In a world of laidback slackers, work-at-home layabouts, too-cool-for-school apathetics, and an overall zen zeitgeist, you can’t help but notice unpacific pools of intensity raging all around the news cycle.
To wit:
1. The Trump versus DeSantis battle royale is at a fever pitch – and it’s only May.
As I have suggested all week, in my time covering presidential campaigns, I have never seen anything like this – the way-too-early minute-by-minute rat-a-tat-cat of social media attacks, endorsement recruitment, heated rhetoric, millions in negative TV ads, opposition-research-fueled accusations (against the two candidates and, amazingly, their staffers), all flinging back and forth without restraint or remorse, at a volume so laughably immense and, often, at an obscurity level so high that even the best informed voter (or reporter!) could be forgiven for having no friggin’ idea what either side is talking about.
What are Andrew Cuomo, Jenna Ellis’ marital history, and Jared’s residency doing in this fight?
And neither side looks to take the foot off the accelerator all the way through the Iowa caucuses, for fear of losing even one news cycle.
With Godzilla hitting four Iowa burgs today (Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Pella and Cedar Rapids) and King Kong beefing up his own Hawkeye State sojourn time this week, brace yourself for a nonstop display of tongs and hammers for months on end.
There is only one conclusion that can be reached:
2. “Nobody” thinks Biden will actually run for reelection.
It’s always said with the utmost confidence – whether it is Steve Forbes right out in the open on Fox News or a Democratic Party panjandrum in hushed tones over an iPhone-to-iPhone tete-a-tete – the upper levels of impolite society share an abject certainty that in a few months Joe Biden is going to pull the plug on his reelection effort.
Details (such as how to deal with The Veep, how to finesse lame duckery, what it means for Hunter, who the actual nominee would be, etc.) are never really addressed.
But for the it’s-happening-by-which-they-mean-it-is-NOT-happening crowd, the details don’t matter. With this group of No Doubters, the deal is done, it’s just a matter of when and how.
3. The frustration of the would-be Third Men and Woman is already sky high.
Imagine what it’s like doing all the things one must do to launch and execute a full-blown presidential effort. You’ve been a Republican senator, a governor, a cabinet member, a highly successful business leader, maybe even a vice president of the whole country.
And, yet, there is, already and unmistakably, frustration in the voice of the principals and their aides when they talk about the daily reality of their lives, which is bound to get worse and not better, over their fate.
To be asked EVERY DAY, about King Kong and Godzilla, about their poll standing (versus those seemingly consigned until eternity to low single digits), their flaps, their battles, their statements, their histories. And virtually nothing about you, your ideas, your vision, anything that doesn’t pertain to the frontrunners.
With the current partial exception of Tim Scott (who gets some attention and has some money in the bank and more on the way), the current batch of hopefuls is already flashing signs of annoyance, vexation, and perturbity over their state of perpetual overshadowment.
4. At a time of record inflation, a massive war in Europe, a border under siege, and a deadly drug crisis, what inflames America like nothing else?
This:
5. The leaking by lawyers connected to the Mar-a-Lago documents obstruction of justice probe.
Another day, another Washington Post exclusive about a mysterious witness, what prosecutors have asked the mystery witness, and the looming threat of indictment that will either (a) end Donald Trump’s political career and his liberty OR (b) get Trump to 70% in the GOP horserace polls OR (c) both.
6. Chip Roy and other House dissidents are apocalyptic over the debt ceiling deal.
The House conference has been ripped asunder, this outrage cannot stand, the Speaker must repent and be vanquished, such injustice has never been visited upon the Nation – on and on it goes, rhetoric so heated it would make Tom DeLay blush.
Appreciate the passion, y’all, but maybe calm down. The bill (widely praised by many of your usual allies) is going to pass, Mr. McCarthy has never been politically stronger, and you now (still) have the IRS agent matter as a 2024 campaign issue.
7. People who are losing weight with these new injections sound positively evangelical.
Even royalty, such as Sir Charles Barkley, can’t say enough about their rapture over slimming down.
Per People magazine:
Barkley, who's among the top 20 NBA rebounders of all time, told McAfee he's lost 62 lbs.
"I started at 352 [lbs.], he said. "And I'm down to 290. I'm starting to feel like a human being, not a fat ass anymore."
He then said his goal weight was 270 lbs.
We all know folks like this now, who are losing their minds over losing their pounds.
8. Deadline energetically loads more “Ted Lasso” spoilers on the season/series finale into one recap than I have ever seen.
Love or loathe these final minutes of extra time, there is no denying that football is life.
9. Everything Brady!!
I mean, maybe Tom and Taylor should just get married by Bob Kraft in Foxboro and let’s short circuit some of the mania by combining it.
10. AOC and Twitter.
There are no words….