House of Eratosthenes

The democrats have to walk a fine line when they control the electorate. Voters have to feel like things are good enough that there’s no penalty for wrong decisions, and they can say & do any ol’ stupid thing…but, at the same time, bleak enough for their own individual circumstances that an even redistribution of wealth would net them something.

Best way to do that is to insert a layer of wise, sophisticated bureaucrats in the acquisition of vital goods & services, like gasoline and health care…and, keep the proles in positions of absolute local mastery over their acquisitions of non-vital, silly, electable things. Like sneakers, tattoos, video games, tongue & navel studs, barbiturates, hallucinogens and fidget spinners.

President Trump was elected by millions of people who don’t even personally like him. It is, by & large, the same group of voters that elected Barack Obama twice. There are many reasons for this, first of which is that “by & large” is not the same as “exactly.” There were voters who stopped voting, and other voters who started (again). Obama provided an opportunity for virtue-signaling, for going through the motions of fighting racism. Hillary Clinton would have provided equivalent opportunity for going through the motions of fighting sexism, but either people aren’t as concerned about that, or she wasn’t as convincing. Or, she was just a horrible candidate.

I think, though, people have a very primal way, a very accurate way, of sensing when they’ve run out of margin-of-error. They grow up real quick, when it becomes necessary to do so, dancing much more cautiously when they know they’re nearing the edge of a cliff. A lot of voters wanted to offer the impression, to others, that they & their families were suffering through dire circumstances in 2008, when it made perfect sense for the presumptive candidate to say…

We will look back and tell our children, this was the moment…when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal…

Hate to rain on the pity-party. But if your circumstances are such that this is convincing campaign rhetoric for you, you really don’t have it that bad.

And that’s the perfect storm they need to create. If people are suffering too much, they might get the idea the source of their suffering is the government the democrats want to empower and inflate. This would be a repeat of November of 2016, and of all those midterms that didn’t work out well for democrats, like 1994, 2002, 2010, 2014. If people are doing well enough that they’re starting to feel some confidence in their own abilities to make things better, this will diminish that feeling of helplessness and dependence the democrats need to exploit. Of these two spoilers, I think the democrats are more worried about that one, the aspiration toward self-empowerment. Material prosperity isn’t required to make it happen. You just have to have confidence, and then you have to think like a grown-up. Spiritual health, and belief in a Higher Power, contribute to this. So, they’re none too fond of such things.

Right now, it’s interesting to watch them. They themselves know they’re in the “can’t screw up” mode, dancing like they’re nowhere near the edge of the cliff. They’ve already fallen off it, enjoying the luxury of knowing they can’t go anywhere but up.

And what is it we see them doing, when they’re relieved of the burden of pretending they’re something they’re not? When we get to watch them in this state of relaxed candidness?

They’re stockpiling the one asset they have, which is the widespread resentment against the current President. If that anger diminishes too much within the next year, they lose. If too many people say “I really don’t like the way 2016 went, but ya know what, I’m over it…gonna get on with life”….they lose. The one arrow they have left in their quiver, is to keep that anger keen, sharp and hot. Building on it, if that could be done, would be ideal.

So the masses have to feel like they’re doing well enough they can afford to think all cockeyed, like our voting makes a difference in what the planet’s going to do…and, are miserable enough that they’ve managed to net fewer material possessions than the average, such that they’d come out on the higher end if all the wealth were to be evenly re-distributed. Like they are wallowing in some misery because other people didn’t care enough about them, didn’t give them enough stuff.

And, they have to be angry at Donald Trump. How do they make the voters angry at Donald Trump? How best to rub those emotions raw in the year ahead, when the emotions have been rubbed already over the past year, or more? How to keep the flame from being exhausted at the very moment when it counts?

By reminding them how stupid he is…

Think about THAT, now. We’re constantly told the democrats are the party of the little guy, of the underdog. The handicapped, who cannot do, couldn’t have done, anything to improve his present circumstances. Well, putting aside the fact that this is exactly how small children argue — “You’re stupid! I win!” — when the time comes for all of their hopes and dreams to depend on making an entire country angry at one guy, they see this as the most promising strategy. Promulgate the notion that he’s stupid, like they did with Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. Convince us he’s stupid, and our anger is automatic. And right, and good, and just.

Think about that…take all the time you need…

Speaking for myself, a guy who’s had to curse himself for thinking dumb thoughts and doing dumb things, even as bosses & colleagues have practically worshiped him for his soooper-genius intelligence in the aftermath of solving this or that problem…and, has watched others do super smart & super dumb things…the simplicity of this boring bromide bothers me. “Intelligence” — there are quite a few different kinds, right? Have we forgotten this? I guess we’re prospering enough, once again, we feel like we can afford to think all silly and sloppy. It’s not like ounces of residual wine left in a jug or something like that. It’s not a singular metric.

Besides, if we’re dancing close enough to the edge of the cliff that we have to think a bit longer & harder about what might be an errant move, what we can & cannot afford…it is not lost on me, that government tends to become much more expensive, much less affordable, when under the stewardship of these sleek, sophisticated, eloquent talkers who’ve been billed to us as Higher Beings with genius intellect. Seems to me that pattern’s pretty durable. The World’s Smartest Woman, or Black Guy, or Gay Guy or just plain World’s Smartest Straight White Guy gets in there…a year later, the price of gas goes up, premiums go up, deductibles go up, the grocery stores are required to stiff me by selling me fancy plastic bags…the money just flows. We get nickeled and dimed to death. But, not to worry, because the super-smart bosses can make fancy speeches.

The perfect situation, for them, is one in which we’re all out of money and have no idea where it went. This is why super-smart super-genius politicians, owing their allegiance to the democrat party, are so wild about controlling energy policy. If they were to pass some laws resulting in a sharp increase of the price of just one thing, let’s say for example cold cereal; there would be wrath expressed at the ballot box. The candidate running for re-election would be the six-dollars-for-a-box-of-Cheerios guy, and he’d lose. BUT. Make energy more expensive; that pushes up the price of everything across the board. The cereal, the milk, the bowl, the spoon, the cream, the sugar, the table and chairs.

Better make some more money! Oh, but the companies are not hiring. It looks like that’s because they don’t care about you all of a sudden…we can blame Republicans for that. The truth is, it costs more to hire you.

The democrats need another 2008. That means their guy has to appear intelligent; present an opportunity to cosmetically fight some sort of “ism”; be visually appealing, young, vibrant, a bit sexy, and the voters have to feel pampered enough they can afford to think clumsily, but abused enough the time’s come for revenge.

But, the rest of us cannot afford this. Bring on the dummies. We’ve already elected all the phony sophistication we can afford.

[…] “The World’s Smartest Woman, or Black Guy, or Gay Guy or just plain World’s Smartest Straight White Guy gets in there… a year later, the price of gas goes up, premiums go up, deductibles go up, the grocery stores are required to stiff me by selling me fancy plastic bags… the money just flows. ” House of Eratosthenes […]
- Liner Notes - American Digest | 11/06/2017 @ 15:09

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Their Very Fine LineMonday, November 6th, 2017

Their Very Fine Line
Monday, November 6th, 2017