I know it's become a popular notion these days to reject equivocation of the left and the right on some grounds of the left being "worse" (also, water may be wet, and we've theories regarding the breathability of air) but I'm not talking about "the right", I'm talking about the US Republican Party, specifically their 2012 primaries.
Literally the only person amongst them who was in any way memorable was Ron Paul and I'm pretty sure that's because he became a meme. Rick Santorum could've stepped on a spacetime vortex and been entirely erased from this universe as far as I know (I had to look it up - he works for CNN now apparently). Until a few minutes ago, I legitimately believed that Newt Ginrich had died.
Now, in fairness, I live in South Africa these days and there's sort of more pressing local geopolitical fuckery to sarcastically banter with the co-workers about, so perhaps all these people just went back to their respective states, towns, or small businesses and continued doing as they do.
But still, the point remains.
I get the same feeling from the current crop of dems as I did from the republicans in 2012 - that of the party knowing it's fighting massively uphill and intentionally setting out to fail forward; putting out candidates that resonate mainly (and almost exclusively) with their own core electorate; reinforcing mindshare as if it was a corporate advertising campaign - which I guess it pretty much is.
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