For over twenty years, the Republicans have set the agenda and the Democrats have reacted. And you can't win playing defense the entire time.
As for the media?
It lost a lot of credibility supporting the Bush (Cheney) incursions/wars in the Middle East. It didn't root out the facts, that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs, and was so fearful of appearing pacifist, it was rah-rah and lost its role as an independent arbiter. Ironically, at the same time TV and internet news became partisan.
Meanwhile, the Democrats were squabbling within, and at the same time losing control of their constituency, and their pulse on America. Let's not forget, globalization flourished under Democrats, and globalization is inevitable, but there was no provision for shoring up the lives of those displaced, who ultimately realized the Democrats were mostly talk and little action and then switched parties to the Republicans, who were as angry as them, despite still being in service to the fat cats.
That's income inequality, goosed by St. Reagan. Our country has never been the same since. Because if you earn a billion dollars, you think you're better than the rest of us. Come on, would we be listening to Bill Gates if he didn't have all that money? No, it'd be some academic, someone with history in the field, but in America today, money trumps everything.
So the Democrats detach from their base. It is an issue of elitism. Yes, the elite ran the Republican agenda too, but they mostly operated behind the scenes, a lot of them inherited their wealth and position, whereas the Democrats worked hard to get where they were, via education and innovation, and they had contempt for the little people, but they did not realize the little people knew it, and couldn't be controlled.
So the country becomes radicalized technologically. We have a government that cannot function in today's digital world, if for no other reason than elected officials do not understand how it works, are not familiar with its ins and outs. Happens all the time, Congress brings in techies for hearings too late, after the fact, and then nothing happens. Facebook buys WhatsApp and nobody in D.C. seems to understand the power of that platform, maybe because its strength was overseas, where it ruled. And those in D.C. thought the aughts would continue forever, with new hardware and new apps, not realizing it was a game of musical chairs with the end result being a handful of gargantuan companies that became too hard to mess with. Come on, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon...they're bigger than the country. China realizes this, and the irony is these companies completely back down, to stay in business, because money is king, but in the U.S. not only do they operate unfettered, they act with impunity, they push back, or pay a little lip service and then go back to their heinous ways.
Gateways... Amazon is where people do research for products, not Google. And if you don't play by Amazon's rules, you can't get on the platform and the chance of your business being successful is almost nil. Google truly controls information. But it's all in the algorithm, no human is involved. And the search engine got so good that almost no one goes beyond the first or second result. So if you're below... Furthermore, everybody gets different results, even to the same damn question! Microsoft misses so much but gets rid of Ballmer and focuses on its corporate customers and the cloud and is about to overtake Apple as the world's most valuable company. As for Apple... The truth is it's very profitable, but waning in influence. Their handsets, their cash cow, may have a healthy market share in the U.S., but elsewhere? As for their App Store rules...they only matter because Apple punches far above its weight in apps, because the elite are on iPhones. As for the hoi polloi on Android? They can't even update the operating system and their phones and app stores are riddled with viruses and scams, but Android is not as sexy as Apple, so it doesn't get the attention, those in D.C. are too stupid to look at the facts as opposed to focusing on the hubbub. As for Facebook? For four years we've known it's a repository for inaccurate information, and that it thrives on sensationalism, but what has changed since the election of Trump? Almost nothing!
So you've got the media and D.C. believing they're in touch with both business and the public when that is patently untrue. Come on, the media completely missed Trump's rise in 2016. Anybody who actually interacted with his constituency was aware of the strength of his position, he channeled people's anger while Hillary was oblivious. And then she labels people deplorables and all hell breaks loose and she apologizes...when the truth is they were and still are deplorables, look at America today, where ignorance and agendas based on falsehoods are badges of honor! Hillary came from her husband's camp, triangulating, never go with your gut, get everybody's advice and then try to appeal to the most people, which has been history since the advent of the internet. Hillary couldn't own that our country was divided and be the leader of one side, as a result her mushy, uninformed campaign was doomed. When things are bad, you need a leader. And many Republicans thought things were bad and we got Trump.
Who never ever apologized in his life. He came from the world of a controlled spotlight into the glare of the world stage and didn't change a whit. Come on, so much of what you read about entertainment is just complete B.S. No one calls the perpetrators on this crap because they don't believe it really matters. That's Trump's background. Smoke and mirrors. But he ascends to the throne and acts the same damn way!
But even worse, the establishment, the press, believes he will play rationally and abide by the rules. And fearful of being beaten up by the right, the left wing media prints false equivalencies, so fearful of looking biased when the media on the other side of the fence so clearly is.
And then the younger generation comes in. AOC.
Funny, she doesn't back down either. And what those who decry her don't understand is many on the left, especially those skewing young, finally believe they have someone who is fighting for them. And, an educated woman of color! Forever, woman and minorities have been told to shut up and wait their turn. The white establishment even neutered affirmative action. But AOC doesn't care about any of that, she jumps to the head of the class, ignores the rules. And the funny thing is as everybody keeps beating up on her, both the left and the right, it's only the right who glom on to the paradigm wholeheartedly. Ergo, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. Two wackadoodles who you can't take seriously on the surface, but they represent their base so they got elected. What do we hear on the left? Play to the center! We've got to appeal to everybody. Let's do it the old way. Meanwhile, after last November's election AOC doubles-down and says if only they employed her playbook they would have won...which was utilization of the internet. But the old pols playing by the old rules still spend money on TV, reaching ever fewer, but since it skews old and a greater percentage of old people vote, they say it's the right thing. It'd be like playing in internet land with no knowledge of it. Actually, that's exactly what it was!
