With Virus Fear Waning, The Political Election Cycle May Bore Americans To Death

So, here we are, right on the cusp of the end of a second straight uneventful week.

If this is what the "new normal" is supposed to look like - stocks setting all-time records, congress on recess, a non-stop, perpetual presidential campaign, 30 million people out of work, sporadic protests and occasional riots, coast-to-coast mask-wearing drones - then peak stupid has been achieved.

Americans have been dumbed down enough over the past 40 years to believe just about anything that comes out of the mouths of either politicians, actors, or TV reporters and that's been the driving force ushering in the era of complacency, wherein every dumb idea, every extra dollar thrown at the problem of the moment, every incremental erosion of liberty and individual rights is met with a yawn and a smirk since there's nothing anybody can do about it, so everybody just goes along to get along.

This is what you get in planned economies, of which the US economy is just one of many in the post-COVID world of make-believe economics and governance. There is no news. There are only events and propaganda, and events with propaganda. Reportage is curated, so that only what the media moguls want the public to see or hear or read is present at the front of the report. Events are staged, propaganda is scripted, and events with propaganda are news stories littered with the unsolicited opinions of reporters or presenters.

Mainstream media offers little in the way of real journalism and less in regards to reporters, who have morphed over time from bold inquisitors and investigators of the truth into presenters and script-readers for the narrative of the day. "News" has become an anachronism. Information is spoon-fed from sources to carriers to your ears and eyes.

Judging from the just-completed Democratic National Convention, those looking forward to a lively and spirited fall season of campaigning are likely to be disappointed come September, and thoroughly exhausted come October. By November, most probable voters are going to be glad it's almost over, after being bombarded by hours of sound-bite coverage, ceaseless advertising, back-biting instagram and twitter noise.

All style and little substance the elections of 2020 will pass without little change. we will elect some people who eventually will do little to change the current course of economy, polity, and society. They will toast themselves as victors and governors, padding their wallets while strip-mining the country's wealth and status.

For what it's worth, politics shouldn't be the focus of every story and event. Emitting mostly hot air and tax increases, politicians in this day and age are no better - and maybe a whole lot worse - than those of any other era. Entrenched and new alike won't make a difference in the lives of most Americans. Their policies will continue to favor established big businesses at the expense of anybody trying to play in their sandbox and contribute mostly to the detriment of society rather than its enhancement. Lobby groups, kickbacks, side deals, influence peddling, graft and corruption will continue at the forefront of the political circus and likely increase.

The political season ramping up while the coronavirus scare cools down be ready for more consecutive weeks just like this one, and the one before and the one before that. To those already established in media-induced comas, everything looks like a blank slate that doesn't change. By November 3rd, we'll all be sufficiently stupefied to believe that voting might actually matter to somebody, somewhere, sometime.

The elections will be over (though the counting may take weeks if not months to complete, guaranteeing another round of breathless coverage by the networks), the virus will be gone.

Safe in our homes, wearing our masks, staying six feet away from each other, we'll all eventually die from obsolescence and boredom.

At the Close, Thursday, August 20, 2020:
Dow: 27,739.73, +46.83 (+0.17%)
NASDAQ: 11,264.95, +118.49 (+1.06%)
S&P 500: 3,385.51, +10.66 (+0.32%)
NYSE: 12,812.86, -47.02 (-0.37%)