So, OK, yeah, I didn't really take out Hot Screen: Politics for a spin during the craziest election season of the last however many years. What what? Was it the pressure? Was I overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the madness? Or was I simply busy with other things? We will leave those questions to future historians to sort through, debate, and perhaps enter into awkward hand-to-hand combat over (combat as awkward as that final clause, hey!, the shivs clutched in their soft professorial hands, as they warily circle each other in the staff room florescence, the batshit demands of honor requiring that blood be drawn and a victor declared; damn these new rules of tenure in America circa 2042, designed to take the spring out of the step of those pointy-headed intellectuals, promulgated by the Don Jr.-Ivanka regency that has followed the Donald's three and a half terms. . . but I digress).
Here's my first crumb of comfort that I haven't missed all the action: it may have been a wild ride up to now, but I'm predicting the truly bonkers shit has only just begun. By "truly bonkers shit," I'm thinking, among other things, of the unparalleled obstruction that the Republican Party will be throwing at President Clinton from T-minus however many days before her actual inauguration. There's already also sorts of hot(!) talk about denying Hillary the appointment of a Supreme Court justice; more proof, as if any were needed, that the right wing has transformed into true radicalism. I remain aghast at the racist vote-suppression laws passed in North Carolina and other states, and it looks like I'm not the only one. As others cannier than I have observed, Republicans have drifted into being the white supremacist party, not a pretty state of affairs for our country by a long shot, but also not a tenable one for the Republicans. My working theory is that the GOP is as brittle as it is bitter at this point, and one of the main tasks of Democrats and progressives over the next few years is to develop a strategy that accelerates Republican erosion, whether by calling out the undemocratic spirit that currently animates much of the party, or by implementing policies that help those left behind by the current economy (which by my reckoning comprises the majority of our population, but particularly the poor and working class).