Rule number one…

You don’t let the opening act upstage you.

We know J.Lo can’t sing, but we always thought she was a fly dancer.

But Shakira trumped her on both counts, if I was J.Lo’s manager, I’d be hiding.

The Super Bowl wasn’t so super until Joe Namath and the Jets beat the Colts back in ’69. What did the Eagles sing?

Namath was arrogant, the Colts were the establishment. Joe played by his own rules, with his moustache, Bachelors III and his fur coat, when that was still a thing. Joe was brash, and he lived up to the rep. Only true fans can remember the quarterback of the Colts. Or the QB of any winning team. But Joe was a star, he made history in one afternoon. No one was paying attention before, the American Football League was seen as a joke. And in one game, it was par, if not better.

The NFL ground it out with brutes, it was a team effort, you didn’t stand out, or if you did you were humble.

Joe Namath was not humble.

Nor were the Beatles, Cream or the rest of the acts that followed the lads from Liverpool into our consciousness. Everybody picked up an instrument, they wanted some of what those on stage got.

Now people don’t want their progeny to get anywhere near the gridiron. And after watching a couple of collisions yesterday, I can see why. Is it worth it to sacrifice decades of your life for one moment of glory? Parents teach you not to, they tell you life is long, but Roger Goodell and the rest of the jockocracy have punted their responsibility, as long as it makes money, the players are fungible.

But I did watch yesterday. My first game of the season. Sans commercials, would I? Sans Mahomes, definitely not.

That’s another thing about the music of yore, it was never subsidiary, it always led. It was on a plane above and never compromised, which is why it became a religion. I mean can you believe in Post Malone after he stumbled in convenience store at the mercy of…who was it, Budweiser?

And if you were alive back then, you know there was a backlash against contact sports. It did not sustain. Nothing sustained after the Iranian hostage crisis and the election of Ronald Reagan.

The hostage crisis stoked nationalism. It was rah-rah, all of the time. You could not question authority, the military was good, everything the youth believed in was thrown overboard, especially when Reagan lowered taxes and legitimized greed. Once again, money changes everything.

So Mahomes delivered. He played by the rules until the Chiefs fell behind. Occasionally running the ball.

But that’s not what we came to see. We wanted the Air Raid. And when the Chiefs were losing and went to the no huddle offense and Mahomes aired it out…it was a wonder to behold.

Excellence. It still amazes us. Grace under pressure. Reggie Miller wanted the ball with less than a minute left. Michael Jordan too. They delivered when we knew we could not.

So, subsequent to the Jets’ triumph in 1969, the game was usually bad. The Super Bowl was all hype and no action. Until a few decades back, when suddenly the games got good.

By then we were all watching because of “1984,” Steve Jobs’s mini-movie that only aired once and changed the paradigm.

But few have the creativity of Jobs. He was willing to be serious on a day of frivolity, he wanted to make a point. A countercultural point, a Joe Namath, child of the sixties point…that the man can’t be trusted, don’t follow history like a lemming, think for yourself, chart a new course, dare to be different and better.

So now it’s the game and the ads.

But unlike Apple, today’s corporations, having spent so much money, rerun the ads ad infinitum, until the joke no longer plays and you wince.

And yesterday, even the new corporate titans were tone-deaf.

Google storing our data? How ignorant can they be, in an era where privacy is on everybody’s lips! Promote better results, some of the “free” stuff you offer, don’t tell us you’re our buddy and we should trust you with our info….you know they’re gonna cough it up.

Just like Facebook did with Cambridge Analytica. They didn’t even realize the value of the data! And yesterday Facebook runs an ad about irrelevant groups. Who are they appealing to? Youngsters are all on Instagram and the oldsters who are not invested in Facebook never will be. How about a mea culpa? A promise to vet political ads? No, Facebook is like the Colts, it wants us to believe everything’s copacetic, there are no kinks in their armor, they’re godhead and will always triumph.

No.

Now the funny thing is today is just like the sixties. Starting with Bernie Sanders. The septuagenarian who is beloved by the youth. This is what the DNC does not understand, the youth are the future, and they don’t believe the government is working for them. They don’t want to go back to business as usual, they want to throw the long ball.
And the Trumpers?
Rednecks. Who laughed at hippies and…you didn’t dare drive south of the Mason-Dixon line with your long hair and bell bottoms and… Didn’t you see “Easy Rider”?
But for one day, the corporations of America, the institutions, they want us to believe that we’re all one big homogeneous family under a big tent.
Huh?

