Hungry? We are out of bread, but there might be something else in the pantry.

The Socotra House Legal Section has not given up hope something will be found. There are 19 more days of increasing fury to get to the election which will determine who will get a chance to divvy up the national pie and apportion the slices to those they prefer.

You can see just some of it in the introductory slide above. Each of the little boxes is worth a column of their own, which we are counselled to ensure are filled with the mirth and disbelief that has accompanied each of these delirious countdown days. We could throw ourselves into each of them, since there are real people, many highly educated, who are snatching elements of it all and stitching into the most dramatic and sensational vignettes to message everywhere.

Our apologies for that up front. Legal is unwilling to permit a delve into the more extraordinary examples, since that would only reinforce the original intent, which is to make us believe things that are not true. That aspect of the Campaign is nothing new and in fact quite traditional. Marie Antoinette could tell us something about that, if she had not been led from her throne in a gown to the guillotine on this day in 1793.

That was part of a transfer of power a couple centuries ago, and a matter of discussion in our endless election yesterday. All the candidates seem to have come to general agreement that their opponents should be imprisoned, which given the state of things is a matter on which there is universal support to provide both sides a brief hitch in the County slammer.

So, while the temptation is huge, we will avoid specifics about the spectrum of problems and issues. The one at Boeing is useful, though, since it is a big company that mirrors some of the same systemic problems with which the rest of our large public institutions. 17,000 hourly workers at Big Blue are either on strike or being laid off because of it.

So, there you go. We think there is a better question today though. Despite the headliners in all the news and furor, we don’t actually know who is actually running it. That is another old tradition, since power has always found it useful to cloak itself-in other things. Marie Antoinette’s exit from power is an example of why.

The question we liked worth some examination was posed by one of the candidates. We have no allegiance or particular liking for who asked it, but that is exactly the root of the messaging in both directions.

Can anyone tell us who is running this?

We are accustomed to having someone in charge. It is traditional. There was general agreement that the incumbent in our top job here The Swamp was no longer up to it for reasons of personal health. That was some time ago, and would normally have resulted in some public discussion of who to replace him in the political order while the constitutional issue of who would actually answer the phone at the desk would be the Vice President moving up.

For whatever reason, retention of power by those who were not actually known to have it seemed to be a low-key campaign issue. The change of authority- the public, not private one- would then be resolved by a resignation with years to go in the new term. Hanging on to the old scheme until it looked like it was not going to work left problems. The traditional way would have been a simple: “I’m ailing, and the VP will take over in an orderly manner. You folks can have an election to decide who is next.”

That is preferable to the way the French did it to their profligate Queen with a guillotine. Despite her exit, Marie is still relevant, since her most memorable epigram was not uttered in the white gown she wore to meet the blade. The one that sums things up with uncanny accuracy is the one she made when Parisians complained about the lack of baguettes. She regally recommended they substitute cake on their menus.

We mean no disrespect to anyone who is actually in elected office for some of the equivalent rhetoric hurtling around. That stuff- like the “million dollar forgivable loans for worthy entrepreneurs we have never heard of” and “legalized dope” were trotted out yesterday are targeted messages mixed in with the astonishing candor by a former actual President. He was asked about the Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang occupying apartments in Aurora, Colorado. It gets a reaction, since those are where some of used to live.

Mr. Clinton wasn’t on a teleprompter and said what he actually thought. He explained we needed the undocumented migrants because our national birthrate is falling. So, here we are, no big crisis, just the way things are.

That actually is one of the issues that might have been worth discussion a decade or two afo when an equivalent problem first manifested itself in Europe. Legal tells us to avoid talking about how smaller families permitted more comfortable personal lives, though in societies that no longer had vibrant growth.

The solution was admission of millions of people from other places who have effectively changed the character of nations like Germany and taken over others that formerly ruled over them. So, with the actual issues not on the table- the ones like the fact that our system no longer seems to be self-sustaining- we are going to argue about something else for a few weeks.

We will try to keep you posted on the day-to-day of it, since there is a possibility that something less awful in the speed of the inevitable disaster to which we appear to be hurtling will result. Traditionally, we have accepted a peaceful transition even if we don’t agree with it. We are not sure the people who are running this would agree though.

We could ask them, but we don’t know who they are. We may be about to find out though.

It is a new style for our Republic, and we will see how this fashion works. Care for some cake?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com