Politics Gone Inane
Terry H. Schwadron
Oct. 23, 2024
The election news has been flooded this week with outbursts so inane that they require acknowledgement.
Are we really talking about an election about the preservation of democracy and whatever passes as American values now based on what an “unfiltered” Donald Trump bleats to a rally crowd about a dead Arnold Palmer’s penis, about his non-issue with Kamala Harris about whether she worked a summer job at a McDonalds like so many other teens and adults, about whether Harris, who pinned him in a televised debate is “stupid”?
Though I foolishly promised myself to ignore most of the antics to gain attention, I’m left wondering what exactly are we supposed to come away with — that Harris “lied” about a summer job and therefore is too stupid to be president? Or that real men “protect” women by keeping them home and pregnant rather than daring to suggest that Trump is ready to sell out Ukraine to Vladimir Putin and start a global trade war that has no chance to lower consumer prices? Is Trump somehow more “manly” by shouldering childish insults?
Worse, if this “genuine” quality is considered effective politicking, what does it say about the processing by American voters altogether? Do we view politics in line with unleashing lions in the Coliseum gladiator matches?
Is the main issue of Harris’ interviews with media really the nature of the film edits made by different CBS news shows or should we rather be paying attention to how she is or is not distinguishing her proposed administration from that of Joe Biden? Is the most important political story of the week whether Harris skipped the Al Smith be-nice-to-others annual Catholic Charities dinner for a funny, mailed video bit or whether the participants were so ashamed of Trump’s behavior at the event as to seek shelter when asked about it?
With early voting already underway, is this the best we can do as a country — debate French fry experience — even without wearing the required hair net? Maybe they were large too.
Real wars are going on, with weapons supplied by a United States that is forced to view the events as geopolitical chess, but killing and injuring real people. Push aside the gauze of the advertising and we can see real people being hurt by the side effects of abortion bans and lots of others just trying to get the rent together. Electioneering has made clear that keeping the migrant border issues alive and central is more important than bucking down to reach compromises, and while Team Trump rails about lagging hurricane aid, his Republican House colleagues refuse to return to session to do anything about it.
Maybe “masculine” strength should be adjudged by the ability to assemble and keep a 50-nation coalition together, or to work through Covid as a serious danger or by getting a start on controlling prescription drug prices.
If keeping an enemies list for promised prosecution and government reprisals against political opponents is not enough — either for or against — what is the pitch about masculinity to do with being president, other than the none-too-subtle attack on a woman opponent?
Stunts that Draw Questions
The sudden but repeated question is not whether Trump has found some magic formula in appealing to his definition of masculinity, but what the heck this topic is doing in the middle of a serious presidential campaign? Why was Trump talking about Arnold Palmer’s junk in the first place, far removed from whether it makes any sense.
And that, in turn, prompts questions about whether Trump is too old now, where he wasn’t two or three months ago when Biden was still in the race, or whether Trump is losing his marbles or whether there is any plan at all beyond slogans to deport millions using the military in U.S. streets against every American value that has been spoken aloud in two hundred years.
For months, we’ve been led to see this campaign as a matter of character of candidate as well as difference in policy lean or even as a referendum on issues like inflation, immigration, abortion and voting rights, national security issues or climate. Trump has asked us to ignore his convictions on felony counts even as he orders his lawyers to scrap to delay court proceedings beyond Nov. 5, he has asked us to ignore his family scams and grifts, he has asked us to look away from reports of inappropriate managing of classified information and plotting to overturn 2020 election results.
We must ask to what end? Harris has won the character contest, even if she may not win the Electoral College melee. Harris has tamed a coalition that is keeping her close to Trump’s nostalgic bid for better times of yore, as if they were. Trump has won the I-am-strong contest with puffery and his strange kind of charm.
But if this is supposed to be the most important election of our lives, as we keep being told, it would be hard to recognize it from some of the stunts and public flummery on display. I’ve railed previously about the manipulation of Truth as an electioneering weapon, but what we have now is some weird puppets show with television pundits willing to repeat even the most outlandish candidate outbursts as making a bigger point or as “jokes” that keep rallies entertained.
How about, if you don’t have anything to tell a crowd for two hours, don’t speak. Trump even was forced to do that by a couple of electricity outages recently, and spent an inordinate 40 minutes making painfully distressing dance moves to a sound show of favored music or simply wandering on a stage for a separate 20-minute break.
Maybe it all comes down to the repetition of punditry in which talking heads measure the “performance” of the candidate rather than whether what is being said makes even the modicum of sense. However one slices it, if we’re really voting on whether Trump admires Arnold Palmer’s penis size is an indictment of us, not him.
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