May 19, 2019
The ride to Lefty’s place was totally refreshing. Even Hubris was in a good mood in spite of the fact that I didn’t have one of Howie’s alfalfa and sun roasted oats cookies to give him. However, as we were riding up to the hitching post I noticed something very different about the signage over the water trough. The small print at the bottom had been changed from “for those who support our cause” to “for those who support our Uncle Joe!” This was an amazing turn of events! It was months before the first nomination debate was scheduled and the DNC had seemingly already chosen its candidate! On reflection, I had to admit that this was better than the chicanery of Donna Brazile and the DNC in the 2018 nomination process. I found myself wondering how (Donna) a card carrying Democrat and a member of the ‘distinguished’ Democratic National Committee could go from that position to a position of “Political Contributor” for Fox News (alias, Trump Pimp TV) almost overnight? My only answer was that old saying, “Politics makes for strange bedfellows!” I was wondering even more how over 20 “self-nominees” were going to carry the banner of the Democrat Party into a contest that didn’t look like it would be very “democratic” at all! 2019 was already an exceptionally strange year in politics and it looked like it was going to get even stranger–faster!
I hadn’t gone 20 feet inside the front door when I realized that the entire central floor was covered by very small groups of highly agitated young people all talking and nobody listening. There didn’t seem to be anybody in charge or “leading’ anyone anywhere. And then, I immediately thought of Bernie leading his revolution of young hopefuls, pretending to be ‘inside’ but inherently rejected by the DNC which controlled the ideological borders of that very narrow gauge fence. That was an old rail roader’s term for people who couldn’t think outside the box. That strange reality was immediately followed by my realization that at least 50% of the Democrat self-nominees to be our 2020 Chief were espousing elements of social welfare that not only the Republican Party members considered “Socialist” but even members of the DNC considered outside of the bounds of pure, old fashioned, Democrat orthodoxy. I could clearly see that the Democrat party was struggling with an identity crisis of the highest order and worse, it wasn’t anywhere near admitting to having such a big problem, much less solving it. I could see the good ole boys in the back room wringing their hands and saying, “If all we got is Uncle Joe to go against Trump in 2020, we had better pray for a “great white (brown or black, male or female, gay or lesbian, or transvestite, or ???) candidate to come out during the debates and carry our flag to victory (for us)!
And, the RNC reminded me of the opposition party in the movie, “Oh Brother, Where art Thou?” They had one finger stuck in their ear and the other stuck up their ass! AND, their leader was a member of the KKK! Reminds you of anybody we know? I felt a little bit concerned for my people in both parties (I’ve been a member of both but long ago claimed the, as yet un-recognized, position of “Independent”) but, if they had no sense of history or values, they didn’t deserve to be in the country’s biggest race. It didn’t take me long to transition from that profound view to realize that both the Republican and Democrat parties were failed outposts of yesterday’s society. Neither one had any sense of, or relation to, what was really happening in America’s and the world’s political, economic and social structures. Reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. We have our Nero in Trump but, as best I know (and hope), he can’t fiddle. Mitch McConnell is the Congressional equivalent of Nero and I don’t think he knows how to fiddle with anything but obstructionist politics either.
I have made it clear to Bernie that he should officially get out of the Democrat party. Why he stays in a party that pays him no respect much less any attention is beyond me (but that’s easy for almost anything to be for me in today’s political vacuum). How the approximately 50% of the avowed social welfare based candidates are going to stay with a sinking ship that is no longer democratically based (if it ever was!) is also a mystery to me. I’ll bet that over 50% of the Republican Congress men and women would prefer to have Trump out of their party, but less than 10% of those have the courage to say so.
And so, we have a Democrat party without a real leader (Nancy really doesn’t want the job) and a Republican party with a leader they wish they didn’t have. My crystal ball is very cloudy!
Fortunately (I don’t know for whom), I have just finished my fourth book titled, “Watching—the Destruction of the American Middle Class.” It is still in manuscript form, searching for a publisher. In it, I propose a solution to our political party dilemma. I’ll save you readers from hearing about it until, at least, next week. Maybe, by that time, the reality scales will be tipped even further in my favor? So for now, it’s time to un-hitch Hubris from the trough, remount, and with a hearty shout of Hi Ho Hubris, Aawaay! –we were headed back to our little ranch in the valley.
Copyright, 5/19/2019, Louis J. Christen