And this same media said Biden had no chance, and then he won. Proving, once again, the media has got its head up its ass, if you're looking for someone to tell you where it's going, don't listen to a reporter, the talking heads on TV are even worse.
So, Biden gets elected and...
Goes his own way.
But stumbles on infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the story in the media is 2022. They can't stop weighing the odds, following the horse race, as if that's the most important story. Actually, we've got a government, what is happening now!
And then comes Afghanistan. Something the mainstream media ignored, believing it didn't garner eyeballs, didn't sell advertising. But suddenly it becomes a sexy story, it's war, and people are trying to get out, and there's a suicide bomb, it's a phenomenal movie, and it's real!
As for the right, they've been waiting for this, they see it as Benghazi on steroids, forgetting that they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. Save the interpreters, after voting not to! Stay in Afghanistan, after Trump makes a deal to leave! It's so myopic as to be humorous, if the American public were not so ill-informed sans the power of analysis that it can be blown this way or that like a feather.
And in slow motion, with constant coverage, the Afghanistan situation looks bad. Everybody's beating up on Biden, the left and right press, the Democrats and the Republicans. Everybody's opining his tenure is now hobbled, it's over for the Democrats. Biden should be at home, paralyzed, wondering how he lost the favor of the left wing insiders and gave fodder to the right wing haters. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HE DID!
First Biden says he owns it.
And then yesterday he comes out and declares victory. Yes, he got us out on time and did a good job of it. He cites facts and figures. He addresses naysayers, saying if he started withdrawing earlier it wouldn't have made any difference, might have even been worse. No one foresaw this, no one! Biden was supposed to be a senile oldster with no backbone who delegated all power, who was clueless as to what was going on. One expected him to cower in the indignity and become completely neutered. So what does he do? Unlike Trump, he doesn't go after his attackers so much as fly above it all. The most powerful person on the planet with the most information speaking from his heart and mind and telling the truth from his perspective. And he owned the news cycle. To a great degree he quashed the blowback. Especially since so much of this is opinion anyway. I mean some guy on TV says Biden cocked it up and we should have stayed and then the guy himself comes out, without worrying about the effect of his words on every single person and says no, that's not the way it is, he did a phenomenal job. Trump might say something like that, but never a Democrat.
And in addition, he pooh-poohs the old mantra, the old armed forces on the ground mantra. No, the new war will be fought in cyberspace, against the Russians and Chinese. And if they need to take action they've got drones. Meanwhile, every elected official dependent upon military pork for their state to keep their job is quaking in their boots.
And Biden isn't worried about the rearguard, but he's not insulting them either. He's moving forward, but he's also got his finger on the pulse more than anybody in the media, he knows the public, those whose kids actually go into the military, are glad we're the hell out of there. People worried about budgets can't fathom the twenty years of spending, someone spoke English!
So what does this mean?
Not that those on the right will embrace Biden, they hate him in principle, he's a Democrat. But that maybe the tables will be leveled, maybe the left will realize it's got more power, more room to move, than previously thought.
As for the right, it's got Gaetz, who stays in power, even though the Democrats fire anybody who even looks at a woman too long, and Boebert, whose husband made over $450,000 in each of the last two years yet didn't put it in her election filings, stating that his income was "N/A." And you wondered how Shooters Grill stayed in business... It was all a front, a way for her to boost her image, it was a failed business from day one, and now it's out of business. But the Democrats aren't zeroing in on this, she's still in power. The supposed woman of the people is anything but. Then again, those who voted for her will say at least she's not a Democrat.
Yes, the Republicans play by different rules than the Democrats, I'm not even sure they're playing the same game! The Republicans circle the wagons, get on the same page, and will do anything to win. The Democrats fight over the making of the sausage and when they're done no one is happy and they can never get on the same page and no one can get everybody in line. But even worse, the rules are out the window for the right... Voting law protection? Forget it! Meanwhile, there's a Supreme Court that doesn't represent the public which was tilted right by Mitch McConnell that as of this writing is allowing Texas's six week abortion rule to stay in place. The Republicans are like insects, who never stop, they don't win nationally, they organize locally, there's more than one way to win. And they form the Federalist Society, they play the long game, they've got a whole host of young presidential candidates in the wings, from DeSantis to Noem to Haley to Cruz. Who do we have on the left? Pretty boy Newsom who is in the middle of an recall election. Buttigieg, who the more you investigate his tenure as mayor the worse it looks. But he went to Harvard and then into the military! Trump skated from the military and Boebert is a high school dropout. And they both won!
So Biden is being a leader, and the Democrats haven't experienced this in eons. St. Obama was so busy not being seen as an angry black man, trying to appease absolutely everyone, that he got so little done. Meanwhile, no one on the left can blow the whistle on him, he's sacrosanct. But not on the right. It's all about today's team...they're not busy defending Cheney's warmongering strategy, which proved to be plain wrong.
So, this is utterly astounding. Biden is not just taking responsibility, he's saying it was the right thing to do and he did it well and then he says why. Where's the contrition? Nowhere to be found!
At least somebody is fighting back.
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