There was no acknowledgement of the world we now live in. One of niches, special interests. The entertainment edifices and the rest of the media want us to believe it’s still the same as the pre-internet era. One Top Ten. We all listen to the same records and watch the same TV shows when nothing could be further from the truth.

As for the endless movie and TV ads…they burnished the image of Netflix, which needs no spots, its subscribers know what it offers, and are addicted to it. Netflix promises to make a zillion shows with no commercials, trying to do its best. It’s not all lowest common denominator, stuff that tries to appeal to everyone and really appeals to no one.

Kinda like J.Lo and Shakira.

Mariah Carey broke thirty years ago. Sure, Nirvana and Pearl Jam followed her right thereafter, but how many rock acts followed Kurt Cobain? I know, Coldplay! I thought rock was supposed to have balls.

So if you’re a youngster, you don’t even know what the rock ethos is. The other, refusing to sell out, reaching for the holy grail at every turn, knowing that if you’re good enough and credible enough your flock will follow you anywhere.

You marched to the beat of your own drummer. The establishment came to you, not vice versa.

So, Shakira danced so quickly and provocatively that you almost could not believe your eyes. She definitely has the music in her, but how long did it take her to rehearse this routine?

As for J.Lo…why is she famous again?

Oh, that’s right, the establishment record company pushed her, made her a success just before the internet killed that game and it became all hip-hop all the time.

As for Roc Nation’s partnership with the NFL…it’d be like Peter Grant advising the MLB. Sure, it’s great people of color can get ahead, but I can’t get over the sacrifice of Kaepernick. It’s positively Trumpian, the end justifies the means. And if you think it’s good for your image, makes you money, keeps you top of mind, you can march right over the rest of the populace. And if Roc Nation is so powerful, why wasn’t it a hip-hop Super Bowl? Especially when that’s what the players are listening to. J. Lo and Shakira turned out to be safer than Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Just the way the NFL wants it, no controversy.

But the amazing thing about disruption is the establishment doesn’t see it coming. E-sports mean much more to the younger generation than the demolition derby on the field. But if you print an anti-football article you become an instant pariah. Same deal if you criticize Trump. So the NFL removes the edge and we’re supposed to applaud them, congratulate them for bringing us together and leading? It’s a veritable plantation. That’s what the black-balling of Kaepernick is all about. The owners don’t care about the players, and Clark Hunt was evidence for the eradication of inherited wealth. This soft white guy rules over this team? Ridiculous!

But that’s today’s America, we gloss over its faults, love it or leave it, it’s the best. You abhor socialism when you feed on it, with Medicare and Social Security. Yup, that’s another thing about Americans, they’re ill-informed or uninformed but they’re loudmouth brutes who are constantly pontificating while believing it’s always somebody else’s fault, like the Latinos, the immigrants, the…

Oh, I don’t hate America. It would be easier for you if I did! I just want improvement, change. And one thing’s for sure, the new America ain’t gonna look like the old one, no way.

So, the halftime show hearkened back to the original, with Up With People. It was entertainment. It did not challenge us, it was not dangerous and had the nutritional value of candy, it was forgotten just after it was over.

So, once again, if you want to last, if you want to make a difference, you have to learn how to say no. Lil Nas X shortened his career last night, to the degree he has one, but I guess you’ve got to promote yourself when the Grammys deny you your due, i.e. Record of the Year.

Shakira proved that in a world where you think you’re well known, you’re not, until you play an event like this most people have no idea who you are.

Shakira delivered.

Maybe we need more unknowns during halftime.

Or maybe we should go back to marching bands, they’re hipper than the acts performing anyway. That’s right, modern marching bands make pictures, make statements, comment on humanity. Imagine if one formed a roach last night, and I’m not talking about the ones Muhammad Ali told you he despised, the ones crawling along your floor. Then again, maybe you crawl along the floor looking for said roach.

We live in challenging times. When it’s hard to get a handle on what’s happening. When it’s hard to make sense of what’s going on.

An alien would be flummoxed if he/she/it came down from orbit. Let’s see, we laud a game that maims men while we advertise products you don’t need and implore you to go to comic book movies.

America is fighting for its soul. Is it merely money, or is it about the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in your head at one time?

I thought about all this watching the spectacle yesterday.

But I must say, I enjoyed the game.

