The parallel universe primary
In one universe, Joe Biden is president, the unemployment rate is under four percent and has been for 21 straight months, the economy added 216,000 jobs in December, the homicide rate nationally is down 13 percent over the last year, the stock market just reached a record high, the Federal Reserve sees inflation easing more than a full percentage point over the next year and indicates that it will hold interest rates steady, and next month, a recalcitrant Congress is expected to be dragged kicking and screaming into not shutting down the government.
In the other universe, Ron “We Hardly Knew Ye” DeSantis dropped out of a presidential run that practically nobody noticed he was engaged in anyway. I mean, what was the point? He never looked like he wanted to actually be president. He never uttered two consecutive sentences of a rationale for his campaign, unless you count propping up the private jet rental industry as a reasonable goal he was attempting to attain. All he ever did on a debate stage was look angry and sound angry, but he looked angry and sounded angry every time he appeared in public anyway, especially if anyone wearing press credentials was nearby.
And let’s just stop right there and ask a question I never heard anyone ask over the last six or seven months, and that is, what was the deal with DeSantis and his hatred of the media? It’s yet another example of one of the parallel universes we’ve been in, this one the universe where people who are standing around with cameras and notebooks ready to record everything you say and transmit it for free to the people you’re trying to get to vote for you, those people are the enemy. Huh? What the hell was that all about? I mean, Donald Trump constantly calls the media the enemy, but he’s ready at the drop of an invite from a podcaster with a listening audience in excess of eight to jump in there and babble his lips off in the hope that he’ll gain a zillionth of a point in the polls. Sure, the hatred of DeSantis for Trump was so blatant not even Botox could help conceal it, but adopting the polar opposite of Trump’s media strategy fit the political playbook of the too online right, “failing to recognize that Donald Trump owns them,” as Heather “Digby” Parton recently pointed out in Salon.
This is an excerpt from my bi-weekly Tuesday Salon column. To read the rest, follow the link below:
Let’s do talk about DeSantis. He cannot be easy to live with and it seems like his little wifey, who has a Miss America pageantry smile, is the same. Is Ron not stiff as a board? He is totally awkward in front of audiences and/or the media. I think his campaigners must have told him he has to smile more. So he ends up looking like a fool with a Howdy Doody smile. But that is what DeSantis is...a fool, a dunce. He and his boyfriend from Texas, are just plain mean and hateful. They deserve the wrath of their voters and I pray we see their powers stripped.
Parallel universe is so right. I heard an interview this morning on BBC-NPR with a primary voter in NH who said (paraphrasing) - that he was supporting the Melon Felon because the MF was only one who wasn't corrupt. Only hisself spends his OWN money on his campaign whereas the MF's opponents use other people's money. Alternative Reality doesn't even begin to cover it.