It's easy to look back at history and think it's always going to turn out that way. Most people with a modicum of financial literacy can somehow come up with a sentence or two about why the 2008 financial crisis was inevitable, or why the dot-com bust was obvious, for example. Of course, the people who actually saw those events around the corner became very wealthy and had their faces on the covers of magazines, their stories in books, and Tom Cruise making their stories big. I also acted on screen. That didn't happen to you, did it?
Fortunately, politics is a little easier, and if you can stick your head out of the polls, see what the candidates are really like, and talk to the public about where they're going. You can guess pretty accurately. Let's just hang in there and look at American politics over the past half century.
Former Fox News mogul Roger Ailes had rules for on-screen talent about the women he wanted to be friends with (or date) and the men he wanted to drink beer with (or date).
President Jimmy Carter pushed his “weak peanut farmer” to the brink, pretended to carry his own suitcase (the suitcase was empty, the actual luggage was carried by an aide), and played White House tennis. He was a man who expanded his dictatorial control over the court and took the following actions. A huge uproar on the international stage.
Carter made us feel at ease about Watergate and made us a little more morally minded after the Vietnam War, so we gave him a shot in 1976. He defeated Gerald Ford, no one voted for him, and few people supported him. In 1980, Carter took the title from Ronald Reagan, a California governor with literal movie-star good looks, a radio voice, and the promise of expressing nostalgia for the struggling nation's Greatest Generation. I had to protect it. Who was going to win?
Four years later, Carter's vice president, Walter Mondale, had no chance.
But fast forward a few years, and you've got Bill Clinton, the handsome, energetic, young, cool, moderate governor of Arkansas, and George, who speaks like Dean Wormer and struggles in the grocery checkout line. What about President H.W. Bush?
Was Sen. Bob Dole cool enough to defeat Clinton? There was so much hope! While President Clinton's White House was plagued by scandal, things were going well in America, and for some reason Dole kept her personality and sense of humor as hidden as possible. Clinton crushed him.
Then the Democrats pitted their nerdy Vice President Al Gore against Texas Governor George W. Bush, who laughed and threw his cowboy boots on the desk and won. So the Democrats went back to the lab and found a man as strange as Gore, but turned him into a windsurfer. They desperately needed veterans willing to run after 9/11, so they found a man who threw his medals into a reflecting pool on national television and called his comrades baby killers. That year's DNC stage was like a cross between a Bass Pro Shops and “M*A*S*H” set. It didn't work. Sen. John Kerry was defeated.
Or how about Sen. Barack Obama vs. Sen. John McCain? A cultural movement emblematic of tomorrow, a promise of America's racial redemption to the hard-nosed heroes of the war of division 40 years ago?
Then they pitted the cool guy against Gov. Mitt Romney again. Even if the majority majority The percentage of Americans who thought the country was heading in the wrong direction came down to the all-female layoff king, the CEO himself vs. Obama. Even though all the polls showed him winning, the Republican idiots were convinced he would win. Hmmmm.
Former Fox News mogul Roger Ailes had rules for on-screen talent about the women he wanted to be friends with (or date) and the men he wanted to drink beer with (or date). It may sound old-fashioned, sexist, or old-fashioned to people who have spent years and $100,000 being taught that common sense is actually oppression, but this is plain and simple and true. It is seen every election.
Consider Vice President Kamala Harris. She is not likable. Sorry, but President Joe Biden doesn't even like her. Obama doesn't like her. Former First Lady Michelle Obama really hates her. Oprah Winfrey has to work hard to sell her.
To be honest, Kamala herself doesn't seem all that interested. On a media tour last week, she seemed awkward, nervous and low-spirited whenever she talked about politics. The only subject she focused on was her personal life. The only policy that will move her forward is abortion. Would you want to have a beer with Kamala if she had no power, wasn't running for office, and all that mattered was her personality?
Let's compare this to former President Donald Trump, who by all accounts is in great shape. The anger and frustration that dominated the 2020 campaign has all but disappeared. He's back to his goofy self, dancing and telling jokes on the campaign trail. Even the mysterious aura of 2016 has evaporated. NFL stars and comedians are openly on his side. You can wear a MAGA hat at most beaches. When a white woman flips out, she's a freak.
There are a lot of opinion polls out there, and most of them point in the same direction. The seat has fallen from under Harris, and voters are leaning toward Trump (although Pennsylvania remains close and stubbornly necessary for victory). But let's put that rough science aside for a moment and consider the candidates. Is this the year of Kamala? In hindsight, I think the answer is pretty obvious.
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