
…Are you fucking kidding me!? He’s going to get Je Suis Charlie’d if he’s not careful.
This motherfucker knows exactly what he’s doing - he’s toying with us, I’m sure of it. I’m - no - we’re gonna expose him, whatever it takes. Stay tuned…