They Chased the Car and Caught It

     Now what? as Heath Ledger's Joker would ask.
     The Democrat Party, DNC and Amazon-owned Washington Post finally got their tarnished brass ring.
     Bernie's exit puts a merciful end to the sad sideshow of democracy into which the "Democrats" had turned this primary season. With a bad app partly financed by a one-time frontrunner, hit pieces by Jeff Bezos' official propaganda arm, seriously misled voters blinded by panic by four more years of Trump and, lest you think those days are behind us, smoky back rooms deciding on a doddering, aging centrist who thinks he's running for the Senate and can't distinguish his wife from his sister, this simulacrum of democracy is literally a parody of itself.
     And, adding a dimension of unreality to the whole thing, we're looking at the very real prospect of a virtual convention with no delegates and no real voice in the process. It'd be a Michael Bloomberg wet dream come true. All that remains to be seen is if Biden dodders off out of camera range like a confused nursing home resident on accepting the nomination. Hell, he wouldn't even have to remember to put his pants on.
     And so, a legion of voters are about to cast their vote for one senile 70-something sex offender or another. Everything is as it should be, right? The old white men who have no empathy for the concerns of millennials, or anyone else, if you're talking about Trump, are once again calling the shots.
     But no one has asked yet if what would happen if brittle Biden walked off the edge of a stage or succumbed to coronavirus or met any end that would absolutely prevent him running for president? What then? What happens when the dog catches the car and then the car disappears? Especially just after the convention? There are no other candidates left.
     I suppose Bernie could unsuspend his campaign then the DNC and their Republican stooges would heave their fat asses back into the anti-Socialist saddle and resume the same old hit pieces and hoary, tired tropes about Socialism.
     Would some other centrist then be called back into service, someone who could be counted on not to scare the voters and the "Democrat" Party elite with silly talk about quality, affordable health care for all, absolving the heavy yoke of student debt or having a planet that is once again worth living on?
     Could we see Mayor Pete Redux, who flashed and burned out faster than a lit fart? How about Kamala the Cop or Elizabeth Warren who didn't even have the guts to endorse Bernie or anyone, for that matter?
     The fact is, through a merciless barrage of anti-Sanders propaganda, forced Twitter suspensions and the sheer tonnage of lobbyist cash from right wing entities, the Democrat Party once again in all its unashamed glory just dislodged for the second general election cycle in a row the one guy virtually all the polls had beating Trump, the one whose signature policies such as Medicare For All, the Green New Deal and the end of student loan debt are a big hit with a majority of the American public.
     But that same brain-dead American public just doesn't want it from that guy. Better to vote for the one who opposed every one of those policies with every brittle bone in his body. They feel the other guy is more electable even when he doesn't seem to know what office he's running for, can't recognize his own spouse of many decades and immediately apologized on national TV when mildly criticizing Trump for not acting more like a president.
     This would be the same guy who told Wisconsin voters yesterday to go out and vote in a primary that he was all but assured to win, anyway, during the deadliest pandemic since 1918.
     Yeah, well, that's beside the fact, say converted Biden groupies who just can't muster much enthusiasm for the aging standard-bearer who's guaranteeing more of the same and recently told billionaires, "If I'm elected, there won't be any significant change" in their taxes, which is to say they'll continue paying none while we in the 99% continue picking up the slack.
     Not even Bernie's campaign highlighting the weaknesses in our corporate, medical and labor infrastructure could shake us out of our torpor and realize Biden's just as hollow as his unfocused eyes look these days (at least, when there isn't a little girl in sight).
     Marx once said when history repeats itself the first time, it's as a tragedy then a farce the second time.
     But these days, with coronavirus stalking us and our loved ones, the first time history repeated itself (1968, 2000, 2004, take your pick), when Hillary lost to a game show host with seemingly the backing of the entire United States, that was the farce.
     When history repeats itself this year and assuring Trump a second term, there's your tragedy.