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I’ve always tried to stay on an even keel. My motto has been: Don’t over-react, regardless of whether the news is good or bad.
But this morning I’m breaking that rule, and all is can say is Whoopee!!!!
I’d already begun to diverge from my usual path these last few weeks, and the direction of my affect was definitely down. Bernie Sanders was surging, every middle-leaning candidate was sagging, and the thought of a Trump landslide producing four more years of autocratic rule was threatening to put me in an atypically deep depression.
The political landscape looked like Bernie here, Bernie there, Bernie everywhere. Klobuchar and Buttigieg couldn’t arouse any serious enthusiasm, Bloomberg was great in ad footage but absolutely awful in person, and it looked as if fighting Elizabeth Warren might even lose her home state of Massachusetts to the surging Sanders.
Then came South Carolina and Joltin’ Joe came out of hibernation. Mixing metaphors wildly, call it an amazing turnaround, call it a shock to the system, call it phoenix rising from the ashes, but Joe Biden came shooting out of a cannon called South Carolina on Super Tuesday and took off.
Bernie didn’t win Massachusetts, but neither did Elizabeth. Joe did, running away. Joe had barely set foot in Minnesota, but (thanks in large part to Amy Klobuchar) he won by a big margin. Joe didn’t have a shot in hell of winning Texas, but (perhaps with a little assistance from Beto O’Rourke) he eked out a victory there. And then Mike Bloomberg miraculously got the message, buried his ego, and endorsed the surging former Vice-President.
Joe here, Joe there, Joe everywhere.
So let’s play out two scenarios, the first more realistic, the second outrageously grandiose.
The realist in me says that this is now a two-person race. Bloomberg has dropped out and we can’t imagine why Elizabeth Warren wouldn’t do the same. Bernie will find ways of slowing Biden, and Biden will be guilty of enough gaffes to slow himself. The delegate count will be relatively equal by the time of the convention, the convention itself will be both mean and messy, but with the help of the Democratic establishment, Biden will win the nomination. Bernie will be pissed—again, as in 2016—will pledge to back Biden, but will sit on his hands, also like 2016. Unlike 2016, enough people in the right states will have had enough of Trump to defect to Joe, and he will win, but in a squeaker that is hotly attacked by that orange-haired you-know-who.
So much for realism. I much prefer the fantasy version, so here goes. Joe’s candidacy catches fire. Working-stiff Joe goes over better than man-of-the-proletariat Bernie, and the primaries line up pretty consistently for Biden. No need for a contested convention as Joe easily exceeds the magic number of 1991 delegates on the first vote. Bernie, ultimately the realist and detesting Trump even more than he hates the status quo and the Democratic machine, actually swallows pride and principle to help out just a bit on college campuses. In the big election, working-stiff Joe overwhelms silver-spoon-in-his mouth Donald and on November third we all go to sleep very happy—and quite early.
Ex-president Donald (oh, that feels good to say) contests the election saying it was fixed (can he blame it on the Russians?), insisting that the American people truly want him regardless of the fake news reported from the polls. The Donald refuses to leave the White House, calling on the Congress to back him, only to find out that nobody gives a damn about him now that he has lost. The former President gets a military escort from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, followed by a stay in Mar-a-Lago for several months until it is put up for public auction. Trump insists via tweet that the salacious tell-all books by Melania, Kellyanne Conway, and Mike Pence are nothing more than a series of lies. And he does most of his tweeting for several years from his comfortable cell in a federal penitentiary after being found guilty on charges ranging from tax fraud to perjury.
I can’t imagine why I never tried wild mood swings before. The down’s might be pretty bad, but for this brief moment I’m really enjoying the up’s.
great!