The Eve of the Election
A supposed golden age or a certain dark but somehow joyful time of bureaucratic growth and government overreach?
Trump says it will be a golden age. The bullet-gazed braggart, who the media has disdained with a documented 89% negative editorial coverage as captured by the Media Research Center, promises a better, more economically vibrant America than these past four years. He’ll stop illegal immigration, lower taxes, stabilize inflation, incentivize US manufacturing, reduce crime and boost America’s pride and standing. Maybe. Regardless of what he actually does, the press will go absolutely berserk, beyond even the three years of daily and nightly reporting detailing, according to sources, his standing as a Russian asset, mean-spirited ogre and potential dictator whose lust for power will result in the destruction of the Constitution, if not the world at large.
His joyful opponent, whose June 2023 net-negative rating (-17) is the lowest of any vice president in NBC’s polling history, promises a “new way forward” all while admitting she’d not change a thing from her time in the Biden-Harris administration. She’ll deliver (pun) reproductive freedom as underscored by her VP pick, whose state has no limits on abortion as now well documented. She’ll strengthen democracy while strengthening the economy while raising corporate taxes higher than what Chinese companies pay. And she’ll do that while building an “opportunity economy” by raising taxes, ensuring that companies will charge higher prices to cover their costs and recover eroding profit margins but, even still, the middle class will be better off because she’ll lower cost for the middle class because she’ll deliver an opportunity economy. (Word salad intended.)
Trump promises a golden age. His joyful opponent promises a “new way forward.”
She’ll do this with a smile because she is kind and joyful and everyone knows that Trump is mean-spirited. The best evidence of this “soul-destroying” joy is how only 4 of 71 administration employees stayed with her after her first year in office… sort of like how, during her time as Senator, she was rated as having the ninth-highest turnover rate among 114 US Senators during the 2017-2020 timeframe. But one would never know… thanks in part to the 89% positive media coverage during her first four-weeks of candidacy compliments of CBS, NBC and ABC. As Oprah reinforced, “Let’s choose joy!!!”
It’s truly the art of the deal, that Donald can only envy. How else could the country’s borders be wide open and processing methodologies of border agents be changed for 3.5 years all while she blames Trump for a whisper campaign against a $118 billion aid bill that earmarked $20 billion for border security and ensured at least 5,000 illegal migrants daily before DHS was required to stop the flow.
Well, let’s see how you vote. Brace yourself. We could be facing more foreign policy debacles (Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel-Gaza and an enriched Iran, pun intended); restrictions on the cherished-by-Americans first amendment; restrictions on parents who are convinced that their sons and daughters were actually their sons and daughters; more Chinese spy balloon moments (except it will likely come in the form of an invasion of Taiwan to given China supercomputer chip supremacy… and more hacking of US utility systems, energy systems and air transportation systems… uh, it’s already well documented by our intel agencies… and more theft of US know-how and intellectual property… uh, it’s already well documented by our law enforcement agencies); higher taxes (oh, really, don’t worry unless you make $400K annually… they’ve promised); a weakening of the economy (why invest in the US if restrictions and regulations further bloom and BRICS wreaks further havoc against the US dollar, and gee, only 12,000 jobs were created last month but pay no heed because housing will be magically cheaper and interest rates will go down and inflation will go down and stay down because a centralized government controls everything as previously demonstrated by the Soviet Union and now by China, who benefitted from the greatest wealth transfer in human history via US and European companies supplanting their entire manufacturing bases to get cheap labor and, yeah sure, as an effort to democratize China); oh, and higher crime rates (because now we know as of two weeks ago that previous national stats strategically used in media and debate fact-checking were, uh, a little bit erroneous).
But all of that probably makes zero sense because it’s super important that we vote based on race and gender and, oh yeah, fabulous ideas and policies crafted all of six weeks ago.
But, no worries, courses on Newspeak will soon be offered and things will just be splendid because, after all, politics and policy only go so far and what’s most important is that we’ll all be united. Will she have even fewer press conferences than her predecessor? And you extremists don’t get too excited… there will be zero gaffes; It will all be written and rehearsed almost as if it was planned.
One square mile. Easily understood. You walk a mile, turn left, walk a mile and turn left, walk a mile and turn left, and then walk another mile right back to where you began.
Thanks for reading ONE SQUARE MILE and pardon this once-in-a-blue-moon political post! Subscribe for free or support my work through a modestly priced and discounted subscription.
Images taken with a #Fujifilm GFX100S.
All images and text are copyrighted. ©Scott Edwards, 2024.
ONE SQUARE MILE is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Well. Someone said "don't try to understand what is happening outside your own echo chamber". Seems like the Dems completely lost the people, and the people made the (hard?) decision. Good luck everyone :)