First you’re too young and then you’re too old.

Come on, you remember going to the amusement park and not reaching the line, now you’ve got no desire to go on the rides.

I was always the youngest until my hair started falling out in my early twenties. Then, instantly, I became old. There was no in-between. I waited to be twenty one, even though you could drink and drive at eighteen in Vermont (and I did both simultaneously, this was before Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and if you know Vermont locals, life tends to be short, as a result of misadventure, when was the last time you played “chicken”?), but it seemed I could not relish the change in how I felt and how I was perceived as I reached this landmark age. It’s probably worse now, when everybody starts their career right out of college, but then you turn thirty and re-evaluate and you feel lousy, like you haven’t accomplished much, not knowing when you turn sixty thirty will seem like a baby.

You’re angsting and struggling, especially in your twenties and thirties. Then, you wake up one day and you are who you are, that’s all she wrote, sure Julia Child made it in her old age but most people do not. As for retiring…they tell you in the entertainment business, suddenly the young clients don’t want to be talking to the old person. And then you get to the point where you don’t care, even though you used to care so much.

And hopefully you’ve got enough money to sail into the sunset. Many do not, and you can’t live on social security, no way. And it’s funny, except for the truly rich, it’s like being back in high school, everybody essentially equal, what your job was no longer matters, everybody’s on an equal plane.

I don’t want that, I want to work forever. For the fulfillment if not the money. And I need the money, there’s no way I could retire.

But last night we watched “Annie Hall” and I realized how old I am.

First and foremost, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton look young, and they’re way younger than me. I remember seeing the two on Broadway, in “Play It Again, Sam”, wanting to be living that life too.

So “Annie Hall” is about the struggle. Do you remember the struggle? Trying to find the right person to live with, to marry, to spend the rest of your life with?

There were no shortcuts, no online dating, you had to go out as opposed to staying in, which is the standard today. They’re waiting on line for the movies, and in New York it is “on line,” not “in line,” and I remember this. Movies were a way of life. Television was a second-class citizen, it did not drive the culture. And if you were in New York or L.A. you had to go an hour in advance, just to get in, films did not open in three thousand theatres, they were platformed, and the successful ones played for months! And when they fell off, you went to revival houses to catch up. This was when you could still be an expert, before the tsunami of pictures, when we all became overwhelmed.

So Alvy and Annie are playing tennis and…

She hits on him.

Not exactly, but she’s the one who starts the conversation, she’s the one who asks him if he has a car. Men love this, that’s how we know you’re interested. And I’ve lived this more than once, and it always resulted in a relationship.

But Annie lacks self-confidence, and Alvy is worried about what he says before he finds out who she really is. He wonders what she looks like naked…can you even say that anymore?

It’s a shock watching this film from 1977. The landlines, the lack of smartphones. You’re brought back to that era when we were all not connected, when we were foraging for connection.

But we still had our neuroses.

Alvy can’t go to a movie after it starts. Neither can I, I’m always thinking I’ve missed something. And for me, a movie is not entertainment, but life itself, which is one of the reasons the comic book movies don’t work for me, I’m interested in humanity, real life, insight.

And the seventies were the heyday of film. Starting in the late sixties to be truthful, with “The Graduate” and “Bonnie & Clyde.” The Oscars were important because the stars were really stars and even bigger than those on screen were those behind the camera.

And then came “Jaws” and “Star Wars” and the industry realized how much money could be made, and the change began. Now, movies about everyday people, everyday situations, have been wiped from the cinema.

So Alvy wants to improve Annie and she constantly laments that she’s not smart enough. You don’t realize you can’t do this until you’re fifty or sixty, you’ve got to accept them as they are or they leave you.

Furthermore, Annie broadens her horizons and Alvy then becomes possessive, he doesn’t want her to leave the nest.

So they break up.

And then get back together.

You’re foraging for people and…

It’s not like today, where you’re going on scores of dates, one and done. Occasionally you had one date, but most people were looking for a relationship, not because they needed to settle down, but because they were lonely, they were sick of looking at the four walls.

And if you made the connection within a year you were living together, even though your parents thought you should get married. Sometimes even our significant other wanted to get married. But, once again, we saw life as a continuum, a big game, and we didn’t want to retire so soon. That’s one of the reasons I never had kids, I never wanted to put myself in the back seat, never mind pay for them, even though I now know that we’re just animals, here to reproduce, and no one will be remembered, and you should have kids, not that I have any regrets.

