I think a lot about that Jon Stewart takedown of Tuckfuck Carlson. He says that the very premise of Tucker’s show was BS, the appearance of right vs left as a part of political theater.
Like here with CNN working hard to give us a dead heat. There’s for sure something to be said for motivating voters by keeping up appearances that this race is so tight that EVERY VOTE COUNTS. In fact, YOUR vote could be the one that snatches victory away from the jaws of defeat.
But at this point the same old “dead heat” is track four of political theater’s greatest hits. I’m honestly tired of being Rick Rolled, in part because it’s a great song and I hate hating it, but Jesus Christ. Play something else. A presumptive yet inevitably crushing victory would sell a lot of papers. I promise.
Something that occurred to me. Trump’s excessive blather and lying and bragging is obviously a form of narcissistic ego protection. But it’s also ego protection for his supporters, who may not be clinical narcissists, but everyone likes a little ego boost. Like a right wing talk show host, he’s telling them that they are right and they are special and the scary world is out to get them. It’s kind of the dynamic between a cult leader and cult members.
It’s kind of fair, because much of the world looks down on them and they receive plenty of input coded that way, but Trump tells them they’re special and he loves them. That’s worth a lot more than abstract policies.
Cant kneel like was asked to do by military veterans but can deface the flag with imagery breaking what veterans and others see as flag code violations.
Except Trump openly mocks them and plays them for extremely stupid every single day.
He regularly says “By supporting this hypocritical nonsense I am spouting, you are demonstrating your inferior intellect and mental comprehension.”
When he says absentee voting and vote by mail are different he is saying “Listen lobotomized supporters, you are too dumb to recognize how stupid this is but I command you to accept and defend it anyways. At this point a lot of his followers know he has total disdain for them and they do not care.
When he says more testing is why we have more cases, he is telling his supporters “I know you are brainless but you will support this anyways.” And they do. I don’t think most of them feel coddled and loved at this point. They are battered followers who also hate minorities more than almost anything else.
