We’re in the midst of the “silly season”. The political “silly season”, that is.
Fans of professional golf should recognize the term. “Silly season” refers to the time between the unofficial end of the previous professional golf season and the beginning of the next one at the start of a new calendar year. However, with annual scheduling changes, big TV money and corporate sponsorships, the outlines of the “silly season” have grown fuzzier and fuzzier over the years, to the point where it’s not always easy to identify when one period ends and the other begins.
The “silly season” – in golf, roughly between the end of September until just after New Year’s -- is a time for non-traditional tournaments, Skins games, pay-per-view and other novel ideas that someone in a media or management conference room dreamt up to try and make a buck while bridging the gap between the events that fans and players really care about. No one takes them too seriously, lest they be labelled “silly”. Plus, it doesn’t hurt all that much to lose in them, either.
American Politics has a “silly season” of its own where adherents of both parties put forth proposals for potentially advantageous goals or ideals that will never happen but still are fun to contemplate as the partisans either celebrate or lick their wounds between real elections. With the far-too-consequential federal midterm elections finally being resolved (stupid mail-in voting!) and the balance of power still basically divided between the two parties – at least on Capitol Hill – some folks have moved on to the next “big one” to devote attention and indispensable mental energy to.
Republicans and Democrats are engaged in this now, as the big-name “players” from both parties have already started jockeying for position for the 2024 race. No one’s exactly sure who’s going to be in Congress come January and yet ambitious – or simply “silly” – political observers are tossing out wacky ideas for what the two sides can do to improve their chances.
Need an example? In a piece titled “Here’s a game plan: Biden replaces Harris with Newsom and then resigns”, longtime Republican consultant Douglas MacKinnon wrote the other day at The Hill:
“… In one scenario, Biden could ask [Kamala] Harris to resign and replace her with Newsom, who then becomes the heir apparent for 2024. Or Biden could replace Harris with Newsom and then resign himself, making Newsom the president before 2024 and arming him with the full force of the Oval Office.
“Republicans can write off Newsom all they want as the politician who ‘ruined’ California. The fact is, he is a proven vote-getter and has a formidable Democratic machine behind him. More than that, he has demonstrated that he is no political wallflower and seemingly has no intention of ‘waiting his turn.’
“Might the Democrats leapfrog him into the Oval Office before 2024? It would be political malpractice for them not to consider the option.”
Absolutely. Democrats can consider such an “option” all they want, but somehow, you’d have to strong-arm a lot of higher-ups to get with the proposal in order to even think about making it work. First and foremost, there’s senile president Joe Biden himself. The “Big Guy” of Hunter Biden-laptop fame would need to consciously and willingly go back on one of his earliest “woke” promises and remove the black female from his ticket so he could then court Newsom to be his new number two.
Pardon the cringeworthy mental image, but Newsom isn’t nearly brown enough to be a number two in Joe Biden’s fantasy identity politics-fueled lavatory. If he removed Kamala from her perch, Biden would lose the goodwill of a huge chunk of the rabid Democrat base, too, namely the African-American female vote, and would subsequently look like mud to most of the race revering leftist Democrat brain trust, who would view the move as semi-suicidal (in a political sense) and hypocritical at the same time.
Biden himself has reiterated quite a bit lately that he intends to run for reelection in 2024, but that a definitive decision – and announcement – has been put off until he and Dr. Jill have time to sit ‘round the ol’ Biden family campfire over the holidays to talk about their next scheme. I meant next ‘move’. Can’t you just imagine what that conversation would sound like?
“Hey honey, do you want me to run again? If we win, I’d be one of those wounded ducks and it’d be more like another four years of publicly funded clam bakes and trips to Delaware and Europe rather than much work.”
“Gee, Joe, I haven’t thought about it at all. And the term is ‘lame duck’, idiot. I’ve been too busy trying to get in touch with Michelle Obama to discover why she equivocated on us running again to consider what you’re capable of, or what you ought to do. Being First Lady is easy, so if it were up to me, I’d say ‘go for it’. But you might wanna think about dumping that freakin’ cackling airhead Kamala from your 2024 team if we do give it a go. And while you’re at it, why don’t you resign and put Gavin Newsom in your place?”
