Life of Wry

…. has been lifted.

Meaning.. Ima feeling a whole lot better today about where the presidential campaign is, and the prospects for a positive outcome, than I was yesterday. Further, I didn’t realize how weighty everything had been feeling.. dire, not so hopeful about the election, deeply worried about a Biden loss (and I can’t even say whose win).

I mean, the media’s been singularly focused on Biden’s age. All the polls obsess about it. We know who started this and who continues to beat the age drum. The right wing media is all in on this narrative. The political ads are deeply cruel and mean-spirited (surprise) and effective, apparently. It’s all anyone talks about. It has bled over into the mainstream media (and everywhere) and never mind the two candidates are, for all intents and purposes, the same age. To read the news you’d think only one is old and he’s incapable of getting from point A to point B, much less run the country. They say.

Blah blah blah.

The Magas set the bar for the SOTU speech last night mightly low. Their mistake (they’re not very bright). All Biden had to do was yell and show vigor and their entire hypothesis crumbled.

He did a lot more than that. He was (more or less) vigorous and focused last night and was the last guy in the room, as he spent the hour (or so) following the speech working the room (and making sure he was caught on lots of hot mics saying strong things). He followed it up today with a super solid (for him) speech in Philly that underscored all his talking points from last night. He was even better today.

All of this is to say:

I personally had been feeling despondent about the election. It’s been all about the other side for months b/c they’re the ones with a primary and they filled all the news cycles. It’s been the trump show and the trump-attack-Biden show. The media’s lapped it up. Biden’s been quiet, waiting for his moment. With the results of super Tuesday, with Haley dropping out, with the SOTU delivered, the general campaign pretty much began today, and began on a good, solid, positive note. Biden’s in good shape (not teetering on the brink of death, as it turns out), his message is emerging (it’s good, even), trump’s in so many deep legal morasses that are costing him bigly (which was in the news a lot today)… this is all pretty good. And hopeful.

Not to say we’re anywhere near there. Biden will eff up a lot, the con man will work his maga magic on his miserable manipulatable minions and it will be ugly ugly ugly. He’ll score undeserved victories that will flood the new cycles and it will be severely dispiriting.

But I see a path.

Biden should win. There is no way on earth the other guy, in a functioning democracy (which is hurting at the moment) could possibly ever get anywhere near the presidency. Nothing about a trump win makes any sense whatsoever. I’m confident about that. I just haven’t been confident in the outcome.. because propaganda, tricksterism, cheating, lying, stupidity, fear, injustice, weakness on the part of people who’ve been corrupted by power… all of it. And more.

But I feel so much lighter today.. surprisingly so.

(*) See what I did there? Itsa pun.. a great pun! Thank you State of the Union!

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A couple of good ones: