We speak a little Spanglish here at the building in an attempt to be courteous to the workers on the maintenance crew who have labored here for the last few decades. Pocito, you might say. In our limited understanding, “Que Mala!” en Espanol, means “How Bad!”

Then, there was an attempt to emulate the MAGA thing that has been an enduring brand name. Despised, but still short, declarative and effective. The effort to translate the MALA to “Make America Love Again,” can only have been prepared by an English speaker who doesn’t actually live partially immersed in an amalgam of trash English and Spanish. Like calling for “no tax on tips.”

We had one of those things when we lunched at the local Outback. DeMille presented a credit card and got a statement of account for the Philly Steak sandwiches and burgers with the generous glasses of wine and beer. He fished out some actual currency to keep the tips off what would be reported to the government and we could keep our reward to bartender Ken between ourselves. We left the bar and he had to chase us down, mistaking our intentions of attempting to do one thing while actually doing something else. Like the Government or the campaigns. Or everything these days,

A symptom is the attacks on the inability of critics to properly pronounce the name of the first female Nominee of color to be President of the United states.

We already had a lady try it, but she was a little unpalatable. The new attempt is to harness the old light-giver mantra of the first President of Color, which though she is lighter and used to be South Asian is now just down home “Person of Color.” Which she doesn’t appear to actually be, but never mind. This is about messaging.

Just saying her name properly was one of the first springs out of the box. “Ka-mala,” with emphasis on the initial syllable, a pronunciation that has been described as ‘racist,’ for some reason. That has been properly decried, though we are not sure why. It’s proper iteration is supposed to be pronounced ‘Kama-la,’ with the emphasis on the ‘la’ part as the dance-off.

Which is part of what this is. Vibes are key, and short words that convey what this disaster is all about: “Joy!”

But all we have are the empty slogans. The product available for sale is a kind of empty “joy” because they don’t have anything else to offer that would be good for the country. Joy will have to suffice until the focus group comes up with something else. They are working on it, since if they have to rely on their record, Kamala is a bit up a creek since the socialism they’ve tired has failed on just about everything they assured us would actually make all their pals wildly wealthy and bring us unmitigated jubilation, like the border and crime and the economy. She’s hoping to slip into office on “vibes” alone, with the assurance there will be love and joy, no kidding.

But all we have is empty slogans without much idea of exactly how we will make things either “great” or “loving” again. All they can try to do is sell some kind of empty “joy” because she is essentially running against the record of her own administration. Apparently that has worked in the focus groups, the same ones that unceremoniously showed Mr. Biden the door.

The videos of VP Harris- a way to avoid any semantics in referring to the candidate- supporting all of the issues she is denying already makes a great commercial for the other side. We can’t tell, since we are buried in the contradictory messaging. We are old and use our phone to get texts, or used to. We normally received a few each day and sometimes responded if action seemed to be required. Now, there is always a thicket of notes from pals we have ever heard of beseeching us for support. And cash.

It is a little bewildering, With messaging on the issues, Kamala (emphasis on “la”) is stuck with the border and the economy, two issues that are paramount to voters. She’s on record as supporting the middle class, so there is hope to at least make a word salad about it after being elected on some assorted semantics to what used to be the most powerful office on earth.

You could ask the Chinese about that. Or the Indians, but that is a different matter, you know? Like fifteen minutes ago in messaging. We are going to have go with “vibes” alone as mail-in voting has commenced and there are 62 days and fifteen minutes until we can walk across Pershing Street to the polling station at the assisted living facility at Culpeper Gardens.

Then we can actually cast our vote in person for hope that somehow this can get better. It is hard living in another world than the one we have permitted. Balancing the budget and a little shared effort would be a start, along with some of Teddy Rosevelt’s big stick available, not brandished, just in case someone else wants to dance.

Then maybe we could talk about love and some vibes. Having it out of sequence is one of the ways we pronounced our way into this mess, you know?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com