TomFlannery.com

Super Tuesday is over. All the armchair warriors have tweeted and facebooked themselves nearly to death, explaining why they are so smart and everybody else is so dumb. It’s a two man race right now, between Biden and Bernie….and may the best man win. Honestly, at this point I’d vote for a diseased toad over Donald Trump…..so it is what it is. I’m surprised Elizabeth Warren didn’t do better. I’m not surprised that Mike Bloomberg tanked. But I think Bernie and Uncle Joe are both fundamentally decent men. I wish they were ten years younger, but my hat is off to anybody who throws theirs into the ring. Bernie has always been my first choice. Warren my second. But if it’s Joe, well he’s got my vote. There is no alternative. I’m 53 years old and have no yet voted for any candidate endorsed by the Klan. That’s a pretty decent litmus test. It should be yours as well, doncha think?

My politics are to the left of Eugene Debs, and I make no excuses for that. The things that Bernie is asking for hardly sound radical to me. Just plain old decency and common sense. Nobody wants free stuff. We just want what we’ve already paid for. Everybody yells at me when I say this, but my give-a-shit level is now in the basement. Some folks are fine with kids in cages. Others are not. Some people believe in science. Others think Adam and Eve frolicked with velociraptors. Personal preference. I see zero point in arguing such matters. Buy me a beer and I’ll buy you one. If you get sick I want you to get well. I presume you feel the same about me?

But in our current climate somehow this wild-haired grumpy grandfather from Vermont who doesn’t want us to die indigent due to lack of health care is painted as the next Joseph Stalin. Our nation is not only ignorant, it’s gleefully ignorant. We bask in what we do not understand like pigs lolling in mud. We tar with words we do not know the meaning of. We’re intentionally and almost casually cruel. We deserve the leadership we have, and we deserve the leadership we’re gonna get.

Oh, and we’re also apathetic as balls. The promised “youth vote” that is always ready to descend on polling places and scare the hell out of the establishment once again found better things to do. Their turnout was as low as it always is, despite the obvious stakes. Maybe they’ll find the time come November. I guess we’ll see.

Trump talked about “draining the swamp” but subsequently filled the White House with so many cartoonish thugs and soon-to-be felons that Richard Nixon was taking notes from hell. It takes balls to change things from the way they’ve always been. A bully has no balls….so the President has actually made things maniacally worse. People on both sides of the aisle seemed terrified that Bernie just might have the stones to burn the place down, so it’s probably not coincidental that so many jumped in to endorse Biden at the last moment. Including the hapless Bloomberg, who spent half a billion dollars of his own money to win American Samoa. He could have bought the place and pocketed the change.

Once again the last ones standing are rich old white men.

But there were strong women. Persons of color. Youth. And nobody voted for them. So as much as we whine about change, we apparently ain’t ready for it. A third party is laughed out of the race before the horse is even loaded into its stall. Money makes it all go around, and when it comes to money, nobody likes surprises. The same companies that own most of the establishment candidates own the media companies that report on them. You might be on the merry-go-round for a long time, but intellectually you know that despite the constant movement, you’re not actually going anywhere.

And so that’s my state of the union address for the day. Bernie could still win this thing, and I hope he does. But Uncle Joe has got the momentum for sure. And his wife Jill came up huge last night by body-blocking that protester to keep her away from her man, something nobody could envision poor Stockholm-Syndromed Melania doing. Politics is a blood sport, and Dr. Jill has laid down a marker. She’ll broker no nonsense.

Meanwhile, our commander in chief, in between sniffs of crushed Adderall, tweets childish insults at everybody involved. Lincolnesque as always.

As for VP picks, I think Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are both in play. As for Trump, once he finds a way to blame the Coronavirus on Mike Pence, he’ll need another lackey in there. Somebody with the same ball-kissing skills and the willingness to believe that the world is only 5000 years old even though man has been brewing beer longer than that. It ain’t easy navigating that world, Bubba. If the poor bastard believed in science he’d probably be busy trying to clone Lindsey Graham.

Enjoy the circus.

In a bit..

–tf