Monday, February 24, 2020

Marianne Williamson, en fuego for Bernie

The number of Dem contenders drops, and the Great Coalescence begins:


Some of the remaining Democrat contenders won't let go of their presidential aspirations until circumstances make it screamingly obvious that the time has come to say goodbye. Andrew Yang has wisely abandoned the race, but Tulsi Gabbard remains stubbornly in contention, against all hope and reason. Meanwhile, those who've dropped out of the race are now aligning themselves behind those who remain, which is what you see above: Marianne Williamson aligning herself behind Bernie Sanders.

I have to say, though: it's an enthusiastic, inspiring speech by Williamson that employs some seriously good rhetorical devices, like tricolon and other forms of parallelism—the sort of speech patterns that are easy for the hoi polloi to digest. I also thought, as Williamson was speaking, that she sounded the way actress Jodie Foster does when Foster is speaking with a stressed voice. If Williamson weren't so nutty, I'd like her more than I like Bernie (whom I admit I find personally likable, however fucked-in-the-head his political notions might be).

Of course, Williamson's brave rhetoric aside, Bernie doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell against Trump. As some pundits are pointing out, the 2020 US election is now paralleling what only just happened in the United Kingdom with the elevation of Boris Johnson, who roundly and massively defeated avowed socialist Jeremy Corbyn. According to the pundits, Corbyn's loud-and-proud leftism is what did him in because most Britons, however docile they might be in the face of the UK's left-leaning legal and governmental systems, are still just regular folks who have a horror of outright socialism. Bernie and his Bernie Bros are going to discover much the same horror come November, I suspect.

Assuming Bernie remains in the lead.



1 comment:

John Mac said...

Well, I share your view provided something stupid doesn't happen between now and November. The economy is on a roll which has to take some of the attraction away from Bernie's socialist dogma. The scary thing is how the young folks seem to be buying into this everything being free rhetoric you talked about in your earlier post.

We may avoid going down that road this year, but I worry for the future. Heh, assuming I live long enough to see that future!