So, this person knows you better than anybody else in the world. And then you’re disconnected? There was no ghosting, endings were never clean. You usually had to break up multiple times before it was truly over, and then it never really was, you still thought about them.

And you missed the sex. With someone you loved.

But then you had to go forward.

Eventually you settled down. You were worried that you were gonna miss your chance, and women have a biological clock, at least before egg-freezing and implantation and they couldn’t wait while you deliberated.

But it didn’t work out.

Baby boomers…the younger you got married, the sooner you got divorced. People who raised kids, who seemed part of the firmament, suddenly they broke apart. Some left for other people, some never found other people. And if you’ve never lived with somebody, never been married, people avoid you.

So Paul Simon, who was once young, you can see it here, tries to steal Annie.

How do you keep a woman?

Sure, there’s all this talk about keeping a man. And some of them do have affairs, but if your significant other or wife works outside the home and talks about their male coworkers you’re always wondering…are they gonna trade up? Even the rich and powerful have to worry about this, can you say Lauren Sanchez? How does Patrick Whitesell put one foot in front of another these days, when a good friend stole his wife. And there’s always someone richer, or more attractive, or less neurotic… Most men are insecure, despite media portraying them otherwise. They don’t want to be at the bar watching sports with their buddies and coming home to an empty apartment, no way.

So my whole life passed and I didn’t even realize it!

Things are good now on every front, work and relationship, but for so long they were not. And if work is not good, it hurts the relationship, money changes everything, especially when you haven’t got it.

And Alvy and Annie are always going out. Sure, they’re in New York City, but the truth is the older you get the less you go out. And you can never drop in on anyone, that’s anathema.

And the film is littered with conversation. And if you grew up on the east coast you instantly want to go back, to feel that pulse. But it comes with a lot of b.s. and everybody in this film wants to move to L.A. Then again, this was before the days of cheap air travel, most people had never been to Los Angeles, they had no idea what they were missing.

And today Woody Allen is a pariah. Whether he should or shouldn’t be. Funny how things change.

Just like the winners of yore, so many are done today. They’ve been pushed out of the corporation, a new regime has taken over, their work was their identity and suddenly there’s no work and they don’t know who they are.

I remember when my mother used to call people in their forties young and I winced. Now I can remember what happened forty years ago, and just like my mother couldn’t believe a pastrami sandwich was $3.95, I can’t believe it’s now twenty bucks! As for the price of concert tickets… Even worse, I’ve lost my money sense, I remember when a millionaire was a millionaire, but today the median income in America is $61,937 and you’re struggling on that. Then again, after running out of money I sacrificed, I’m still sacrificing, but nobody is anymore, they’re driving German iron and flying not only for vacations, but shows.

I’ve lost my reference points. I used to have them, but I lived too long, I’ve seen too much.

I’m trying to make sense of it, but then I watch “Annie Hall” and recognize my youth, my twenties and thirties, which are far from yesterday, and it seems my bedrock identity is back there.

We used to have time to dream, set our minds free. Today, everything is in-your-face, active, not passive. We don’t reminisce and plan so much as do. But without reflection, the direction you pursue is hobbled.

And on one hand I have the oldsters with their malarkey, yearning to go back to the past, and on the other the youngsters, who can’t believe we lived in an era without flat screens, without streaming media, without social networks. I often asked my mother what it was like living before television. Now I know, I lived before the internet. Seems quaint, don’t you think?

And to tell you the truth, today’s era is much better. There’s none of that boredom, none of that wasted time in the clubs, there’s stimulation at your fingertips.

But with every step forward something is lost.

But it’s minor. Ask kids today if they miss vent windows. They may not even have a car, never mind one without a/c.

Oh yeah, a/c was a novelty not only in cars, but homes. We shvitzed.

But that era is now gone.

And soon we will be too. With all our stories, all our memories.

It’s the way of the world.

But we thought we were different, that the rules didn’t apply to us.

We were wrong.

It’s bottom-up.

As opposed to top-down.

This is what traditional media does not understand, it believes it makes kings and queens and anybody it does not report on doesn’t count.

But that’s fallacious.

You can’t be in it for the short haul anymore, the game is too tough, the lane is too cluttered, if you want to succeed and sustain, you’ve got to start small and grow. You’ve got to infect people who spread the word about you. People don’t want billionaires to tell them what to think and they don’t want traditional media to either, they want to hear it from their peers.

