One thing is now as obvious as a brick through a window: politics is the new comedy. Who in America believes that the road to 2020 will be paved with prudence, solemnity and fair campaigning? Nobody does. This election season will be defined by below-the-belt hits, salty jokes and juvenile comebacks, all delivered with the subtlety of an air horn blast. Already we have seen doddery Joe Biden challenge the president to a push-up contest on national television, while Bernie Sanders wants to take on Trump at a mile-long footrace. The president, according to the cerebral Andrew Yang, is ‘so fat’.
This is not an American phenomenon. Across democracies, old and new, the joke is in the ascendant. The age of LOLitics has dawned. After decades of indifference, voters increasingly mock systems they think absurd by empowering ridiculous figures. What difference, they ask, does it make if the president comes from Harvard Law or The Apprentice?
Most political careers used to end as jokes. Now they start as them.
Statolotry, thugocracy