Why are “celebrity sightings” a thing?

I guess everyone was taking pot shots at Bernie Sanders at the last debate. Seems like the Democrats are trying to eat each other. Ugly stuff.

And all Trump has to do is sit back and gleefully watch.

The debates could be opportunities for getting a handle on the candidates’ plans and positions. But what gets seared into the memory banks often enough is the nonsense- the yelling and arguing, the talking over each other, the need to be heard over everyone else. Another format is needed, one-on-one with an interviewer, where the candidates can respond in peace yet still be challenged, yet unencumbered by the need to compete for attention.

It’d be better than what amounts to a noisy 1st grade class room. That’s hard to watch, though probably better for ratings.

So, climate realism, eh? Please explain this to me in a manner that doesn’t elicit a dismissive, derisive eye roll and a robust fuck you. By all means mull this over in your damned think tanks while Australia burns and Antarctica melts.

Think tanks. What a concept. I know they exist on both sides of the aisle and probably other places as well.

Thought hatcheries. Where great ideas and bullshit alike are conceived, given life and breath. Sort of like advertising, isn’t it? Creative minds with nothing but time to devise all sorts of myths in hopes of convincing people to need what they don’t need and believe what they don’t believe.

I’m with Bernie Sanders when it comes to health care for all. It should be a right, not out of reach. What appears to be at the center of this debate is the issue of what kind of country people want to live in- the wild west, every person for him/herself, or one where consideration is given to making sure every person has coverage and a certain peace of mind.

The current arrangement is unsustainable and skewed toward those who can afford the spiraling premiums and insane deductible and out-of-pocket expenses. Health care in this country needs to be blown up and re-imagined. It’s bloated, driven by profit and mergers and acquisitions. It is unmanageable, an untamed beast.

It would take a unique set of leadership skills and unprecedented political good will to even begin untangling this mess. Which is why it seems things are only going to get worse before they get better.

To hell with being afraid of leaning toward socialism. We’re already there with programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, school lunches, WIC programs, and so on. It’s called caring and compassion. It’s not weakness, it’s not evil, it’s not un-American. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot with this insistence on holding to some romantic notion of self-sufficiency and independence and no free lunches.

And capitalism needs to be taken off its pedestal. Capitalism and profitability have given us this health care monster. “Survival of the fittest” is an unworkable mantra. There is a need to imagine a workable hybrid.

It’s a big disappointment that candidates and their staff can’t run campaigns on merits and platforms alone. They so readily resort to mud-slinging and painting the opposition as the worst thing on earth. It seems so childish.

Like a “grown-up” version of a fifth-grade shoving match.

The coming stretch run of the 2020 campaign is going to be the ugliest in many a lifetime. Parties have already resorted to “deep fakes” and misinformation. The challenge for campaign managers seems to be who can get a corner on that market and time the last word.

Whoa to the electorate, who will have homework to do and decisions to make with regard to discerning what is real.

It’s difficult not to feel like prey. We should be mad as hell about such manipulation. Ashamed of and embarrassed by the depravity of the whole process.

A theory on why Trump is who he is:

If he actually admitted to being wrong every now and then, or started valuing other opinions, such “acquiescence” would cast too long a shadow back over his whole life. He’d have to question his decisions and choices. It would open a can of worms. Too many demons, and he just doesn’t want to go there. He’s afraid of what he’d see.

So, forward. Always forward. Winning bigly. That’s the name of his game. No matter who he steps on in the process. No matter if the winning isn’t real.

He might be too far gone.

Trump’s leadership style is “My Way Or The Highway.”

He can’t be bothered by the Lincolnesque Team of Rivals model. He doesn’t want to work that hard. He’d rather have enemies he can keep at arm’s length. Someone to disparage on Twitter.

So, time for my post-Oscars rant. Not much new to say except that I’m in the same place I was last year at this time- sitting on my couch having not watched one second of the show. Still at once envious of the winners’ wealth and fame and convinced of their ultimate irrelevance.

“Based on real events” is the caveat that should scream, “Hey, what you’re about to see largely didn’t happen the way we’re going to portray it, but enjoy the show, because we had fun making it, and it is art and you should appreciate the craft and our efforts. And feed me. Stroke my ego and tell me I’m awesome. Because apart from your fawning praise and envy of my lifestyle, I’m an empty vessel searching for something real.”

Yikes.

After all the accusations and denials and acquittal in the Senate, the nation now gets to endure the bona fide 2020 campaign for President, in which the current office holder will almost inevitably go louder and lower than in 2016.

The prospect of four more years of this ugly excuse for a human being conjures up at least two scenarios: either a motivated electorate shows up and votes him out, or the bastard prevails and we endure four more years of dumbness and Republican claims of working for “the American people.”

Of all the excrement that has been flung, this is the phrase that pisses me off the most. For someone with maybe half of the country expressing support for him, the fact that he could win again is at once maddening beyond words, but also mystifying. How can a person and party claim to be working for the American people when north of half of the American people would prefer to cast their vote for an inanimate object before giving support to Trump? Of course, this applies in the other direction as well– the Democrats can’t use the same default language about working for the American people when a large percentage of supposedly rational voters equate Democrat with Communist.

In any event, half of the American electorate is not with you, DJT. Not with you.

Hear that. Understand that. And if you happen to win again, try to remember that. For the good of the country, try to remember that a small majority of us find you to be an appalling aberration, a loud-mouthed nightmare, and the last person on earth to whom we’d throw support.

The least you could do is make an effort to acknowledge this divide. Surprise the hell out of everyone and actually make an effort to chart a healthier course.

Trouble is, many American people think you are incapable of such behavior. That you just don’t have it in you. And worst of all, that you just don’t care.