Now ever since the Iraq war, we’ve been expecting a protest song, a hit. But none has come. Many have been written, but none have had traction, because you just can’t reach everybody anymore, and in an era where tracks can take over a year to break through, something of the moment, something timely, does not apply.

This is one of the reasons SNL is challenged, Lorne Michaels has even admitted it…what do we all know, what can we do jokes about that everybody will get?

Very little.

Concomitantly there are all these stories about starting small and staying small. Sure, you can make money that way, but the power of a musician is their influence. Reach enough people and you affect them. And artists always want a larger audience. And their only hope for success today is their fans, hoping they’ll do the work the media machine used to.

Ever heard of Killer Mike?

If you’re not a rap fan, probably not. Unless you’ve seen him on Bill Maher’s “Real Time” or are aware he’s a supporter of Bernie Sanders.

Killer Mike is no Johnny-come-lately. He was for Sanders back in 2016, he has not wavered, and this will continue to pay dividends for the man and his duo Run The Jewels.

Rappers have proven this, this is what features have wrought, trying to leverage someone else’s fan base to burnish your own.

Then again, people have become wary. But it still works. But despite the dominance of hip-hop, its lessons are ignored by traditional media, even though it absolutely dominates streaming services, never mind the hearts and minds of listeners.

Hip-hop did this by embracing the new. By giving it away for free, mixtapes, Soundcloud. By jumping on Spotify when all the oldsters said it was the devil, they still think it’s the devil! But ask Lil Nas X, anybody with a billion streams how much they’re making. A lot! But you cling to your album and sales as your continue to marginalize yourself.

You’ve got to get in the game.

Everybody wants a button to push, wants to count on someone else to do the job. They believe it’s the last century where the label could blow you up from nothing. But today the label looks at your streams and socials before they even sign you, you do the heavy lifting, not them, they’re just the cherry on top.

As for Billie Eilish…

She was a five year overnight success. Built on Soundcloud, leveraging her acolytes. She just didn’t drop an album and go to the top of the chart, the buzz was already there, she just capitalized on it.

The buzz is with Bernie Sanders.

But ancient ones believe they can control buzz. That they can manipulate buzz. That they are in control.

It’s no different from labels invading TikTok. They think it’s forever, like Guitar Hero. But the thing about the populace is once it smells manipulation, it’s done, and it’s got no bedrock investment in fads.

100 gecs broke doing Minecraft festivals. You probably don’t play the game and have no idea what I’m talking about. Proving, once again, you’re better off sitting on your phone/computer than going to lunch if you want to know what’s going on. Oldsters lament the smartphone, say it’s killing society. Youngsters rely on it, it’s their means of connection, they know more people than ever, and they leverage this connection.

So if you want to have influence, you’d better get on the Sanders bandwagon now.

Not only is Bernie leading in fundraising, but celebrity endorsement. Scroll down to the bottom of this page, Bernie’s musician endorsements:

Bernie’s musician endorsements

You see Bernie Sanders is bigger than any musical act. Bigger than Drake, bigger than Jay Z, bigger than anybody who broke this century.

It’s not a reflection on the music, but reality. The only people with total mindshare are politicians, and the occasional billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and possibly Elon Musk. As for Michael Bloomberg, even though he dominates Wall Street the average American is clueless as to his identity. He’s making inroads via television advertising, but it’s hard to change hearts and minds, it’s a process.

Everything’s a process these days. In a world where oldsters say youngsters have short attention spans. Nothing could be further from the truth! Youngsters just don’t want to waste time, they’re always saying “next” until they find what they want, and when they do, they’ll spend hours consuming it, days, they want to drill down deep. Oldsters believe it’s about grazing, youngsters have given up knowing everything, they just want to know some things incredibly well.

Never has a number one record meant less. Never have stars had less reach. There are too many choices.

Yes, labels only focus on a few, to their ultimate detriment. It’s about servicing the populace at large, or sacrificing share to newbies. Add up all the marginal and you end up with the maximum.

And once the spotlight is upon you you must project credibility. In a dishonest world, this is what people become bonded to. They want you to be true to yourself, your ideas, your mission, irrelevant of whether it’s popular. And in a world where nerds have power, why should anybody kowtow to the cool who believe they control the marketplace. Remember when the guys in leather jackets and skinny jeans decried your musical taste, when they thought they controlled what was worth listening to?

