Wow, what a difference a week can make! In our new ever-accelerating political cycles, just 24 hours can change an entire landscape. The last time I wrote about this election season, it was Joe’s disastrous debate, where a couple things became clear really fast:
- There was something to the Republican’s drumbeat message that Joe was too old for the upcoming job.
- Democrats had been deceiving themselves in disbelieving that message and trying to downplay concern in their own party.
The pressure to step down ramped up, especially from inside the party.
BREAKING! 1These politics headlines became popular on Twitter, especially during the first Trump term. So often you would see them, that they effectively lost their intended meaning.
And just when you thought that would be enough campaign-rocking news: the assassination attempt! Thankfully, Trump survived this — I can’t say for sure if the nation would have if he’d been killed. The amazing image of Trump — never missing an opportunity for showmanship — rising up off that stage floor with clenched fist in the air, blood on his face, yelling audibly without microphone pickup, “FIGHT! FIGHT!”, will be burned into 2024. If you’re MAGA, you can’t ask for more quintessential fodder.
BREAKING!
The failed assassination played hand-in-glove into the Republican National Convention (which was only a dizzying 48 hours later!). Their unchanging message of strength vs. feebleness was now etched in stone. So much so, that it somehow seemed obvious that Hulk Hogan would make an appearance, complete with ripping off his shirt. This ridiculous machismo was the natural outgrowth of prior events.
BREAKING!
And then Nancy stepped in. Sure, Barack and Chuck too, but mostly Nancy. She just keeps leading in her way, even when not in charge, willing to impress up the leader of her party that the better thing to do for her country is ask him to step down. Stunning amount of courage and leadership.
And he did. Joe actually did. The aftermath couldn’t be known. Would it all fall apart and another 1968 would ensue, with convention mayhem, in-party feuding, and in Chicago of all places?!
BREAKING!
Kamala. The coalescence around the Veep as the presumptive candidate was self-evident in under 48 hours. Overnight, there was a mood shift, a palpable excitement — there were memes! My god, the memes. Example: “coconut-pilled” = a bulwark mashup of “red-pilled” 2“Red pill” borrows from The Matrix, implying that once you’ve see the light (of MAGA), you’ll never go back to the delusion of liberalism. and her 2023 speech mentioning the wisdom of coconuts:
I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people, you think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
BREAKING!
And now the Right’s message of strong vs. weak is suddenly collapsed. This was an unexpected outcome and one that just might tip the scales.
If anything positive can be said about politics, it’s that there are always truly surprising outcomes, even when a path seems predictable. Trump’s unexpected win in 2016, his escape of legal peril against multiple evidence, his loss in 2020 and his soft coup in Jan 2021. On the other side, there is Joe’s surprising amount of progressive legislation that he managed to pass despite having spoiler members of his senate, and losing the House in the next term.
This year, there’s been no shortage of surprising turns of events. I don’t know about you, but I’m eager for a market correction in the political economy. This kind of energy isn’t sustainable.
Footnotes
- 1These politics headlines became popular on Twitter, especially during the first Trump term. So often you would see them, that they effectively lost their intended meaning.
- 2“Red pill” borrows from The Matrix, implying that once you’ve see the light (of MAGA), you’ll never go back to the delusion of liberalism.
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