WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO. OR DO WE?
Heading into the actual, final, at-last election, MassMiss takes a look at the right-wing noise machine’s “strategy” during these last few weeks.
JOE BIDEN, PUNCHING BAG
Heroes aren’t really in fashion; the current style is attack-and-denigrate, not praise-and-admire. Donnie Bone-Spurs, the Fanta Fuhrer, sets the tone, and social media expertly destroys celebrities as fast as it creates them. Trump’s actual performance is a hard sell for the right-wing media (what with the stock market dropping 600+ points, and the pandemic raging) so most of their energy is going into frantic attacks on Joe Biden.
They say Joe Biden is old: “Biden’s senile!” “He’s fading!” “He’s in hiding.” “He’s losing it.” “He thinks Bush is still president.” “He’s on drugs!” This is either an accuse-your-enemy-of-the-crimes-you-commit propaganda trick, or they just have zero imagination and hurl back every critique of Trump as a counter-insult. It’s all very middle school.
Their ‘October surprise,’ the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, has been thoroughly debunked by mainstream newspapers, and then drowned in viral movie clips from the Rudy Giuliani/Borat movie.
In response to the Borat humiliation, R/W media went full QAnon: “Hunter Biden had 25,000 pics of him torturing and raping children under age 10 in China on his laptop“, just for one example. Jim Hoft, the Gateway Pundit, famed “dumbest man on the internet,” crowed “Oh Boy: Rudy Giuliani Reads Text Message from Hunter Biden to Joe Biden talking about FaceTiming 14-Year-Old Girl Naked While Smoking Crack.” This was in reference to the Newsmax video below:
These “October Surprises” have actually fallen pretty flat. Hunter Biden has certainly had drug problems and flailed in his life and career but did not involve his father. Nevertheless, Sean Hannity set up a camera outside Biden’s house, demanding that JB ‘walk outside’ and ‘answer these pressing questions.’ Biden very properly ignored him — it was as lame as Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s mystery vault on live TV back in 1986.
There are several reasons these tales are not getting traction: one is that the mainstream media is not reporting every ridiculous claim, having been burnt by the Hillary’s-email-nothing-burger back in 2016. Even Fox News was dubious about the Hunter Biden laptop, and New York Post reporters wouldn’t put their byline on the original story. Plus, let’s face it: we, their audience, are exhausted — and everyone knows Hannity and co. are bullshitters, just like Trump.
Another solid reason for the lack of traction is that Biden has done pretty well in debates and interviews, which undermines the HE’S SENILE!! narrative. You can criticize Joe Biden from the left over his past positions on incarceration and policing, or his treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings — he’s a moderate, centrist Democrat. Maybe he’s too huggy and doesn’t notice when someone is uncomfortable with it? Could be. But you can’t tell me the person in this clip is not a basically decent human being….
NOT THE HERO WE WANT, BUT HE’LL DO
Your MassMiss would prefer to be represented by somebody like Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas, because that guy is WAY cool. He rides around the Mexican countryside on horsesback, supporting the rights of indigenous people. He writes novels and poetry. Plus his whole look is just ready-made for t-shirts and dorm-room posters — the guy knows how to rock an eye-patch, right?
But that’s just my girlish fantasy. Here in the real world of 2020 America, Biden and Harris getting elected next week looks pretty fine. If they don’t take the initiative themselves to make massive improvements in governance, they can be pushed, hard, by we the people. Another four years of Trump and we’ll all wind up out beyond the Thunderdome. And, trust me, what we need is NOT out there.
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