Well today, we often find we’re watching different TV shows, never mind listening to different music. Being cool is rarely a factor, and it’s certainly not controlled by critics, but the masses online.

The masses determine what is a hit, certainly in visual media, they just check Rotten Tomatoes and that’s it. A low rating will be the death of you. But it’s even worse, your reputation lives online forever, so if you blow it a couple of times in a row by selling out, not trying your hardest, playing to a theoretical marketplace as opposed to the real one, you’re toast.

So if you get behind Bernie Sanders, you get instant attention. Your credibility soars amongst a huge group of people, primarily the young. It’s like being a featured rapper! And, when you go on stage, doing rallies and fundraisers, the spotlight is upon you, you’re out of your traditional world, people are exposed to you, they become aware of you, which is the highest hurdle in today’s world, if you deliver you’ll crawl further up the food chain.

Maybe Sanders won’t make it. Timing is everything. Maybe the transition to online marketing controlled by the hoi polloi is not complete.

But it’ll be here soon.

And there’s no way to measure it, no way to penetrate it, until there’s a vote. And that’s when people are surprised, the traditional media foremost, who couldn’t see Trump coming.

Every action has a reaction.

Trump was built by television.

Bernie Sanders was built by the internet.

If you’re watching Fox or MSNBC to take the country’s temperature the laugh is on you. Those are just glorified talk shows, they do no reporting. The information is online, it’s spread online, you receive it online.

And right now an army of youngsters has gotten the Bernie memo. Which is why his numbers keep going up and up.

It’s crunch time.

Which side are you on?

“100 Gecs’ Musical Scrapyard”

“Killer Mike: I’m With The Revolutionary”

“Here’s the Candidate Your Favorite Celeb Is Supporting Ahead of Iowa Caucuses”

“Bernie Sanders’ real obstacle is not Trump. It’s the Democratic establishment: The fact that Sanders can succeed without the party machine enrages those who sacrificed their idealism to play the game”

And you wonder why Bernie Sanders is rising in the polls.

Now let me get this straight, up is down. If I’m doing it in pursuit of the general happiness, it’s all right, I can skate. Does this mean if I’m doing it for my team, my corporation, my household, it’s cool too?

Now law school teaches you that everybody is entitled to a defense. And the attorney must be an advocate for the defendant. But by claiming a President can do whatever he wants if he believes it benefits the country, because he believes he’s the best person to be in charge and no action he partakes is illegal, Alan Dershowitz not only tarnished his reputation, but that of Donald Trump too, as if it could get any lower.

Check the late night shows, check the media, they’re laughing hysterically, making fun of this defense. Did it behoove Trump’s case? Of course not, just the opposite!

Welcome to 2020, where money rules and if you don’t have it you don’t matter. That’s another reason Bernie is surging, he’s not taking usual suspect money, from the banks, from the corporations, and when he’s attacked, his donations go up! You see Bernie Sanders is our last best hope.

Oh, I know, you’ve triangulated, you’re an expert in the field, so you know better.

Then how come your business was disrupted by the internet, how come you didn’t see Trump’s election coming?

So, you can cheat and get away with it.

Bill Clinton.

Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Lori Loughlin.

The Houston Astros.

Furthermore, you lie in court. The oath? It means nothing! What kind of bizarre world do we live in where the flag gets more respect than the duty to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I get it, I get it. You’re a Trumper. You want takers to be cut off and you want manufacturing to come back to America and you’re no different from the cheaters above, if it’s good for the team, you’re all for it.

Where’s morality?

Which, ironically, is what the Trumpers and the Christian Right keep telling the lefties they lack!

So Bernie Sanders is our only hope.

It’s funny. The mainstream media is freaking out. They’re talking about “Bernie Bros,” uncontrollable acolytes who will say and do anything in defense of their candidate. Remind you of someone? A TRUMP FAN!

But passion is irrelevant to those in charge.

So the other night, Michelle Goldberg wrote that it can’t be Bernie, after Ezra Klein posited that Democrats must appeal to centrists, but not Republicans.

Both of these opinion pieces were in the “New York Times.”

And Krugman and Brooks have weighed in too. AND THEY’VE BEEN EXCORIATED!

I never read the comments. Then David Krebs told me he did and now I check them out.

So, just after Goldberg’s screed posted, there were already 304 comments, nearly all supporting Bernie.

