Monday, August 10, 2015

The Circus is Coming to Your Town!

Photo credit - Donkey Hotey via Flicks
I think the thing I am going to like most about this election cycle is the art. By art, I don't mean Van Gogh and Da Vinci, I mean the images that make their way into our collective consciousness. I started referring to the GOP parade as the Clown Cavalcade a while ago...in the June 15th episode, and my first mention of this season's clown car was before that. Not like I'm a trailblazer, but I think I may be the only who, in NY Times comments, konsistently refers to members of the US House of Representatives as Kongress Klowns. Now, it's positively illustrated everywhere!

The images are rather amazing. You have to figure the accessibility of Photo Shop and similar programs are at the bottom, but whatever it is, the result is amazing. What started me on this was a Facebook post of Cruz and Grandpa Munster. The caption by Alice Melott, the lady who posted the mashup, was simply brilliant: "Too late. You can't unsee this."

This, in turn, immediately snapped me over to Carly Fiorina and the Church Lady. Sorry. It was something about the way she pursed her lips. It wasn't the pursing of the lips à la Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, this was total condescension and disapproval. And that was bolstered by listening to her talk down John Dickerson on Face the Nation. Sunday morning, I just wanted to lob a grapefruit at her. It wasn't the message, which made a certain amount of sense, it was the delivery. I can just see this woman talking to Angela Merkel. Angela would eat her for breakfast and spit out the bones. Yeah, like I want that for POTUS. 

And that led to finding the morph of Chris "I never saw a kickback I didn't like" Christie into Tony Soprano, brilliantly done  by the NY Daily News, which is not exactly know for brilliance in matters political. Basically, the meme asks which is the fiction? The scary part, I suppose, is that it's not exactly clear which one is which. 

Of course, if one wonders about cartoon characters, go no further than the Donald. I thought using his face for the gremlin in The Twilight Zone's Nightmare At  20,000 Feet, was spot on. There are no words to adequately describe the hubris and utter stupidity of this man. Or not. Two deviant thoughts linger at the edges of my brain: 1) is this man Hillary's stealth weapon to bring down the GOP? 2) Is he much smarter than we're giving him credit for, and this is being secretly taped as "The Candidate," his new reality scheme? Either one has a certain essence of credibility.

On the less funny side, were some of the things that came out of the "debaters'" mouths. I use the quotes here because what we saw Thursday night was not a debate, it was a bloviation. No substance, no facts, just theme and variation on what/whom we should hate. Is this what we are reduced to?  Apparently so. There were times during this so-called debate where everyone was talking at once. First graders know better than that.

The lack of civil discourse and discussion made me just plain angry. I wanted to hear what ideas they had...what did they want to accomplish, not just what they wanted to destroy. I wanted them to talk about the crumbling infra-structure and they talked about who hugged whom. The Donald went on a misogynistic rampage that still hasn't stopped. Mike Huckabee informed us that "The military is not a social experience.The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things." Really? That's all they're good for? The debate over at the kid's table wasn't much more enlightening.

It's really sad. What should've been a great opportunity for the GOP clown pool to show off their differences, was, instead, circus maximus for all of viewerdom, domestic and international, proving they are are nothing more than a bunch of sad-faced, empty-headed, know-nothing clowns. 

Not that I expect the other side to be much better.  For the moment, the only one who is talking about real issues facing America at home is Bernie Sanders. That has to count for something. With any luck, his success will ultimately help shape the real conversation.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week   
If you're getting a good soaking rain once a week and the air is not bone dry,
check your soil before watering. You may not have to.
                  
       













1 comment:

  1. I found it 'interesting' that Hillary Clinton chimed in on the Megyn Kelly debacle. She should now prepare to answer some questions like why she stayed with the 'alleged rapist' and sexual abuser husband of hers. But we'll never get to real issues. That's been the theme of this current administration....keep the masses talking about issues that lack substance so they don't notice more than half of work-capable Americans not getting up and going to work everyday.

    Mark Levin is the conservative's Paul Revere. This is what Mark said about the debate:
    MARK LEVIN: What's been discussed the last four days? Donald Trump. 'Oh, do you support Donald Trump? Oh, what he said about women.'

    You know what, this country is going to hell, damn it. This is the Republican primary process. Not the FOX News-Megyn Kelly primary process. It's not about taking sides. I didn't come out and say I support Donald Trump. I don't know who I'm going to support. People can infer who I like, I'm a conservative.

    Now, with that said, when moderators take up one-third of two hours -- we have ten candidates there. They averaged 6 minutes each. We talk about informing the American people. Oh great, they got 24 million people. Well, what the hell did they see?

    You know what? If a corporation wants to jack up its ratings to sell it to their advertisers and endlessly, day after day, over the week say, 'We had 24 million. 24 million viewers.' That's great. It may have been your objective; it wasn't my objective.

    I'm not saying throw softballs. For God's sake, we've got massive issues going on here. Oh, they did opposition research. They wanted to test these guys in contradictions. Okay, we can deal with that in the Democrat-Republican debates. We're trying to sort out which conservative we want. Whether in fact they are conservative. And we didn't find out a damn thing we didn't know going in to this.

    -doug-

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