I swore that I would never be one of those writers who always invokes Monty Python to make a point. A lot of those folks think they’re so clever because they get British humor in general, and Monty Python specifically, so they just have to be above all of those ugly Americans who don’t get it. That’s the kind of insufferable snobbery that gave us the great orange deity.
However, The Life of Brian contains a scene that is just too on-the-nose for this moment to let pass. In the movie, a character named Stan has an argument with a character named Reg (John Cleese.) Stan wants to have babies. Reg is like, “Where’s your womb, bloke?” Stan responds, “You’re oppressing me!”
That is our moment right now. I don’t like monocausal explanations, so I won’t say that America voted for Donald Trump because they know they’re living in a Monty Python skit and they resent the hell out of those tea-sippers for inflicting their humor on us. But if that’s not the reason, it’s close.
Yes, I’m not into monocausal explanations as an answer to complex problems, but if you tell me that the answer is relatively simple, that Trump won because the Democrats threw out a shitty candidate and replaced him with an even shittier candidate who couldn’t close the deal, I won’t buck. No matter what gaslighting method the left wants to use to explain Trump’s victory (racism, sexism, fascism), it just won’t do. Kamala was a terrible candidate who couldn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020. Joe Biden saw fit to elevate her to an office for which she was abjectly unqualified and unworthy. She thanked him by replacing him and handing Trump a solid victory, thus ushering Trump 47.
Thanks, Kamala. Hope you and Tim Walz enjoy your life in obscurity from now on, cuz that’s what you’ve earned for yourselves.
Historians will not have to spend a lot of time deconstructing the doomed candidacy of Kamala Harris; the nebulous word salad, the random, kooky laughter, the forced charisma that had about as much appeal as Cheez Whiz, or the apparent mismanagement of campaign funds that is now dogging her. All of this is just window dressing. All historians will need to do is examine Kamala’s interview on The View, which was as friendly of a venue as she could’ve wanted. Sunny Hostin asked her, “Is there anything you would’ve done differently than President Biden?” Harris answered, “Nothing comes to mind.”
That giant “whoosh!” sound you heard was the air going out of the Harris-Walz balloon. At that point, Kamala transformed from a promising change agent to an incumbent, and the world is in an anti-incumbent mood right now.
Will the left learn anything from their staggering defeat? Judging by how Seth Moulton has been treated, the obvious answer is, of course not! It appears that many of them are content to deactivate their Twitter accounts and migrate over to Bluesky, where they can further imbed themselves in their own socio/political silo. I know that Elon is a royal pain in the ass, but I predict that Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads will all fold faster than a pillar of Saltines.
Sidebar: I love the way that Voiceover pronounces the name, Bluesky. It gives the name a Communist Russia kind of feel.
As for Trump, anyone who is surprised by his erratic cabinet picks hasn’t been paying attention for the past nine years. For every Marco Rubio, we get an RFK Jr. For every Tom Homan, we get a Tulsi Gabbard. For every Matt Gaetz nomination, we’ll get a crazy Matt Gaetz exit. That is the pig in the poke that roughly half of America bought itself by voting for Trump. For the next four years, Trump will say and do all kinds of outrageous things. All of his apologists will spin, explain and reinterpret what he said. The media will chase every bright, shiny object that leaks from the White House and on Truth Social. They won’t be able to help themselves. The left will scream and throw tantrums and secretly love the latest shit nugget that Trump throws at them. And maybe…just maybe…some good things will happen in the process.
For the first time in nine years, it feels like I’m the guy in the catbird seat. Either way the election turned out, I was going to be disappointed. Both candidates were manifestly unfit for office. Either way it went, half the country would be celebrating, while the other half had an epic meltdown. Now, I get to spend the next four years saying ‘I told you so’ every time Trump is predictable in his own lizard brain fashion. Eventually, he’ll go too far, piss off too many people and the country will course-correct with an election that alters the balance of power.
Will the right learn anything from it? Probably not. I am genuinely curious to see how Republicans behave now that they hold power in Congress. Trump’s predictably crazy nominations, topped off by Kash Patel for FBI Director, will test the resolve and sagacity of the GOP majority. In order to protect and defend the Constitution, they will have to do something wildly unpopular on the right of today. They’ll have to tell Trump, “No.”
Can they do it? We’ll see. Mike Pence looked like a Trump marionette, until he wasn’t. Maybe John Thune, Mike Johnson and others will muster the same courage. It is emotionally unhealthy for me to hope for too much, but sometimes, hope is all you have.
Finally, let me tie this back to Monty Python by quickly addressing the trans issue. I’m not sure that the now infamous Trump ad that said, “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you,” was really the nail in her coffin. However, there is no disputing the fact that the ad was effective. The bathroom melee in Congress was just the latest battleground. I fully admit that Nancy Mace is a bad actor, but she did compel Mike Johnson to create women only spaces where none had been created before.
The problem with the trans activist movement is that they overplayed their hand. Maybe corporate HR types can compel lowly employees to put their pronouns in their Email signatures, on social media and announce them at icebreaker events at conferences, but people want to keep their jobs. So what? Forcing someone to play the pronoun game is not winning their heart or their mind. It is merely exercising naked power, which is what the authoritarian progressive left wants. I know nothing for certain, but firmly believe that a lot of America is exhausted with the constant battles over race, sex, gender and now, Palestine. If they are forced to choose, they’ll pick the devil they know over the devil they don’t. And that devil is a great big orange one.
I also am only mildly surprised that the party that championed safetyism for historically marginalized communities won’t acknowledge the basic desire for biological women to inhabit safe spaces of their own, including restrooms, locker rooms, battered women’s shelters and female prisons. Isn’t feeling triggered by a human with a penis in the stall next to you reason enough to request a safe space for a large group that has historically been oppressed? What happened to, “The Party of science?” It seems that they have gone the way of Dumbledore. They will probably now try to convince me that a five-ounce bird can, in fact, carry a one-pound coconut.
You know, the world today seems absolutely crackers. With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high. There are fools and idiots sitting on the trigger. It’s depressing. It’s senseless. And that’s why…
I can’t even finish the lyric, because someone from Taiwan might get offended.