No one gives either of the Bidens great credit for massive cumulative intellect, but I doubt this little chat would ever take place. Here’s thinking that ever since Dr. Jill made that “Hispanics are as diverse as breakfast tacos” faux pas a few months back that she’s been in Joe’s doghouse. After all, she violated Democrat rule number one – you cannot ever let your latent racism show itself on the surface. Therefore, Joe can say he doesn’t want his kids to grow up in a “racial jungle” along with calling Barack Obama the “first clean and articulate African American” and, don’t forget, Biden observed that you can’t go into a Seven-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts in Delaware without a slight Indian accent.
But remove dark-pigmented Kamala? Never!
You’d also need to get Harris’s go-along with the plot, to agree to resign, that is. And why would she ever do that? It’s taken the woman decades to employ her feminine wiles to finagle her way to the top, so does anyone truly believe she’d agree to give all of that up just to benefit the Democrat party? The gal put up with Willy Brown for years, didn’t she?
The fact is, Kamala’s got a sweet job now. She gets to go to fun places like Latin America and Europe and Asia, isn’t asked to do too much, and lord knows, the Biden handlers must work overtime to get her photo opportunities without her actually having to say anything or answer simple media questions. In the process, Kamala gets to smile a lot and pretend to be friendly and approachable while giggling whenever she feels the urge. What could possibly beat that for a substance-less liberal Democrat politician with dreams of supplanting the party’s aging old white guard and hence become the first (blankety blank) president of the U, S of A?
Some Democrats may claim it’s so, but would they really want Gavin Newsom anyway? The slick-haired Californian has a COVID lockdown rap sheet at least as long as Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer does, and he’s not nearly as connivingly cute as the Wolverine State’s premier resident Witchiepoo impersonator. Newsom has insisted that he’s not interested in running for president and I doubt he’d even agree to be Joe Biden’s sidekick without the old coot already being earmarked for a Democrat care facility.
Besides, the Democrat party has a new star on the crime-ridden blue city (of your choice) walk of fame, namely senator-elect John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Ever since his race was improbably called in his favor, Fetterman’s name has been bandied about as a potential 2024 fill-in for senile Joe. No joke, as Biden himself would say, the 6’9” brain-function challenged ogre has stirred up talk like silt on the bottom of a green slime covered pond within the liberal hemisphere. And why shouldn’t he? Democrat voters have already proven that they’ll select any idiot with a beating heart (oops, that one’s not even a requirement any longer, either) to represent their median cerebral-wave in Congress and other places where people show up, say stuff and spend trillions of dollars.
If someone were to act boldly and suggest Kamala permanently take herself out of politics and then somehow convince senile Joe that a 4-digit code to the men’s restroom was really the key to political immortality, then there are other Democrats who want the 2024 job ahead of Newsom or Fetterman anyway.
What about Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren? The faux Native American (1/1024th Cherokee) has patiently waited her turn as mean Democrat voters pushed her to the side – they’d rather have crotchety old Bernie Sanders, an authentic self-identifying socialist, to be the next borderline commie up rather than a sincere, bug-eyed screeching old hag like Liz.
Then there’s “love me because I’m gay” Pete Buttigieg, the baby-faced early forty-something who morphed into the darling of the 2020 Democrat primary race simply because he wasn’t even close to qualifying for Social Security like practically all of the rest. Pete Butt stole Beto O’Rourke’s thunder and firmly inserted himself into future Democrat politics merely by possessing Bill Clinton-like talents to string lies together without his nose growing.
You have to figure the political “silly season” is in full force when folks feel empowered to suggest replacing Kamala Harris with Gavin Newsom or toss out the possibility of severely intellectually handicapped John Fetterman making a good 2024 candidate in senile Joe Biden’s stead. We understand it’s all in good fun to do so – the serious stuff will resume soon enough.
Joe Biden economy
inflation
Biden cognitive decline
gas prices,
Nancy Pelosi
Biden senile
January 6 Committee
Liz Cheney
Build Back Better
Joe Manchin
RINOs
Marjorie Taylor Green
Kevin McCarthy
Mitch McConnell
2022 elections
Donald Trump
2024 presidential election