Without getting all maudlin about it, the runup to the conventions has finally gotten to me. Yes, Trump will in all liklihood be the Republican candidate, and yes, Hillary will in all probability be the Neo-Liberal Democratic candidate, another right-of-center Republican posing as a progressive until she gets in and then it’ll be the same old, same old. Back to Wall Street friendly business as usual, continuing the devastation of America’s middle class as secret trade deals move forward and giant corporations continue scooping up the profits with even less regulation and accountability and the Clinton Foundation grows fat and happy with donations pouring in from every corner of the planet as the politicos sell their souls while carping about the need for greater transparency.
Or maybe she’ll fool us all, turning her back on all that money she took from the big bankers and the favors accepted from the corporatocracy that helped her get elected. Maybe once elected, she’ll come down on the side of the common folk and not the rich and powerful. Maybe she’ll deliver on her platform, so much of which she stole from Bernie Sanders, and deliver for Main Street instead of Wall Street. Ya, right. Maybe the leopard will change its spots.
Sure, an unexpected turn of events could lead to Bernie getting the nod, but at this point it feels as though the Sander’s campaign will go to the convention ready for a fight only to be confronted by what we already know, that the fix is in and the process is headed for an inevitible result – a symbolic fight over super delegates to make it look good for the common folk, even while a decision was made months ago. It’s Hillary’s turn.
It feels like we’ve been here before. Like the Millenials are being given the same treatment they gave us Boomers.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote that George McGovern and Jimmy Carter were both beset by the same flaw. They were both too honest for American politics. Or perhaps for politics period. It could be that Bernie Sanders has that very same problem.
Bill O’Reilly doesn’t. Last night on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he repeated a bit of misinformation those on the right love to keep passing along even though it’s incorrect, that Sweden, one of their much-hated examples of Social Democracy gone wrong, has “one of the highest suicide rates in the world.” That’s not true. According to the World Health Organization, Sweden is ranked 58th in the world. The U.S., is ranked 50th. So we’re even worse off, here in our bastion of free market Capitalism. But it’s not only that. A recent poll shows Scandinavians, with the security their social democracies provide, to be among the happiest people in the world.
Thompson’s gone now, and there’s no one of his peculiar intellectual bent to provide us with a proper gonzo perspective on the bad craziness that has the country by the throat. Sometimes it takes someone like Thompson, with an exaggerated sense of reality, to pull us back into seeing the truth. And now, even without him, what’s happening feels like somehow it’s all happened before. There’s something vaguely familiar. Just as we thought we might reach out and own it, a righteous resolution is once again being snatched away.
A passage from Thompson’s book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” comes to mind. It struck me the first time I read it and it feels appropriate now, more than 40 years later, tying what was to what is, and maybe leaving us hoping for more than we can possibly have. Just like before. Stripped of idealism and facing the cold, emotionless face of reality. The politics of power. Like staring into the eyes of a shark. Is that something Thompson wrote? I’m really not sure. But it’s a good line.
Here was the doctor’s take on it, back in 71.
“And that, I think, was the handle-that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” -HST, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
