They're having the second half of the second round of debates for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election for the President of the United States of America. I am not watching. I will wait until tomorrow & watch whatever it was that got everyone stirred up. I'm not going to look it up, but there is still 25 candidates in the running, & so far, only one quit & was replaced within a week. It's a little goofy.
Large fields really aren't that unusual - there was much ado about 17 candidates for the Republican nomination in 2016 & look how that worked out - but, yeah, 25 is a bit much. What's really irritating is if have of the would drop out to maybe run for Congress or use the frankly dumbass amount of money they have to work on voter registration or even funding groups that are geared towards improving the electoral process instead of spending $15 million (looking at you, John Delaney) on a vanity campaign that'll never draw more than 2%. But here we are.
As a culture, I do think we put to emphasis on the President & how much power that office should exercise. We expect a lot from the job, & most of of it simply unrealistic. Even worse, it assumes influence where there is in all actuality little to nothing they do. Before the Civil War, the President wasn't completely a useless job, but it definitely had more swing afterwards. Once FDR blew through, I suppose it was pretty much cemented into what we know it now.
However, a lot of that power is smoke-&-mirrors & American politics ain't that simple. Still, we like the story & say dumb shit like "this one guy who can totally fix all of our social/political/economic issues with no push-back from opposing parties or interests. At the same time, we like to pretend a president's foulness excuses the rot in the heart of the party that got the jackass elected in the first place. Yes, I'm looking at you, the whole of the Republican party.
I'm coming up on two months on doing this, & I have to admit I'm a little... well, not quite disappointed as such. I'll explain why. While I am proud of myself - this the longest I've gone writing regularly - I wanted to be doing something other than political ranting-slash-Hunter Thompson inspired ruminations. I've always been pretty good at it, so I guess it just comes naturally. This is a couple days hand-running I've done this, too, instead of squeezing out a nothing. I'm sure that'll come soon enough.
Enough of that.
