We've Surpassed Peak Idiocracy

 

     The last night of the pathetic spectacle that is the RNC convention featured a 70 year-old professional wrestler hoarsely screaming his head off then ripping off his shirt, a gimmick that was getting old back when he first started doing it over four decades ago.

     You'd think, if the RNC had even a modicum of appreciation for optics, they would've relegated Hulk Hogan to the hasbeens, wannabes and also rans that they usually push out on the stage on the first night just to get them out of the way. And yet, some assclown, maybe Trump himself, thought it would be a good idea to put Hogan out there at the very end of the convention, just before Franklin Graham.

     Elect a clown, as they say, expect a circus. Or, in this case, give a speaking slot to an aging wrestler, expect WWE trash-talking that changes nothing and rightly makes us look like idiots on the world stage.

     You didn't see any of this in the UK after their July 4th elections or in France after the liberals and centrists defeated Neo-fascist Marine LePen yet again three days later. Yes, some showmanship and even a whiff of grease paint is to be expected in politics but serious politicians and parties know when to rein it in and get down to brass tacks. 

     Republicans here in the US have lost the ability to distinguish between the circus and the actual business that runs it. To them, the lunacy, the entertainment, the spectacle, is the point and is always the business at hand. In a way, we've come full circle as a race, back when wealthy politicians and wouldbe politicians in ancient Rome running for office would subsidize spectacles such as gladiatorial battles in order to curry favor with voters. It's even said the body count in Pompeii was partly attributable to local politicians telling the people to stay and vote for them because AD 79 was an election year (their campaign signage painted on the sides of buildings survives to this day).

     We don't have the Colosseum or the Circus Maximus but we do have sports stadiums and convention centers that serve as very good substitutes. We don't have gladiators but we do have professional wrestlers who fill in quite nicely.

     And that's where Idiocracy comes in.

     Mike Judge's famous satire on the devolution of the human race keeps getting invoked time and again, especially by yours truly, since Trump came down that escalator nearly a decade ago. It would be tantamount to cultural and political heresy to not bring it up as an object lesson.

     Since I don't personally know Mike Judge, I can't speak to what his motivations were for making the movie or what his actual agenda was. It may have been made as straight up political satire or not. But whatever his reasons, Judge has proven time and again to be a sharp observer of political and social conditions in this country. He's where he is today because he can unerringly recognize trends and where we're headed.

 

     Idiocracy, of course, is a science fiction comedy in which a guy of perfectly average intelligence goes into a cryogenic chamber and wakes up in the future in which he's literally the smartest man on the planet. He wakes up in a United States in which we can no longer make ice or grow produce. It's a country in which the president of the United States is, yes, a former pro wrestler who fires off fully automatic machine guns at the State of the Union Address, news anchors are mostly nude and the country has transitioned to an energy drink/online porn/Carl's Jr-based economy.

     We thought we'd reached peak Idiocracy when Trump's first pick for Labor Secretary was Andrew Puzder, the CEO of Hardee's, which includes, yes, Carl's Jr. But, obviously, that was just the beginning.

     Energy drinks have indeed exploded in popularity. It started out with tiny cans of Red Bull and now you can buy cans of energy drinks the size of bricks. Who cares if they put you in cardiac arrest?

     And the unthinkable happened on Election Night 2016- We "elected" a rapist, crook, con man, pedophile, tax cheat and draft dodger who was elected to the WWE Hall of Fame based entirely on a match in which he clothes-lined and shaved the head of Vince McMahon (whose wife Linda, Trump's former SBA Director, spoke at last night's convention).

     And, whether we're talking about Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) or Terry Crews (who played Camacho), this week's convention proved that we've turned into a nation of semi-functional morons elected to public office or elevated to positions of celebrity and wealth by other semi-functional morons. We've become the hideous apotheosis of what Charles Bukowski once famously observed: "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."

     And why shouldn't the stupid be confident? Based entirely on a few stammers at a debate a few weeks ago, Democrat leadership are trying hard to pull Joe Biden off the stage like a failing vaudeville act getting caned. They issue letters, press releases, give interviews on TV and the radio scared out of their wits that Biden will drag them down in their own down ballot races without once realizing that no one in their party has any coattails to speak of and that, save for Vice President Harris, no one on the planet can make use of Biden's campaign funds.

     That's a special kind of stupid, with a kicker of a complete lack of common sense. 

     Donald Trump, as usual, looked and sounded old and tired last night. But Trump isn't really the threat. It's what he represents- a Trojan horse who, if God forbid he gets back in the White House, will bring in the worst psychopaths this nation has ever produced, a virtual Pandora's Box of every right wing wet dream that's been percolating in the American heartland since Hitler was alive. You don't believe me? Just read a little of Project 2025's 922 page compendium of fascism.

 

     And if you still wonder why we are where we are, how Donald Trump got into office, why we represent just 4% of the planet yet account for a quarter of the world's COVID deaths, consider that we're a nation that has to be told to wet our hair before using shampoo, that hot McDonald's coffee is hot, not to eat silica gel packets, not to stick metal objects into electrical outlets or not to shove gasoline nozzles up our asses or in our mouths.

     Yes, the curtain finally fell last night on four days and nights of lunacy. It's up to us to ensure that the stage, the building and the entire country doesn't fall with it.