And by the next day, when comments were in four digits, we had the usual three columns: the endless scroll of comments, and those picked by readers and those picked by the “Times” itself. The readers picked pro-Bernie comments, overwhelmingly. But the “Times”? It picked a ton of anti-Bernie screeds.

Everybody is protecting what they’ve got. The media has cozied up to the power brokers, the rich, the CEOs, a cabal not including you, and they don’t want that investment threatened.

And those with any cash? They’re afraid they’re gonna lose some. Their health care is gonna go away. Once again, these are the same people who were disrupted by twentysomethings online, don’t they realize change is inevitable, that you can’t hold back the tide and you’re best off swimming with it?

So Biden is so full of b.s. he can’t even get it out.

Buttigieg moved to the center because he was getting no traction on the left.

Warren was gung-ho, the leader, until she succumbed to the blowback and compromised. To live outside the law you must be honest. And she wasn’t.

But Bernie has been…FOR DECADES!

Who you gonna believe in?

Not musicians.

Let’s see, I’m gonna listen to Billie Eilish who was home-schooled, lives in a bubble and has finally reached 18? She’s got no experience!

That canard about the youth leading, OK Boomer, the truth is the country is being led by said boomers and Gen-X’ers. And Millennials who are in their thirties. They’re experienced, they’ve seen the movie.

As for movies… Believe me, a superhero isn’t gonna fly down from the sky to save us, no way.

As for Elon Musk, the bears must bite him, because electric cars are a bad idea and if we can’t pollute we’re un-American.

Are you getting this nonsense?

It’s being fed to us each and every day. And people at home are scratching their heads.

But it’s worse than that. They feel powerless.

So, you’re number two in your class, and just before the valedictorian speaks you find out they cheated. Do you blow the whistle or let it slide?

That’s what the Republicans are doing with Bolton, they want us to let it slide.

As for executive privilege… In a world where there’s no privacy, one guy is above the law? And can I now refuse to show my receipts when audited by the IRS? Oh, that’s right, the odds are extremely low, because the IRS has been hobbled, the rich don’t like it.

We can’t see Trump’s tax returns because he’s being audited. But isn’t he President? Couldn’t he speed up the process?

OF COURSE NOT!

Because it’s all a lie.

And we’ve been lied to ad infinitum.

It’s not only the government, but the corporations. Climate change is a hoax, smoking is harmless, whatever puts cash in my coffers is cool.

I get it, I get it, you don’t want an election overruled. Let’s wait until November. Then why have an impeachment clause at all? What is it for?

Ever hear that you can lose by winning?

That’s what the Republicans are doing here, that’s why they got beaten in 2018. If you push it too far, there’s a cost.

But not according to the media establishment, insiders, they think they rule, that the game is forever.

And that game is not working for the hoi polloi, either the right or the left.

Of course it’s the economy, stupid. It’s not working for so many.

As for not believing Bolton, with firsthand knowledge, then who can we believe, nobody?

As for the word if you vote against McConnell, you’ll have your head on a pike, isn’t this what the sixties revolution was all about, a backlash to groupthink?

I thought in the good ole’ U.S.A. we lauded the rugged individual. NOT IN CONGRESS!

So, Bernie is gonna go all the way. And either you’re on his team or you’re not. This is the left’s chance to throw a spanner in the works.

Everything happens slowly in the social media age. You can’t get the word out.

Sanders laid the groundwork in 2016, and he’s reaping the rewards today.

It does not matter what naysayers say. You see voting is private, no one knew all those people were up for Trump.

As for nothing having changed under Trump…try getting an abortion, watch while your significant other gets deported.

But everyone believes if you say it it’s true. And if you say it enough, people will stop paying attention, they will be defeated.

So there’s one last chance to save our democracy. This is the Hail Mary.

It is not business as usual.

Not only the right can rise up.

But you’ve got to be angry, you’ve got to have passion, you’ve got to have a leader.

We’ve heard empty promises our whole lives. Meanwhile, our infrastructure falls apart, the rich cheat to get into college, but we’re supposed to accept it.

Same as it ever was.

But NO!

The Sanders tsunami is the story of 2020. Unforeseen, an unstoppable juggernaut. Sanders has the cash and the believers. You don’t fight today’s battles on TV, that’s so last century. Today it’s all about one to one, which cannot be measured by Nielsen.

If Trump is acquitted, it’s only going to light further fires under the Bernie banner.

Just you watch.