RANT: BACKHOES AND POLITICOS

 

 

Confessions of a

Consumer

“I doubt I’ll need it.

Yes, I treed it.

Yes, I concede:

It is a need—

on a need to need

basis.

Like some tropical

oasis.

Or that race into space

is.”

…..

Look. There.

Look out—there.

In the air.

Everywhere!

And if you stare.

Or care.

Or if you

long enough, 

take time

by the scruff,

you might get

by

with all your stuff.

You might

even bluff

Death, 

with all your guff.

My love,

is that not now 

more

than enough?

 

TODAY IS THE BIG DAY! Next door, they brought in a backhoe and are digging up the street to bring water mains in for the new low-rise project. It reminds me I need to move out of here in a few months—and I hate moving! I put tracks of blustery snowstorm recordings on my computer’s sound system. It’s almost as good as white noise, and helps me ignore the machinery outside, except when the backhoe drops it’s bucket to the ground, and the vibrations go through the house and through my body. It’s like getting an ultrasound without the diagnosis.

And the American elections are today, as well. Trump, 2024? SMAGA! (Still Making America Great Again!) You never know. It’s too close to call in three or four states, especially Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but it looks like Biden will win, though it will be a squeaker with the final results not coming in for perhaps a couple of days. The question is whether old Joe lasts a year in office. At least he’s not wearing his underwear over his pants, and that’s a good sign. But Harris as prez?    I hope I’m in a coma by then! (So much for the Shining City on the Hill.) 

Some on-line commentators have said the fact that the race is so close is a reflection on how unimpressed the American public is with the Democratic alternative to Trump (despite all the president’s obvious failings in office), and how the Democratic party—once again—has failed to reach out to working class Americans to try and address their needs. More and more the party is seen to be casting its lot with the professional class and monied elites, and dissatisfaction with both parties is evident in Trump’s surprising support. People see the Republican and Democratic parties both pander, time and again, to the interests of corporations and big business, leaving them high and dry. In 2016, Trump was the “chaos agent” who was going to “drain the swamp” in Washington and change the way politics was done. In 2020, people are again voting for Trump—the outsider, the “populist”—to fulfill the promises he made back then. (Not that he ever had any intention to keep those promices in the first place, ironically enough.) 

The laggard, less-than-overwhelming support for Joe Biden—nowhere near the “landslide” predicted—is working class America’s shout of “corporatist Democrats be damned!”. Saagar Enjeti of The Hill Rising sees the vote as, “the biggest middle finger to Washington that has ever existed.” The people are telling politicians on both sides of the aisle: A pox on both your houses! FDR must be roiling in his grave! (BTW, I called for Trump to win in an earlier blog. Just so you know.)

The Book Yet To Be Written

We’ll see what happens when the final results are finally sorted. This election isn’t going to shatter the American republic, but it will shake it up. (Like my place is shaking with all the @#%!ing construction going on next door!)

 

Cheers, Jake.